Beach Collecting – The goal is to have the most points by collecting the most valuable items that you find on the beach. Cards will have pictures of different treasures found on the beach like beach glass, different types of seashells, and beach garbage. You get negative points every time you find beach garbage, because of the extra effort of having to get rid of it. When you draw a card, it automatically goes into your collection. However, you may also choose from the face up cards (more rare), but you have to pay for it using coins. Coins are obtained by selling your treasures.
Extraterrestrial Expedition – In this game, players travel across the galaxy, stopping at various planets where they must leave with a souvenir. The planets could be fictional or nonfictional. Players must complete challenges when they arrive at the different planets, making it difficult to obtain souvenirs. Souvenirs are worth the most points but players can also obtain points by collecting stars throughout their journey.
Taste Trek – This is a collaborative game where players must work together to reclaim an evil creature’s sense of taste. Otherwise, they will be eaten because he won’t know how bad the players taste. Players must travel to different dimensions representing different elements of taste like sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. Players must complete challenges to collect each element of taste.
Plushie Collector – A game about collecting different plush stuffed animals. Every player has their own goal that they are working towards for their collection and they want to complete their collection before the other players. 2-3 goal cards are dealt to each player at the beginning of the game, players select one goal to work at for the entirety of the game, and the others are discarded. Plush must be purchased using resources that include stuffing and characteristic tokens that represent the personalities of the different plushies.
Crystal Collector – Plastic “Crystal”s are jumbled around in a box or bag, like you are panning for them. You randomly select 3 out of the pan to add to your collection. The goal of the game is to be the first person to complete 7 objectives or phases, which involve collecting certain amounts of crystals. The mechanics of this game are like Phase 10, where you can advance onto the next phase or objective when you complete it, but not all the other players will be able to move on.
Some other collecting games from previous weeks
Scavenger duck (thanks to Sara) – students are encouraged to collect 1 duck of every color across campus. Students bring the ducks to a centralized hub where they get a punch card of sorts that marks that they collected that color of duck. Ducks are collected so that cheating is eliminated. For completing this, the participants could get a stuffed animal duck (to give incentive to play and not just keep the cute ducks).
Art Collectors (Billionaires Purchasing Art) –
Art masterpiece cards (that don’t resemble other pieces of art to avoid copyright issues)
Below the painting on each card is the art description plaque that lists relevant details such as how much the art is worth, it’s period or movement (Renaissance, contemporary, etc.), the year/years the artwork was created, and maybe a little made up artist name for funsies
Players bid on pieces of art by laying face-down a combination of up to 3 Asset cards (cards that represent wealth but are just random objects that a rich person might own like Yacht or Personal Jet). Each Asset Card has a number of points that correlate to the value of the object (not the same as money). If all other players do not choose to bid (after the first player who is bidding has already laid down their bid), the bidder automatically claims the art masterpiece card and all of the Asset cards are discarded. If another player bids on the same art card, the player with the highest bid wins (the total number of points when adding all cards layed down). In the event of a tie, the auction closes, and that art card is discarded.
Collection objective cards are how a player scores points in the game. These will say something like “collect one artwork from the Baroque period) or “collect one artwork that has a value of $X”. Depending on how difficult the collection objective card is, points earned from completing collection objective cards will vary.
Like my Fixer Upper Idea, and the currently existing games DiXit and Bob Ross Art of Chill, players would have a token that represents them that moves along a spectrum of points, with whoever reaching the end of the spectrum winning.
Garden Sabotage! is a card game in which gardeners (aka the players) compete to have the best garden by collecting cards, planting plants, and sabotaging others with bugs.
Bug Collector
Bug Collector is a card game in which players compete to complete their bug collection first by collecting bugs that fit certain requirements for their collection.
This is a card game where players race to complete their bug specimen collection first. There are certain requirements to their bug collection like they must have one arachnid, one moth, etc. These requirements are player specific and are determined by randomly dealing requirement cards to players. When players collect an insect, they can play it by placing it on their own board. I’m open for suggestions about how player can possibly obtain these cards in a unique way to make it a little more interesting and challenging. I see this more as a “cozy” game, if that makes sense.
Was it fun? Yes, although it was a little stressful waiting for your turn. You had to strategize about what cards and tokens you wanted, but when they were taken by other players, it was not fun.
What were the player interactions? Because everyone had a strategy for how they were going to get 15 points to win, some players would be going after the same cards or the game gem tokens. Some players would not have the choice of all of the different types of gems when it got to their turn or the card that they wanted to buy was taken.
How long did it take to learn? This game wasn’t super hard to learn, but I still feel like I went through a good chunk of the game without fully understanding how to play. I didn’t realize until about halfway through the game that you could buy other cards with the cards you already bought.
Would you play it again? Yes I think I would. Although I don’t think I would choose over some of the other games we’ve played in this class.
Analyze the game using the 3 act structure. The first act would have been the first few rounds of play. I’m not sure if anyone really had a strategy at this point; they were just trying to get a grasp of the mechanics. The second act would have been once it started to really get competitive and it was important to you if someone stole the tokens or the card that you wanted. The third act would have been when a few of us were only a few points away from 15 points and a reserve of cards that would allow us to buy practically anything.
What are the collaborative and or competitive aspects of the game? This game was very competitive. Its goal was to be the first player to reach 15 points, so everyone was trying to find a way to beat everyone else to it. It was also competitive in the sense that players could reserve certain cards that they wanted to buy, so that the other players don’t have the opportunity to.
What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout? I believe that the game’s metaphor is about trying to become the wealthiest player, with lots of different gems. When you collected a certain amount of each gem, Nobles would even visit you. The standout mechanic for me is being able to use the cards that you buy with the gem tokens as a resource to buy more cards. You don’t lose these cards either.
Was it fun? Yes, it was. This game is super unique and I really like the mechanic of rolling the die from the pyramid to move the camels.
What were the player interactions? This game involved betting on what camels that you think would win the race. If you bet first, it reduces the amount of points that other players could potentially get from betting on that same color. Players could also place spectator cards on the track to influence how the camels move. For instance, if a camel moved on the space, it would either move forward or backward, hence influencing the outcomes of the race and player’s bets.
How long did it take to learn? I thought that this game was fairly simplistic to learn and it didn’t take us very long to get a hang of it.
Would you play it again? Yes, I would. I don’t typically play games like this, and it was different in a good way.
Analyze the game using the 3 act structure. The first act of the game involved the set up and the first leg of the race. At this point, we were beginning to learn what actions we could take on our turns and generally how the game worked. The second act of the game would involve the following legs of the race, except for the last one. This is when we started figuring out how to strategize. We started getting invested in which camel we thought was going to win. The third act of the game would have been the final leg of the race when the camels were nearing the finish line, at this point there were only a handful of camels that looked like they would potentially win and it became evident that the yellow camel would. When the yellow camel won, we counted up the final bets, received and counted our coins, and determined a winner.
What are the collaborative and or competitive aspects of the game? This was definitely a competitive game. Players want their camel to win and not everyone else’s camels. On each leg, you could see what each other player bet on (but not the bet for the entire race) and you could place spectator tiles accordingly. Everyone was competing for the most money at the end of the game.
What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout? The game’s metaphor is about betting on racing camels in Egypt. Besides the rolling of the dice from the pyramid that I already mentioned, another standout mechanic were the crazy camels that when their die was rolled, they moved counterclockwise and could potentially carry the other camels with them.
(some of the formatting got messed up from moving it from google docs!)
Game Objective
Compete to have the best garden by planting plants and sabotaging other players with bugs.
Contents
50 Garden Objective Cards
50 Plant Cards
25 Bug Cards
4 Garden Boards
Instructions
Setup
Every player selects a Garden Board.
Shuffle the Garden Objective Cards, Bug Cards, and Plant Cards to form three draw piles, face down.
Turn over the top 4 Plant Cards and place them in a face-up row next to the deck.
Turn over the top 2 Bug Cards and place them in a face-up row next to the deck.
Deal 3 Plant Cards, 1 Bug Card, and 1 Garden Objective Card to each player. Players may look at their cards, but should keep them a secret from the other players.
The player who owns the most house plants goes first. Play proceeds in a clockwise manner.
Gameplay
Points are earned by completing Garden Objective Cards, using Plant Cards. Players must plant all of the required plants on their Garden Board by laying Plant Cards on their board, face up. Some Garden Objective Cards are more difficult, and, therefore, are worth more points at the end of the game.
On Your Turn
Perform Actions
Players perform 3 Actions on their turn. Players may perform the same Actions multiple times, and they can be performed in any order. The 7 Actions include:
Draw a Plant Card
Plant a Plant in your Garden
Draw a Bug Card
Sabotage Another Player’s Garden
Play a Good Bug Card on your Garden
Sweep the Plant Cards
Use Pesticide
Draw a Garden Objective Card
Draw a Plant Card
Draw a Plant Card, either from the top of the deck or from the row of face-up cards. If you take a face-up card, replace the gap with a new card from the top of the deck. There is no limit to the number of cards a player can have in their hand.
Plant a Plant in your Garden
Place a Plant Card face-up on your Garden Board. Each Garden Board has two plots, Plot 1 and 2.
Draw a Bug Card
Draw a Bug Card, either from the top of the deck or from the row of face-up cards. If you take a face-up card, replace the gap with a new card from the top of the deck. There is no limit to the number of cards a player can have in their hand.
Sabotage Another Player’s Garden
Place a Bad Bug Card face-up on any other player’s Garden Board on one plot. The Bug immediately eats one Plant. The affected player discards this Plant Card. The Bug will continue to eat Plants in the player’s Garden until it is killed with Pesticide. A Bug takes 1 Plant at the beginning of the affected player’s turn until exterminated. Additionally, players cannot meet Garden Objectives when a Bad Bug is in their Garden. Only 1 Bad Bug, in addition to 1 Good Bug, can be placed on a plot at a time.
Play a Good Bug on your Garden
Place a Good Bug Card face-up on your Garden Board on one plot. A Garden Objective completed with a Good Bug Card applied to it will score additional points at the end of the game. Only 1 Good Bug, in addition to the 1 Bad Bug, can be placed on a plot at a time.
Sweep the Plant Cards
If you do not like the four face-up Plant Cards, you may sweep them away to get four new ones. Discard all four cards and replace them with the top four cards from the deck. You CANNOT sweep the Bug Cards.
Use Pesticide
To remove an unwanted Bad Bug from your Garden Board, you must use Pesticide. Remove the Bad Bug from your affected Garden Board Plot and place it in the discard pile.
Draw a Garden Objective Card
Draw a Garden Objective Card from the top of the deck OR exchange a Garden Objective Card by discarding a Garden Objective Card from your hand and drawing a new one from the top of the deck. NOTE: Players can only have 2 Garden Objective Cards in their hand at a time.
Completing Objectives
When you have met all of the requirements on a Garden Objective Card, you may lay this card face-up in front of you. Requirements are met when all of the Plant and Bug Cards shown on the Garden Objective Card are placed on one Garden Board plot. All of the Bug and Plant Cards on the plot that fulfill this requirement are discarded. You may complete Objective Cards anytime during your turn and it does NOT count as one of your standard Actions. It is possible to complete more than one Garden Objective Card during your turn.
If there is a Good Bug Card applied to the Garden Plot that completes the Objective, stack this card underneath your completed Garden Objective Card in front of you.
Garden Objectives CANNOT be completed with a Bad Bug on the Garden Plot. Bad Bugs MUST be killed with Pesticide first.
Types of Cards
There are three different types of cards throughout the game: Plant Cards, Bug Cards, and Garden Objective Cards. The following describes and provides examples of these cards.
Plant Cards
Plant Cards enable players to complete Garden Objective Cards, which are necessary to earn points and win the game.
Bug Cards
There are two types of Bug Cards: Good Bug Cards and Bad Bug Cards.
Good Bug Cards
Good Bug Cards are green and feature bugs that will benefit your Garden.
Only 1 Good Bug Card can be placed on a Garden Board Plot at a time.
At the end of the game, you receive 2 additional points for every Garden Objective Card completed with a Good Bug on it.
You CANNOT place a Good Bug Card on another player’s Garden Board.
Bad Bug Cards
Bad Bug Cards are red and feature bugs that will harm other player’s Gardens.
When a Bad Bug Card is placed, it immediately eats 1 Plant Card. That card is then discarded.
A Bad Bug eats 1 Plant at the beginning of the affected player’s turn until exterminated.
Only 1 Bad Bug Card can be placed on a Garden Board Plot at a time.
You CANNOT complete Garden Objectives with a Bad Bug on your plot. Bad Bug Cards MUST be killed using Pesticide before an Objective can be completed.
You CANNOT place a Bad Bug Card on your own Garden Board.
Garden Objective Cards
Garden Objective Cards are necessary to earn points and win the game. Garden Objective Cards are completed by obtaining and planting all of the required plants on the card.
Garden Boards
End of Game
The player who reaches 7 objective cards first triggers the final round. The remaining players get one last turn to try to complete objectives in order to earn points. The player with the most points tallied up from their completed objective cards wins.
Tally the points from only the COMPLETED objective cards
Add an extra 2 points for every Good Bug that you completed a Garden Objective with
My theme is BUGS. I did not see the idea formatting rule at first, so feel free to ignore the other stuff unless you want to see the idea elaborated on.
Sting! (not sold on the name) is a card game in which players compete to be the last one remaining by stinging and biting players with bugs.
In this card game, players use bugs to bite or sting other players. ___ # of stings and you die. Bites would have different effects than stings, so stings are more lethal. Think of this game as the Bang of bugs. Like Bang, I think that it would be fun to have a card that means certain death that gets passed around, like a black widow card. Some other cards could involve players developing allergic reactions that makes them less resistant to be able to take medicine to combat stings. Some roles or characters could include an entomologist, bug collector, exterminator, and a curious child. This would all have different advantages and effects, but unlike Bang, players don’t need to figure out each other’s roles and base their strategies upon that.
The Lamp is a board game in which moths (the players) compete to earn the most points by landing on spaces and collecting cards, being careful not to advance too far and touch the lamp.
In this game, players play as moths trying to get as close to the lamp as possible, without ever actually reaching it or they will be eliminated from the game. This board game has a board that is similar to your standard follow-the-path-to-the-end board game like Candyland, but you don’t actually want to reach the end. Players accumulate points based on the different spaces that they land on on the board and a winner is determined by whoever has the highest number of points at the end of the game (think Game of Life). Players choose themselves when they want to stop playing. For instance, if they feel like they don’t want to risk rolling the dice and potentially reaching the lamp, they can choose to end the game for themselves right there, but they won’t earn any more points. What makes it a little more challenging is that there is two dice—one normal 1-6 die and one with different actions on them. These different actions will indicate a number of things, some of which will force the players to move more or less than what is indicated on the number die. The player who gets the closest to the lamp without touching it will be awarded special bonus points at the end of the game.
Kitchen Antarchy is a card game in which chefs (the players) compete to earn the most points by cooking dishes and containmating other players’ dishes with bugs.
Kitchen Antarchy is a card game where players must try to cook dishes while trying to stop other players from cooking dishes by contaminating their ingredients with bugs. One of the components of this game are ingredient cards. Both sides of the card show the food ingredients. However one side is contaminated and the other is uncontaminated. To cook a dish, players must slowly add ingredients to a pot, only allowed to place 1 each turn. This gives the other players plenty of time to contaminate their dish. Depending on the specific dish being cooked, the dish can be completed despite an ingredient or two being contaminated, however those dishes are worth less points at the end of the game. The game ends when one player has cooked 7 dishes, but the winner is points-based.
Bug Collector is a card game in which players compete to complete their bug collection first by collecting bugs that fit certain requirements for their collection.
This is a card game where players race to complete their bug specimen collection first. There are certain requirements to their bug collection like they most have one arachnid, one moth, etc. These requirements are player specific and are determined by randomly dealing requirement cards to players. When players collect an insect, they can play it by placing it on their own board. I’m open for suggestions about how player can possibly obtain these cards in a unique way to make it a little more interesting and challenging. I see this more as a “cozy” game, if that makes sense.
The Game of Lice (pun on Game of Life) is a board game in which lice (the players) compete to reproduce the most by navigating through the life of a louse.
The Game of Lice involves playing as a louse, with your goal to be to reproduce as much as possible to terrorize the heads of unsuspecting humans. Playing off the Game of Life, the houses would be the heads of humans. You need a head before you can start reproducing. Also like the Game of Life, there would be so many “egg” squares where you get lice children. Whoever has the most lice at the end of the game wins. Some spaces and cards may set your lice population back such as a failed lice treatment.
Mothopoly is an economic board game in which players compete to have a monopoly on their collection of bugs] by collecting sets of bugs.
Obviously a play on Monopoly, instead of collecting properties, you would collect different bugs or moths. I’m not entirely sure what the other spaces like “Free Parking” or “Jail” would be called at the moment.
Invading Insects (repost w/ some elaboration) is a legacy board game in which the players collaborate to stop the invasive bug species from taking over by killing bugs in strange but effective ways. Some of these weird methods could include blasting them with music, spraying them with hairspray, using a hydraulic press, a Saw trap for bugs, etc.
Garden Sabotage! (repost) is a card game in which gardeners (aka the players) compete to have the best garden by planting plants and sabotaging others with bugs.
Was it fun? Yes, this game was fun. I enjoyed the mechanics of this game, it reminded me a little bit of Catan, which I haven’t played in YEARS. The bamboo pieces and the art was super cute too. I love these Japan themed games!!!
What were the player interactions? The player interactions were influenced by the actions that players made on their turns. For instance, if someone placed a certain color plot in a certain area, that may mess up other players’ cards for earning points for the layouts. Also if the players moved the panda to eat certain colors of bamboo, it would also mess up other players for completing certain objectives. Since this was an entirely new game for all of us, we also tried to help each other out a little bit, helping to guide each other’s moves for their turns.
How long did it take to learn? It didn’t take very long at all to learn. The mechanics aren’t super complicated, and they are similar to other games. Although we realized about halfway through the game that we had misunderstood a part of the directions and were technically playing incorrectly so learning the rules wasn’t totally smooth lol.
Would you play it again? Yes, I would play this game again, especially since now I know how to properly place the irrigation channels as the game intended.
Analyze the game using the 3 act structure: The first act would have been the initial rounds of the game where we were still learning the rules and mechanics. This would also include the building of the game board itself because tiles were only placed during people’s turns. The second act would have been when we had a better grasp on the game. This is when we started being able to complete some objective cards and figured out how we could maybe affect other players by placing certain tiles or eating certain colors of bamboo. The third act would have been around when Colin got 6 cards. We knew that once he completed the last card that the final round would begin and he would get special points for that. It was pretty evident that no one else was going to reach 7 cards before him, but we were still a little uncertain about who would actually win, although Colin was very likely to. We then counted all of the points on our objective cards and sure enough, Colin won.
What are the collaborative and or competitive aspects of the game? This was a competitive game. Players competed against each other to complete 7 objective cards and whoever collected all 7 triggered the final round of play where players had the chance to complete as many remaining objectives as possible. The winner was based on whoever had the most points according to their completed objective cards.
What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout? The game’s metaphor is a panda who is essentially taking over and eating a bunch of bamboo and a gardener is sort of trying to stop him. They included a comic to tell this story which was super cool!! One of the game’s mechanics that standout to me the most is having to roll a die to determine the weather conditions for your turn. Different weather conditions mean different things and all give you a different advantage for your turn.
House Hustle (originally Fixer Upper; name donated by Chat GPT) is a card game in which real estate investors (aka the players) compete to earn the most money by renovating and reselling houses.
OR ALTERNATIVELY: House Hustle (originally Fixer Upper; name donated by Chat GPT) is a card game in which real estate investors (aka the players) collaborate to renovate houses before they are condemned by using incredibly specific building materials and tools.
Afterlife Errands is an adventure(?) board game in which playerscollaborate to stop ghosts from overtaking the mortal world by completing the ghost’s strange and wacky errands.
SOS: Shipwrecked is a survival (?) board game in which a ragtag shipwrecked group of peoplecollaborate to be rescued from an island by completing specialized tasks unique to each player’s character and role. (Game idea inspired by Giligan’s Island)
Invading Insects is a legacy(?) board game in which the players collaborate to stop the invasive bug species from taking over by killing bugs in strange but effective ways.
Hectic Holidays is a party(?) game in which holiday-anticipating playerscollaborate to pull off successful holiday celebrations by completing various holiday-specific tasks like decorating and cooking food or else the holiday is RUINED.
Garden Sabotage! is a card game in which gardeners (aka the players)compete to have the best garden by planting plants and sabotaging others with bugs.
What was the competitive/collaborative nature of the game? Tokaido was a competitive game where players competed to score the most points. Players also wanted to be the first player to complete certain actions so that they could earn more points than the other players, such as completing a panorama. It was also competitive in the fact that the first player who reached an inn gets first pick on the cuisine that they can buy. Additionally, another layer of competitiveness is added due to the fact that some spaces get taken up by other players and players must skip that space to the next available space.
What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout? The game’s metaphor is a travel throughout Japan. You collect souvenirs, food, and pay visits to a temple. One of the standout mechanics of Tokaido is the fact that the person furthest away from the end has to go first every turn and that determines the order of the players. I have never played a game with a mechanic like this and I thought it was really interesting, but hard to get used to.
Bonus Questions:
Three Act Structure
The first act would have been the beginning of the journey up until the first inn. At this time, all of the spaces and the actions required on them were unfamiliar and were still figuring out the order of players (more so that the last player in line goes first). By then, most players understood what their character’s special ability was and how they could take advantage of the spaces to earn the most points by the end.
The second act would have been a majority of the “journey” that we took and all of the stops in between—visiting hot springs, making panoramas, collecting souvenirs, visiting the temple, etc—where, of course, players earned points.
The third and final act would have been when we approached the last inn and began to tally up all of the miscellaneous points and award the bonus points.
Was it fun? Yes, this game was really fun. I really enjoy these peaceful but competitive types of games.
What was the interaction with the other players? Some of the player interaction occurred when players moved their player to the space of their choice, limiting where the players behind them could move to. For instance, some players took up the spaces where you collected coins and that created problems for some of the other players. Additionally, the first player to reach an inn, had the first pick at the food they bought, limiting the options for the players to follow.
How long did it take to learn? The basic premise of the game didn’t take very long to learn but there were a few things that made the game experience harder to fully understand. It was definitely a learning curve having to have the player who was the furthest behind take the next turn instead of going in a set order. There were also a lot of different points that you had to keep track of that made it more difficult to leisurely play the game.
Would you play again? Yes, I would definitely play this game again. I will probably say this about every single game I play this semester.
Fixer Upper – To start the game, players are dealt one house card that is to be flipped and sold. Each house card has unique requirements to fix the house to be sold. Players are also dealt X number of cards that have either resources or the required item to be fixed on them. I think that the game could either be played where you collected resources to ultimately trade for the desired requirement card or you just obtain requirement cards through drawing cards or action cards. A die would determine the course of action of a player’s turn, with symbols that represent different moves that can be made on that turn (This feature is inspired by the Bob Ross Art of Chill Game). There may be some actions that players can take every turn, such as drawing or playing one card, in addition to the action rolled on the die. Action cards would spice up the game a little bit and throw out little twists that could include actions that are already on the die or swapping hands with another player. Players can work on up to 3 houses at once, but start off at 1 at the beginning of the game. Players are not allowed to have more than one house at once until their first house is completed and resold. A new house card can be drawn randomly from the house deck of cards if designated on the die or on an action card.
Whoever sells X number of houses first wins OR whoever reaches X amount of money profited first wins (think having a game piece that moves along a spectrum of numbers, increments of 10,000, similar to the points mechanism in DiXit and Bob Ross Art of Chill Game)
Art Collectors (Billionaires Purchasing Art) –
Art masterpiece cards (that don’t resemble other pieces of art to avoid copyright issues): Below the painting on each card is the art description plaque that lists relevant details such as how much the art is worth, it’s period or movement (Renaissance, contemporary, etc.), the year/years the artwork was created, and maybe a little made up artist name for funsies
Players bid on pieces of art by laying face-down a combination of up to 3 Asset cards (cards that represent wealth but are just random objects that a rich person might own like Yacht or Personal Jet). Each Asset Card has a number of points that correlate to the value of the object (not the same as money). If all other players do not choose to bid (after the first player who is bidding has already laid down their bid), the bidder automatically claims the art masterpiece card and all of the Asset cards are discarded. If another player bids on the same art card, the player with the highest bid wins (the total number of points when adding all cards layed down). In the event of a tie, the auction closes, and that art card is discarded.
Collection objective cards are how a player scores points in the game. These will say something like “collect one artwork from the Baroque period) or “collect one artwork that has a value of $X”. Depending on how difficult the collection objective card is, points earned from completing collection objective cards will vary.
Like my Fixer Upper Idea, and the currently existing games DiXit and Bob Ross Art of Chill, players would have a token that represents them that moves along a spectrum of points, with whoever reaching the end of the spectrum winning.
The End of the World Game – solution cards and catastrophic event cards. (I wrote this down the other day and I need to think more about how this would play)
Language Go Fish – same mechanics to go fish, but instead of grouping cards with the same number, you have to group cards with the same theme. This could be in a different language to help people learn a new language, or it could be in English with more difficult themes to decode (like NYT Games’ Connections). In the more difficult case, I think there would need to be a guide of sorts of possible group combinations, but I don’t know how that would work in actuality.
Bug/Plant Garden Game – You want to collect bug and plant cards to develop a healthy garden ecosystem. The bug and plant cards could potentially have different rarities that correspond to points. You would have to plant a plant card into your garden as a turn, but bugs would automatically enter your garden. Some bugs can have beneficial effects and others can infest your garden and mess everything up. I think it would be fun for there to be an opportunity where players can share plants with each other or even plant bugs in others gardens to mess them up. I see this game having action cards or an action die that makes players do certain things on each turn. The goal of the game could be determined by garden objective cards that make each objective unique each game, such as collecting this plant, this plant, and this bug.
Card/Word Game – Included is an (almost) standard deck of cards. However the name of the value of the card is spelled out on it to represent what letters can be used to create words. The value of the card is also equal to the points that can be obtained when using the letters. Formed words are written down and the points are tallied for that specific word and any unused letters from the card don’t get to be used and the card is discarded. I’m still working on the end goal/objective for this. (I think I just came up with an overcomplicated version of Scrabble by accident)
No One Wants to do the Dirty Dishes – Players must make food throughout the game using different food items, dishes, and utensils and their goal is to make the most food items (or get the highest score). The problem is that the dirty dish pile can get to be quite large. It acts as a discard pile when the food dishes are made but plates must inevitably be cleaned so that they can be used to make food again. The dirty dish pile penalizes players who wash the dishes and they can’t make food during that time but if the dishes aren’t done no one can get points and make food. There are consequences when the dishes aren’t done.
Matchmaker Card Game – Inspired by random match maker flash games on girly websites from my childhood and Tomodachi Life’s silly matchmaking. There are cards of different partners or characters and they all have different interests and characteristics. To be considered a match, interests must line up to another card meeting the condition card currently on the table. A condition card could say something like people interested in tennis and heavy metal can’t form a relationship at this time, but they must match with being cat lovers. The goal of the game is to be the first person with 7 matches made. This game would involve having a hand of character cards, drawing, and discarding like most other card games.
What Mechanics would you like to use for a game with a theme that revolves around being the size of a nanometer? I think a searching type of game, like Spot It would be interesting. Players would have to use super microscopes to search around for the little objects. Even better—it would be cool to have similar mechanics to Hasbro’s Pictureka, where you roll a die or draw a card to see what your finding things challenge is. For instance, some of the challenges are to be the first player to find a certain object or you have to bet against other players about how many of one particular object you can find in a given amount of time. Of course, this would be even more challenging working with microscopes.
Who are you making games for? Myself and other people who want to enjoy them. People who like to play the same types of games that I like to play. To me, as long as I am happy with the game I guess it doesn’t really matter to me who I am making the games for. However, I would love to make games for people who enjoy casual games that they can really get immersed in.
Who will be your play testers outside of class? My mom and my brother, my boyfriend, some media arts friends, my high school friends, and if I can convince them to play, my boyfriend’s roommates and friends. Overall, I want to try to get a variety of people to test out my game.
Question Set 2:
Can you think of a game you were able to play without referring to the rules? Most games I tend to thoroughly read the rules beforehand and refer to the rules probably more often than I really need to. Some games are definitely easier to pick up on than others, especially when the game board is intuitive and has mechanics familiar to other games. My family owns this school trivia game where you move along a game board answering random trivia questions from a pile of cards and if you get the question right, you move the number of spaces as the difficulty level you answer. Because this game is fairly simplistic and similar to the mechanics of a lot of other board games where you roll a die, complete an action of a card and advance, the first time I played it I didn’t really need to refer to the rules at all. The gameboard has a clearly defined start and end so that makes it even more intuitive.
How do you define what a game is? A game has to have rules, it doesn’t need physical objects but can definitely have them, and players have to make choices (whether simple or more complicated). The book says that “A game is an interactive mathematical system, made concrete, used to tell a story” (p. 43). This really just means that a game is a balance of mechanics and rules, pieces and graphics, and a theme. I agree with this definition of a game as well because every sort of game can fit into this, but they may all have different balances. Some games rely more heavily on themes than others and some are almost purely based on mechanics.
What features can make your games more intuitive? Because humans are built to see things in groups, color can make games more intuitive. Cards with the same color or design are seen as belonging together. Certain colors can also signify certain things, like red is bad and green is good. The book also suggests that form can make games more intuitive so you should be clear how something works by the way it is designed. For instance, in The Game of Life if you land on a space with 1 blue baby you get 1 baby boy or if you land on one with 2 pink babies you get 2 baby girls. Deliberately making choices about size and integration is also recommended by the book. The game board also can include reminders about what you are supposed to do when you reach a certain space, for instance, and you can include reference cards for playing, like in Bang. Overall, everything has to make sense from any angle that the players might look at it from and you have to think about what generalizations people make about certain things before they even begin to look at the rules.
Question Set 3:
What was your gateway game? What do you play to introduce others to gaming? The Settlers of Catan was probably my gateway game. It was definitely one of the first games that I played that differed in mechanics than those standard games that everyone has played, but it was still reasonably challenging and easy to learn. I feel like a lot of the games that I enjoy playing are fairly simplistic and largely popular both in terms of board games and video games, so it’s kind of difficult to think of a gateway game that I would play to introduce others to gaming. Like it was for me, I think Settlers of Catan could be a good one for a lot of people because it’s easy to understand but it’s definitely different than those Sorry!-Scrabble-Monopoly-Uno category games that the book mentions. Thinking of more of a party game that I think could be a gateway game for others is Your Worst Nightmare, where players have to rank 4 randomly drawn fear cards based on how scared they are of it and then guess how other players ranked those fears as well. I’ve introduced this game to quite a few people and I think it’s a good get-to-know-each-other type of game.
What features do gateway games share? Gateway games should be easy to learn, have a theme that can appeal to a massive audience, shouldn’t be too complex but still have a little more complexity, interactive with other players, have a luck factor, last between 45 to 90 minutes, be original, and should be replayable.
What are the 10 beautiful mechanics and what should you aim for with your own? The 10 beautiful mechanics are mechanics that are so good that really draw players into the game, and they are the standard for which you should aim to be above. They include Kingmaker’s noblesse oblige, BattleTech’s heat, Set’s set-making, Magic’s card tapping, Battle Cattle’s cow tipping rule, xXxenophile’s popping, Bohnanza’s hand order rule, Mississippi Queen’s paddlewheels, Time’s Up!’s communication breakdown, and Dominion’s constant shuffling.
How does luck and strategy factor into game play? Luck is something that is beyond your control and it can be good or bad. Strategy is “the act of making plans and decisions during the game, given limited information”. Luck can give anyone the opportunity to win or lose, but purely luck based isn’t always fun. Strategy makes players feel like they have some sort of control over the outcome of the game and it is all about making choices that you think will be beneficial to your situation. Making decisions is part of what makes games fun. However, both luck and strategy are important to gameplay.
Act 1 – This was when roles and characters were being assigned and Ames was still guiding us through the game. We were just starting to get familiar with what the different cards meant and how you could or couldn’t retaliate to them. The attacks on other players weren’t really that targeted yet; everyone was attacking everyone to really get a feel for the game still. The time spent in Act 1 of Bang was significantly longer than DiXit, but still wasn’t the biggest portion of the gameplay.
Act 2– This was when things started to heat up a little bit in the game. People were starting to figure out who may be who (besides the sheriff of course) and some people started to get close to death or even died. It still wasn’t entirely clear who had what role yet, and who may win the game. Especially since you can recover quickly with the beer cards, when someone got shot, it wasn’t necessarily an indicator that they would lose the game.
Act 3 – Act 3 began when most of the players were totally eliminated and it was clear that there was only one or 2 possibilities that the game would end. For our game, it was either the remaining outlaw would kill the sheriff or vice versa. The act 3 for Bang is pretty distinct since you know that the end of the game could happen at any minute, but I don’t think it will be clear most of the time who will win. I think that the time spent in this act could significantly vary. For us, it was fairly long, but that was based on luck and the cards that were drawn every turn.
Bonus:
Was it fun? Bang was really fun. I loved the player interaction that the game had and how everyone had a different role and character to assume. It sort of reminded me of the roles that were added to Among Us as well as party games I’ve played in middle school. I thought that the dynamite card was so much fun too, just the fact that you could get blown up at any point in time was fun.
What was the interaction with the other players? There was a lot of interaction with other players with this game. Any player could shoot the other players, if they were in range of course and the target player could either block that or they would lose a life. Players also had to try to secretly figure out who was in what role, trying to figure out who was on their side and who wasn’t. A lot of the cards directly force you to interact with other players, such as stealing one of their cards, shooting them, or dueling them.
How long did it take to learn? The basic rules of the game didn’t take very long to learn, especially because it is similar to other games that I have played that involve roles. The hardest thing to catch onto was what the different cards meant, but it wasn’t a big deal because of the rule book and the reference cards. There were a bunch of weird little quirks that were also hard to catch onto at first, with some cards granting special abilities that players would keep forgetting about.
Would you play again? I would definitely play this again and I think I might even buy myself a copy of the game because I enjoyed it that much. I think what makes it so replayable is the fact that you won’t have the same role or character everytime you play.
Act 1 – This was when we were first getting familiar with the game. It took a few turns to really understand what types of clues were the most beneficial to give and earn points, since the point system is set up kind of strangely. Once everyone had been the active player one time is when I think the game transitioned into act 2 because everyone started to know what they were doing and how to strategize.
Act 2 – This is when it sort of started to get a little competitive (as competitive as this game can even get). People were starting to think of really good clues for their cards and they were excited to get to their turn to share them. The majority of the gameplay was spent in this act.
Act 3 – This was when we started to realize who was going to win the game. Whoever was closest to the end of the points scale at the time, it was inevitable that they would win because most players earned points every round. It was very evident at this point that Reese and I were very behind and would not win (we were extremely far back).
Bonus
Was it fun? DiXit was fun. I thought it was a really unique game and I could see myself really getting into it with a funny group of friends.
What was the interaction with the other players? The interaction with the other players involved collecting their cards and all agreeing to select a card that best matched the action player’s clue.
How long did it take to learn? It didn’t take very long to learn at all. The directions were really clear and easy to understand.
Would you play again? I would play DiXit again. Like I said, it’s a pretty unique game as opposed to other games that I have played so I think it would be nice to play every once in a while, but I wouldn’t say that it’s a game that I would want to play all the time.
In your opinion what should every game have? Why do you like your favorite game?
Every game should be visually appealing. A game that is unpleasant to look at, especially video games, really decreases how I feel about the game as a whole. Unfortunately, when there are cute or beautiful graphics, I sometimes overlook the quality of the gameplay, because I’m primarily focused on the visual aspects. One of the reasons why I like my favorite game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, is because of the cute, high-quality graphics. It allows me to get even more immersed in the game, specifically trying to collect all of the cute designed furniture and clothing items. Aside from the graphics, the cozy and comforting feel of the game constantly brings me back.
List the games you’ve played and currently play.
Video games: Paper Mario Color Splash, Paper Mario Sticker Star, Paper Mario Origami King, Animal Crossing New Leaf, Animal Crossing New Horizons, Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, Mario Kart 8, Super Mario 3D World, Super Mario U, Overcooked (all), Nintendo Switch Sports, Inside, Jackbox, Paper Mario Thousand Year Door, Tomodachi Life, MiiTopia, Super Smash Bros, Super Mario Bros, Mario and Sonic: Winter Olympic Games, Sonic, Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort, Call of Duty, Fortnite, Minecraft, NYT Games (like Wordle), Among Us, Zelda: Link’s Awakening, My Sims Kingdom, Roblox, Pinball Hall of Fame, Just Dance (a bunch of versions), Wii Play, Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey, Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story, Fall Guys, What the Dub, etc.
Board/physical games: Game of Life (multiple editions), Monopoly, Animal Crossing Monopoly, Catopoly, Your Worst Nightmare, Bob Ross Art of Chill, Catan, UNO, Scrabble, Scategories, Dan and Phil’s Truth Bombs, Trouble, Sorry, Operation, Phase 10, Go for Broke, Unstable Unicorns, Hues and Clues, so many more
Can you apply the three act structure to your favorite game? What is it’s pacing and how long do you find yourself in each act?
One of my favorite games at the moment is Overcooked, and I think the three act structure can apply to it. At the very beginning of the game, you are immediately thrown into a cooking battle, against a very hungry meatball, the onion king explains that you have to work together to quench his hunger, thus setting the stage and being the first act. The second act is essentially the whole of the game, going from level to level cooking in various places, trying to get better at cooking cooperatively and cooking increasingly challenging dishes. The third act—the push for victory—is ultimately the last battle, approximately 16 minutes long, where players go against the hungry meatball once and for all. The second act is definitely the longest of all the three acts, where you spend the majority of your gameplay. The first act would be the shortest and includes the tutorial and beginner levels that are just introducing you to how to play the game, make simple meals, and do the dishes. The third act in itself isn’t very long in comparison to the second act, since a lot of time is spent trying to master the kitchens you come across vs. one end battle.
When coming up with ideas where do you find you start, with the metaphor or the mechanic?
I generally come up with the metaphor first when I generate ideas. I like to think about things that could give the project a purposeful meaning, and then I later hone in the mechanics to work with my metaphor. However, there have definitely been times where I came up with both.
Over the course of this semester, who would you like to collaborate with and why?
One of the people I would like to collaborate with this semester is Sara. Sara and I have worked together before, on a design project for the literary magazine, Rune. I think our ideas fed off of each other well, and we both have high expectations of our work. Since then, there have been numerous times where we have come to each other sharing random ideas for campus projects. I love how we both think of meaningful and interesting ideas.
I also wouldn’t mind trying to collaborate with just about anyone in the class. Since I am one of the few, if not the only, graphic design major in the class, I would be interested to see how my graphic design skills could uniquely contribute to that of a UX/UI major.
Was it fun? It was fun, but definitely not my favorite first game experience. I think I would have to play the game a little bit longer to fully develop an opinion on it.
What was the interaction with the other players? This game had a lot of interaction with the other players. Some action and rule cards made you directly interact with the other players, for instance, taking one of everyone’s card from their hand, swapping hands with another player, stealing or trading a player’s keeper card, etc. A lot of the interaction came on the part that every player’s turn would ultimately influence the actions of the rest of the players since players can constantly play a new rule or goal card on their turn. This would alter the next person’s actions who would have to adhere to a new goal or rule card.
How long did it take to learn? Initially, the game didn’t take very long to learn because it employs simple game mechanics that a lot of other card games use such as drawing and playing cards each turn. However, it became increasingly difficult to understand what was going on because the rules would constantly change.
Would you play again? I would. I feel like I need to play it again to really decide how I feel about it. I also would like to maybe play with a group of people who aren’t already coming into the game hating it.
Giant board game? – you get like a “game map” and you must travel to different locations, or buildings, like Wheatley, and answer trivia questions to collect an item. Every location has a unique item up for grabs and the first team of students to collect all of the items and return to “home base” wins.
Sort of murder mystery like Clue – Inspired by a game a club that I was in hosted in high school, you travel to different areas across campus, collecting clues that give you details about who the “murderer” is, in this case a staff member” that eventually lead you to that person. For instance some of the clues could involve what building they work in, what major, what extracurricular activities they help out in, their hobbies, etc. When students reach the “murderer” they receive free RMU swag or other goodies
Scavenger duck (thanks to Sara) – students are encouraged to collect 1 duck of every color across campus. Students bring the ducks to a centralized hub where they get a punch card of sorts that marks that they collected that color of duck. Ducks are collected so that cheating is eliminated. For completing this, the participants could get a stuffed animal duck (to give incentive to play and not just keep the cute ducks).
Battle of the departments – A canned food drive that is a competition between the different departments at RMU. The food would be donated to a local food bank (or taken to our very own one on campus) at the end of the competition. The winning department gets donuts or lunch.
Game to conserve the most energy on campus – Chatham University did a game like this a few years back, promoting sustainability and energy conservation. It was a competition between floors in a dorm building to see who could conserve the most energy per floor. Because of the way the buildings were set up, they could go in and see per floor how much energy was being consumed. There was also some incentive like a prize for the floor to win. I also believe they had social media accounts or an online tracker set up so that the floors could see their progress and communicate with other floors. One issue with this was that some students, especially those who didn’t like their CA, would try to sabotage the results of other floors, constantly turning on lights. One benefit of this was that the school was able to recognize that students weren’t using their ovens (I believe) enough and they were removed from the dorms. This also helps eliminate unnecessary energy consumption and makes students realize the difference turning off and unplugging certain things can make.
For RMU to employ this, I think that it would need to be a competition between the different residence buildings and not particular floors. I think that would help to eliminate people sabotaging other floors in the same building. This would also have to have a time limit; for instance, 1 week (A good week would maybe be the week of Earth Day??). Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about how to measure energy consumption to say for certain how the results would be tracked, especially in RMU’s system. There would, however, need to be a really good prize to encourage students to actually participate.
