- I love a puzzle game and like high stakes competition games so this was something I really enjoyed, the learning curve compared to the time given seems difficult to overcome. Especially for people who have never used VR and have to get used to the mechanics, and it seems like having time to familiarize yourself with the different modules and puzzles would help immensely for this game.
- You are trying to keep yourself from exploding, so there is a countdown timer which is a fairly effective motivator for the right people, and there are also additional markers, like flashing red lights in the room, or strikes being counted on the bomb itself.
- I don’t know if it’s necessarily meant to be persuasive towards anything in particular. It feels more like an instructional, collaborative, team-building kind of game rather than persuasive. A game meant to test how you perform under pressure and take directions from others.
- To keep calm under pressure, and maybe make you more of aware of how you interact with others in a team setting, or how you react when taking directions from someone else. I haven’t really done a lot of VR gaming so a lot of the mechanics kind of stood out for me. It was a learning curve to figure out how to interact with the graphics themselves and then the objects inside the game, learning how to pick the bomb up and move it around, and then how to interact with the different modules.
- I was excited about the gameplay because I like games like that and puzzles, I wasn’t like tense or as stressed about the time limit as maybe the designers would want you to be, but I definitely still felt a sense of wanting to get the challenge done in time. I think I actually felt the most empathy for the people who had to give the instructions that seemed like the most stressful job.
- It doesn’t feel much like an activist game to me.
- Try not to blow up.
Be quick. Time is running out.
5,4,3,2,1.
5 game simulation ideas.
-Some sort of restaurant industry simulation, where you get to experience either being in the kitchen or a server, and get to deal with timed pressure scenarios, chaotic and dangerous surroundings, maybe intense authority figures, and a range of customers experiences that simulate real-life scenarios.
-A media literacy simulation where you are in charge of running a social media page, or like entertainment/news site. You are given options for things to post that could be light-hearted, humorous, feel good, real news, fake news, propaganda, or ads. So you can choose a specific vibe to curate on your site, or you could branch out and post a variety of things. But every time you post you get feedback, ratings, and an influence score from “viewers”. So it would track engagement, fact checks, and your growth.
-A game that highlights sensory issues with neurodivergence Players complete simple tasks but some players receive overwhelming instructions, some get conflicting rule, some can’t speak, or some must follow very rigid constraints. There could also be obstacles like amplified ambient sounds and noise, lights flicker, or NPC speech overlaps.
– A game that highlights how people of different genders, races, disabilities experience public spaces. Switch between perspectives within a populated city area during the day or maybe navigating city streets at night.
– A simulation that portrays either how certain people with privilege or influence can affect things. Or maybe its about the power of speaking out but when words are spoken certain avatars experience their words. Words expand into architecture, building bridges and pathways to move you forward and for other avatars words dissolve mid-air, echo but don’t land, build things much slower, or unstable architecture, make certain obstacles appear. - Fragment into static.
Week 6 Simulation – Discussion Response
Thoughts on Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
Playing Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes in class was a really interesting example of simulation through communication and cognitive task management. Since I played as the person with the bomb manual rather than the person in VR, the experience focused heavily on interpretation, translation of instructions, and clear communication under pressure.
What stood out most is how the game simulates real-world high-stress teamwork. The person with the manual has access to the information needed to solve the problem, but cannot see the bomb itself. Meanwhile, the VR player can see the bomb but does not understand how to solve it. The challenge becomes less about technical skill and more about how effectively players can communicate complex information quickly and accurately. Based on the complexity alone, I knew Mason was not winning.
This is similar to real-world professions where people must coordinate under pressure, such as emergency response, aviation, or medical teams. The game forces players to develop shared language and strategies quickly. Miscommunication becomes the biggest threat, which highlights how important clear instructions and teamwork are in high-stakes environments.
The game also reflects ideas discussed in Cognitive Task Analysis because players must break down complicated tasks into smaller steps and communicate those steps clearly. Even though it feels like a party game, it actually models real cognitive processes involved in teamwork, problem-solving, and stress management.
Five Simulation Game Ideas
1. Astrology Systems Simulation ; Cosmic Blueprint
Players generate a birth chart (roll dice to generate) that determines personality traits, emotional tendencies, and life timing cycles.
Planetary alignments influence how characters react to events like career opportunities, relationships, or stress. For example:
- Strong Mars placements make bold decisions easier but increase conflict.
- Heavy Saturn placements create early obstacles but stronger long-term rewards.
Players navigate life events while learning how their astrological placements shape different outcomes.
Simulation focus: identity systems and symbolic frameworks.
2. Cozy Living Simulation ; Slow Days
Inspired by IdleLife and Paralives, this simulation focuses on slow living and cozy daily routines rather than productivity or wealth.
Players manage a small life centered around comfort, creativity, and balance. Instead of chasing success metrics, the goal is maintaining a peaceful lifestyle.
Players spend time doing activities like:
- Gardening
- Cooking simple meals
- Decorating their home
- Reading, journaling, or crafting
- Spending time with friends or neighbors
Time moves slowly and seasons change. Overworking, social burnout, or ignoring rest will disrupt the cozy balance.
Simulation focus: emotional wellbeing, rest culture, and slow living.
3. Off-Grid Living Simulation ; Cabin in the Woods
Players move to a remote cabin and attempt to live sustainably without modern infrastructure.
Players must learn to manage:
- Water collection and purification
- Growing food and preserving harvests
- Wood chopping and fire maintenance
- Solar energy management
- Weather and seasonal survival
Unexpected events like storms, wildlife encounters, or crop failures require adaptation.
The game emphasizes patience, resilience, and learning practical skills rather than constant progression.
Simulation focus: self-sufficiency and sustainable living.
4. Memory Preservation Simulation ; Archive of the Ordinary
Players act as archivists trying to preserve everyday human memories before they disappear.
Instead of famous events, the memories are small personal moments:
- A voicemail from a loved one
- A handwritten recipe
- A childhood playground
- A favorite diner booth
Players choose which memories to record and preserve before they fade away.
If too many memories disappear, entire parts of the world slowly vanish.
Simulation focus: cultural memory and the importance of ordinary moments.
5. Algorithm Life Simulation ; The Feed
Players live in a world controlled by invisible recommendation algorithms.
Every choice—videos watched, articles read, posts liked—changes what information appears next.
Over time, the algorithm begins narrowing the player’s worldview. News, friends, and opportunities become filtered through the system’s predictions.
Players must deliberately break their patterns to escape the algorithm’s control.
Simulation focus: digital culture and algorithmic influence on identity and belief.
Andrew H week 6 Questions
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes: Game Reflection
- What made the experience fun or not?
The game is fun because it is very intense and chaotic in a good way. Everyone has to talk fast, listen carefully, and stay calm while the timer counts down. It can also be frustrating when people panic or misunderstand each other, but that stress is part of what makes the game exciting and memorable.
- What is the motivating factor to get or keep players playing?
The main motivation is teamwork and pressure. Players want to improve their communication.
- Is the game persuasive, and what is it trying to get you to do outside of the game?
Yes, the game is persuasive because it shows how important clear communication and trust are. Outside of the game, it encourages players to listen better, explain things clearly, and stay calm under pressure.
- What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics stand out?
The bomb is a metaphor for high-stress situations where mistakes have serious consequences. The standout mechanic is that only one player can see the bomb while the others can only see the manual.
- How does the gameplay make you feel? Who does the game make you feel empathy for?
The gameplay makes you feel anxious, rushed, and sometimes overwhelmed. The game makes you feel empathy for the bomb defuser because they are under constant pressure and depend entirely on others for help.
- Is the game an activist game? If so, what does the game play advocate for?
The game is not an activist game in a political sense, but it does advocate for cooperation and communication. It promotes teamwork, patience, and shared responsibility. It shows that success comes from collaboration rather than individual control.
- Describe the game in a haiku
Wires, beeps, ticking clock
Voices overlap in panic
Trust defuses fear
Week 6 Mason Tosadori
- What made the experience fun or not? KEEP TALKING AND NO ONE EXPLODES
The experience was fun whenever you actually completed a part of the puzzle, but other than that it can be a little frustrating. Since I was the one in the goggles and not giving the instructions, I felt annoyed by waiting to be told what to do, and especcially annoyed when the information they give me is wrong. It seems really simple to me cause I just listen to the instructions, I don’t have to think.
- What is the motivating factor to get or keep players playing?
The motivating factor is to try and succeed to defuse the bomb within the time limit. The players want to keep trying after failing. The instructions become more clear with the more practice you get with the game, which makes you feel like your getting closer to winning with every attempt.
- Is the game persuasive, and what is it trying to get you to do outside of the game?
I don’t think the game is trying to be persuasive, it seems more like a rage game or party game where its supposed to induce chaos and frustration. Maybe it’s trying to get people better at listening as well as better at giving instructions.
- What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout?
The games metaphor has to do with working with a partner. Maybe it means that working with others can be difficult, but sometimes its needed. The mechanic that standsout is the fact that you need to have someone else to play. The game is multiplayer but not in the typical sense where you share a screen and play together, this game has someone playing the game, and someone reading the book.
- How does the gameplay make you feel? Who does the game make you feel empathy for?
The gameplay can make everyone feel frustarated. The player gets upset because they arent getting the right directions, and the book reader gets upset because they have a book with difficult instructions that are hard to understand, especially since you can’t see the bomb. The game makes empathy for people who work understress and people who have issues with communication.
- Is the game an activist game? If so what does the game play advocate for?
I don’t think it is. If anything maybe its for having people understand the stress that bomb squads go through, but I think that’s a stretch.
- Describe the game in 3 sentences or in the form of a haiku
you have 5 minutes, work with your teammate or else, you will blow up too
5 simulation idea
- A game where you take a test in class but you have to cheat to try and pass
- A game where you are an emergency responder and have to dispatch help
- A farming simulator where you have to go around and feed livestock and take care of plants
- an inventory managment game where you have to look at patterns and keep your store stocked, (supply and demand)
- A firewatch game where you sit in a tower and have to make radio calls and prevent fires/put them out
Game Design 2 Week 6 Simulation
Aleah Dudek
Keep Talking No one explodes
- What made the experience fun or not? The game is fun because it forces intense communication under pressure. It can become frustrating if communication breaks down or if players don’t listen carefully.
- What is the motivating factor to get or keep players playing? The challenge of increasingly complex bomb modules. The communication can become very difficult if the other player isn’t good at directions.
- Is the game persuasive, and what is it trying to get you to do outside of the game? Yes, it persuades players to value clear communication, patience, and collaboration. In the real world it can help players inhabit listening skills, strategy, and staying calm under stress.
- What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout? High stakes problem solving depends on communication, not individual intelligence. Bouncing back and fourth between the players and how easily one explains what they see and how well the other follows direction.
- How does the gameplay make you feel? Who does the game make you feel empathy for? It makes me stressed , but also watching other people play is kind of humorous as you sort of watch them struggle in the game. It makes you feel empathy for the one trying to describe the situation since they can’t directly see what’s going on.
- Is the game an activist game? If so what does the game play advocate for? I don’t think its necessarily and activist game, but I think it can sort of advocate foe collaboration under stress, and how to learn ti work in those situations.
- Describe the game in 3 sentences or in the form of a haiku. Ticking wires and fear
Voices clash, pages turning ,
Trust defuses time.
Game Maker’s Play Test Notes: Bad Advice
- What questions did your players have?
The players had questions regarding how to determine the winner. - How quickly did they learn to play?
I would say it took the players about 10 minutes to learn, even though the directions were quite confusing. - What kinds of interactions did the players have?
The players interacted with the judge each round when deciding who had the best advice card and reality check card. - What confused players?
The confusion stemmed from the game’s objective, as the notes indicate the need to “Fix the rules” and clarify that the objective is to be the best therapist to gain points, while “winning bad therapist is losing points.” - What made players excited?
What made players most excited was getting to sift through each different type of prompt that they could choose from. - What did your players enjoy doing?
The players enjoyed selecting funny advice cards. - Did any aspect of the game frustrate players?
The biggest frustrating aspect was understanding the rules, which I was working on defining. The point of confusion about the rules and winning conditions. - What did your players learn /take away from your game? Was that what you intended?
Players learned good coping skills and elements to make it through life. - What is your plan to address player questions, confusion, and frustration?
The plan includes to “Fix the rules,” clarify the objective as being the best therapist to gain points, and to clarify that winning “bad therapist” is losing points. The game will be structured to have one round of bad advice and one round of good advice, using sets of good and bad advice cards. Mechanical changes include having players “play two cards every turn,” setting the “hand limit go down to three cards,” and possibly replenishing cards when a player is down to one. The round itself will change to first picking the best advice and then redoing the round with a “reality check” card to leave room for open discussion. - If your players didn’t get your intended message, what will you change?
The change plan involves new scoring and mechanical considerations: the objective is to be the best therapist to gain points, with the advice card winning three points, the reality check card winning five points, and all points being added up at the end of the game to see who wins. Other changes include keeping the “prompt card” if a player wins the reality check round, and keeping the “bad advice card in a separate pile to keep track of.” For inspiration, the designer plans to look at the game Gloom and look up the game Wavelength.
Game Reflections
Merideth’s Game:
- What made the experience fun or not?
- The experience was made fun by being in last place.
- What is the motivating factor to get or keep players playing?
- The motivating factor to get or keep players playing is the ability to destroy planets.
- Is the game persuasive, and what is it trying to get you to do outside of the game?
- Yes, the game is persuasive because it is trying to get you to take a look at the way we treat our earth outside of the game.
- What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout?
- The game’s metaphor is to treat our environment with respect, and specifically to preserve the planet.
- The standout mechanic is the idea of being able to destroy planets.
- How does the gameplay make you feel? Who does the game make you feel empathy for?
- The gameplay makes the player feel excited to jump into the game, and it makes the player feel empathy for our planet.
- Is the game an activist game? If so , what does the game play advocate for?
- Yes, the game is an activist game, and the gameplay advocates for reflection.
- Describe the game in 3 words.
- The game is described as “Creative black holes.”
Cards and meaples were confusing. I like the mechanics. The planet cards were interesting to use in order to gain things in elements. Black holes were nice to touch to create an incentive to destroy planets to gain resources.
Andrews Game:
- What was the most frustrating moment or aspect of what you just played?
- The most frustrating moment was when the player was trying to move forward but could only move back, which required them to move back off the board or else they could not move anymore.
- Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn’t?
- The player wanted to be able to move forward more.
- If you had a magic wand to wave and you could change, add, or remove anything from the experience, what would it be, what should improve the next version?
- The player would add another die to see if there was anything more they could do with the turn to keep the game moving, but noted that you have to land on white.
- The player also had a question about what happens when you go too far left and whether their perspective or direction would change.
- What was the game’s narrative/themes/message?
- To be honest, the player did not really gather a theme or a message at all.
- How did the game make you feel?
- The game honestly made the player feel bored and dragged on.
- Describe the game in three words.
- The game is described in three words as “potential to grow.”
Game Deign 2: Play tests (2.19)
Prototype Response – Week 5
Bad Advice – Christine’s game
What made the experience fun or not? The content was intriguing – I like games with objective responses to fun prompts
What is the motivating factor to get or keep players playing? to see what the new prompts would say and new advice cards would match up to the prompts
what was frustrating about game? Just the rules not being fully developed so we had to assume the rules and make them up as we go
Is the game persuasive, and what is it trying to get you to do outside of the game? I wouldn’t say it’s persuasive per say but it makes you think about hard challenges in people’s lives and how to deal with them better or how not to deal with them
What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout? The metaphor is dealing with people’s mental and situational problems – the mechanic of being rewarded for bad advice and then giving good advice to counter it is intriguing
How does the gameplay make you feel? Who does the game make you feel empathy for? There was a lot of the gameplay that we assumed from similar games since the rules weren’t written super clearly so when it is written well it’ll be a smooth gameplay – it let me have fun but also makes me think of real-world situations and how I’d actually deal with them, it makes you feel empathy for the person going through these things
Is the game an activist game? If so what does the game play advocate for? I’d say yes it is an activist game, it’s advocating for people who are struggling with mental health issues or just going through difficult times – it’s helping people know what to do and not to do
Describe the game in 3 sentences or in the form of a haiku
advice, good or bad
help people who struggle
others will determine
Star Sailor – Meredith’s game
- What made the experience fun or not? it’s succinct and makes sense – a cute idea that is not overly complicated
- What is the motivating factor to get or keep players playing? trying to get to the end to win
- Is the game persuasive, and what is it trying to get you to do outside of the game? If it is persuasive, it is very subtle – i think the metaphor is ethical consumption of resources vs. destroying nature to what extent to survey but it’s space themed so it’s a little abstract
- What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout? ethical consumption of resources vs. destroying nature to what extent to survey but it’s space themed, the mechanic of blowing up planets for resources is intriguing from the metaphors standpoint
- How does the gameplay make you feel? Who does the game make you feel empathy for? It was intriguing, it made me want to know what blowing up a planet would do, it didn’t really make me feel empathy just wanting to find out how fast I could run out of resources without blowing up planets
- Is the game an activist game? If so what does the game play advocate for? Slightly – I think it was intended to be an activist game about resource management and ethics of destroying the environment to advance
- Describe the game in 3 sentences or in the form of a haiku.
Spaceships through space
Fuel is gone planets are gone
Trading fuel for food
Game Design 2 Week 5 Game Reviews
Aleah Dudek
Week 5 Play test Questions
Week 5 Game testing MASON TOSADORI
Playtest notes
Limitations
What was the most frustrating aspect of the game? Honestly none, I thought the game was really fun and that theres a lot of room to move forward.
Was there anything I wanted to do but couldnt? No
What would I change or add? Honestly I feel like obstacles or something like that could be interesting.
What was the games message? To show the way different generations interact and be active.
How did the game make you feel? Honestly made me very happy. I thought the game was very fun and would play it again.
Describe the game in 3 words. Active,Fun, Educational
Playtest Notes
Andrews Game
What was the most frustrating moment or aspect of the game? The most frustrating aspect is that the game goes very slow. Its pretty much that you play for 10 minutes and nobody makes any progress.
Was there anything I wanted to do but couldnt? At some points I wanted to cheat and move my piece forward.
What would I change? I would add in spaces on the board that benefit each color in a different way to get to the center faster. I would also maybe consider using two different die. One for the direction and the other for the amount you move.
What is the games message? Not 100% sure because the game does not have a name.
How did it make me feel? Bored and frustrated
Describe the game in three words? Slow, directional, Colorful