Category: Game Design Studio 1

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Personal Card Game Review

Collegiate Card Game

My first trial of my prototyped Collegiate Card Game was definitely helpful but proved that I do not wish to move further in elaborating and fixing the game itself. My initial idea behind the game was to showcase the different characteristics of college students and the different opportunities allotted to each based on financial needs, social etc. When it came time to make the rule set I found myself focusing in on only specific elements in hopes to simplify the game initially so that I could elaborate on it after making tweaks at each stage. The end product of my rule set and prototype focused solely on the characters and gaining points towards their “needs” (each character has a different set of points needed for categories such as financial, love, social, and knowledge). You gain these points to fulfill needs by giving up time (each player has a time chips that they can trade to complete an activity which in turn gives them points). While I liked this aspect of incorporating time management I realized through playing that there wasn’t conflict at all which meant  no interaction among players. Conflict is one of the most important components in order to make a game exciting between players and for yourself. Since my game lacked this, it turned into a simple self-fulfillment game where each player simple turned cards and moved on in the game with no important decisions or involvment from the other players. An idea offered by Maddie Ferucci suggested that I could incorporate conflict by making it mandatory to choose how you spend time. For example you have to choose between one thing or another so your needs board is constantly fluctuating. There was also a suggestion to incorporate a dice to add an element of luck to the game rather than giving all the power to the cards you draw. Other factors which need to be considered more is how much time players start off with and if they should be allowed to freely gain time per turn or if they have to manage a set amount established at the beginning of the game. I also need to consider more the amount of cards drawn and discarded as this needs to have more of a purpose than just a simple choice of which card to use and discard- an aspect of punishment would definitely also change this up.
After this first trial of playing I came to the conclusion that I do not want to pursue this game idea further. While it is possible I have found that there wasn’t any interest in any aspect of the game and it resembled the game of life but in a much more boring format. While I liked the initial concept, I realized only the concept has potential. In order to make the game more interactive and enjoyable a lot of different routes would have to be checked out and experimented with and I would prefer to turn my focus to a game with more creativity and imagination.
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Bang! & Prototyping Review

Over the years, I have played many role-deduction games, such as Mafia, Werewolf, Secret Hitler, and Don’t Mess with Cthulu.  I appreciated how Bang! took this classic game format, and added extra mechanics.  In all of the other games I’ve played, death is immediate; there is never a health bar.  In many of these games, only certain roles can kill others, whereas in Bang!, everyone can kill.

If I had to place the acts, the second act would start the moment the sheriff shoots at somebody, and the third act begins the moment people begin to die or shoot the sheriff.  Given that this game could easily be re-skinned, I am guessing that the mechanics were developed before the theme.

I also had the opportunity to prototype Robert’s Love Triangle today.  The rules were solid and the theme was fun and well-executed.  However, the game became a repetitive grind after a few playthroughs.  This could probably be fixed by adding more variety to the cards or giving the player’s new actions.

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Sushi Go Review

Game Review

Sushi Go
Sushi Go is a fast paced game that is easy to catch onto. Due to the overall speed of the game, winning is a mix of luck with only a little bit of strategy. You begin the game with a set amount of cards in your hand. You play a card face down and once the other players are ready you reveal what each player chose. The next step is what keeps the game interesting; you rotate your hand to the player on your left which keeps a level of uncertainty. From here you repeat the steps. The overall objective of the game is to match like cards together (so many kinds of a set allots a certain amount of points. The person with the most points at the end of all the rounds wins. This was the first card game I have played where you were not in control of your hand for the entire time. I thought this aspect was really beneficial and upped the stress factor slightly to keep everyone interested. Not to mention that the illustrations really lent a hand to the game itself.
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1st Playtest of ‘Death Sentence’

The first playtest went surprisingly well for Death Sentence.  There were minimal holes in the rules, gameplay was easy to understand, and everyone had a good time.  Still, there are a few items I need to address:

  1. The name ‘Death Sentence’ is no longer appropriate for the game, and needs to be revised
  2. Some typos in the rules need to be fixed
  3. The theme/lore/idea/background of the game should be added to the rules
  4. A less random trading system has been suggested

If I playtest this game again after Spring Break, these items will be considered, and more official playing cards will be printed through the website makeplayingcards.com.

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Week 8 – Game Design

With the previous week (week 7) of reviewing other classmates games, this post will consist of reviews from week 8.

Gameplay

Sushi Chef Express prototype play was rather successful this week. The gameplay lasts about 25-30 minutes for four players. Some reviews suggested adding more cards or starting the game with 3 cards (instead of 5) for 3-4 players and keeping it as a starting hand of 5 cards for 2 players. Another idea would be to add attack cards that would steal or remove sushi pieces from opponents boards. Other suggestions included determining if it will be a more strategic game as appose to chance based which would involve changing certain actions on cards. The theme of the goals and roles will also be changed to match the game’s story better.

Destination Stranded! gameplay was also successful but might also need more cards added and perhaps add to the rules to remove some event cards with a certain amount of players playing.

Game Review

This week I played Sushi Go for the first time and thought it was a rather enjoyable fast-paced game. The goal is to grab the most sushi points by the end of the game. The gameplay is fast and constantly changing with cards that you play. It seems like a good gateway game that provides a fun atmosphere, replay value, and an uncomplicated ruleset. I enjoyed the graphics the most.

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Reflection week 7

The game we played this week was Sushi. To be honest, I didn’t quite understand it. Once I received a pudding card, I played it because I didn’t understand the power of it when someone else played it. But then I wish I didn’t play it because I lost points because I didn’t have the most of that type of card. There were some other cards I didn’t understand either. I also didn’t understand the point system. I came in 2nd place out of pure luck. I feel if we were to play it again I might finally understand it, but it went so fast I couldn’t catch what each card truly meant to the game. The mechanics of the game were super simple. I just wish I could have caught on to the points system and the true power of specific cards.

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Prototype Review

For the last 2 weeks I had my game “Animal Rescue” played tested. The first week I brought in a really rough prototype of the game, really looking for help on the rules. The game is made for 2-4 players and it was first played with 3. The guys helped me figure out more issues that could happen with 3 people. Like do we really need the 4th animal on the opposite side of the board or was it okay with 3.? We did become successful at playing the rough prototype, making up extra rules as we went along. This also lead me to think of extra rules and restrictions about the board setup and how characters can move. After the first play test, I took the game and all my notes home and fixed everything we talked about. The 2nd week we play tested the game with 4 people. It became a little more interesting adding an extra person. I also added more animals to make the game go longer, rules so you cannot jump over another character, and a restriction on one spot on the board. That spot is the direct middle square between the animals where the “tree” is located. No one can use that spot or jump over the tree to get to the animal on the other side, you must go around. The game was going well until some terminology struck with the chance card. I am not really good at writing down what I really mean, so I did have to ask everyone what the statement should really say. Because what something means to me, doesn’t mean to someone else. Also, the question kept up with the “do we really need 5 game pieces each”. I thought yes, because if it is a 2-player game with 8 animals, you don’t want a tie. But no, because if it is a 4-player game with 8 animals, we all really only played 2 or 3 characters at once. So maybe for a 4-player game, everyone could have 3 characters to play with 8 animals to rescue. If it’s a 3-player game there would be 3 characters and 6 animals to rescue. Then for a 2-player game you would have all 5 characters with 8 animals. Also, I originally planned for the game to have a 6-sided dice, then I dropped it to a 4-sided. This actually worked out better but I think maybe a spinner would be best. Also, for the chance card, instead of having a deck of cards to pick up from, I changed to an 8-sided dice and one card with 8 chance options. Eventually I would like to have my own characters instead of the Lego people, unless Lego wants to buy my game idea. I also still need to find a way so that the characters can carry their animal. I made the place-mat cards as a temporary thing but no one used it and when they saved their animal they just took it off the board and placed it behind their character. So, I could extend the board to have a place holder for the animals. The final big question everyone was asking was if you could place your character in someone else’s ‘home’ so that they couldn’t make it home with their animal. I wanted to say yes, because I never thought about that happening, but I wanted to say no because it’s not your characters ‘home’, it’s someone else’s. There are still so many questions and problems to solve, making this game. Eventually it could be a real game.

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Week 6 Review

Game Review

Week 6
Game Played: Bang
This past week in class we played Bang, which had a team based aspect but with an individual perspective. I would compare this game to Mafia- a game played without props. In Mafia you have an overseer who assigns each player a role secretly and then narrates the story. The whole premises of the game is not knowing which player is which character and you must narrow down guesses in order to determine who is apart of the mafia. Bang, on the other hand has  a very similar role but with more structure and opportunity. In Bang’s western theme, you have a sherif, deputies, outlaws and a renegade. During the game you must figure out who is apart of which team without getting killed and protecting your “team”. The game gets interesting when it throws in extra lives so that you do not immediately die, and that you can counter an attack through action cards. Bang was able to take a simple context but put the fait into the players hands by letting them call the shots and react accordingly based on their hand.
While there were some struggles during the game and at times seemed frustrating to not know who was on which side, I admire the different mechanics woven into the game itself. It allowed for a good blend between saving yourself but also working towards a common goal. Because of this aspect, Bang is a very interactive game between players and calls for judgements to be made.  In the end, you can progress through this game by analyzing the other players actions and expressions which is probably my favorite part.
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Week 6 – Game Design

Prototype Playtest: Destination Stranded!

The playtest went very well because I received a lot of good feedback on the game rules and concept. The game card types seemed to work well but the duration of the game was too long due to the difficulty of finding the cards needed to win. This will be solved by either introducing a cooperative element, less matching needed, or having duplicates of those cards.

Game Review

Bang! has an American wild west theme in which players are on unknown teams and must find out who the other players are. The game rules seemed rather easy to learn but many player actions seemed random and not as caused as it would seem. The players had to eliminate other players not on their team without causing other players to notice their motives. I think this could be a gateway game because of its easy to learn ruleset and replayability.

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Bang

Bang was really fun.  I love games where you have to guess who people are and help other players, even though you may not know who they are. It was fun trying to read everybody and I enjoyed the card game, but it was also kind of like a board game too. Keeping track of lives, the different characters, it was really enjoyable and I’m putting it on my list of games to play outside of class.

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Week 5? Games and review

Cantan was a really fun game. I really liked the idea of each time you play the game, there is a different playground to play on. I learned that I like trading and collecting games, making sure that you have more paths, settlements, and roads to get to other environments to collect more cards and make more things. Splendor went quicker than Cantan, but I also enjoyed that game.  Again, you needed to trade and spend money to collect more items.

 

Building Games:

Ingredients:

-cook/trade

-Thanksgiving

 

Art thieves

  • Get the most expensive art
  • trade/money
  • work

 

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2 Rule sets

Private College Card Game

-rich kids (nice car, no job)

-time

-time is spent between homework,working,social

-character cards have/requore so much

-major, lifestyle, organizations

 

Cards: character cards, action cards (clubs to join, social events, homework amounts, work, financial aid), extra additives (change of major, gets in relationship=more time), resource cards=(time cards, social cards)

Each resource card counts as 1 point, you collect these cards in order to spend them on something your character needs/needs to do

Characters each have distinguishable needs and abilities:

-needs: certain social points, money, homework

Set up: Separate character cards, action cards, and resource cards

-Each player selects one character card at random

-Shuffle resource cards into action cards

-Each player draws 5 cards from this deck and may look at them

-Lay character card face down—you will build up their components

-Start off by building a back story for each character so everyone knows their classmates

Turns: -Each player takes their turn

-You may only lay down objective cards which fulfill your character if you have the resource

cards to support them

-You can only have 7 cards in your hand at a time

-During your turn you may either play, discard, or draw

-Some action cards can be played on other players

Win: When your character card has fulfilled all of its needs

Checkerboard idea:

1.Floor is lava concept—can’t step on one of the certain blocks but have to “rescue” one of your team members on the other side

1.-have add ons after so many rounds to limit board use (i.e. trees, overspill of lava, tunnels)

Pieces: board tiles that have reversible sides (normal chess board sides and then lava sides), 2 pawns/nights/whatever you want to call them

Set up: Put together the board black/white side up in a normal checkered pattern. Must be at least 5 pieces length and width wise. Place your pawn on any square as long as it is on an edge nearest to you.

Turn: Each player can either advance in any direction one space OR you can choose to slow down your opponent by doing one of the following

-flipping a tile into lava (disabling anyone to use that piece anymore), or adding a tile on top with a different landscape that will either allow 2 moves,slow down,etc

Win: first person to get to the other side wins

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5 Resource Games

5 Resource Game Ideas

Mana Surge: Charge up spells by channeling/siphoning various forms of mana (arcane, elemental, etc), and use them to attack opponents and surpass obstacles.  Everyone is in different places in a randomly assembled dungeon, and the last mage alive is the winner.

Nimble in Nimbus: Each player runs a crime syndicate in the floating city of Nimbus.  Everything was going great until one of your lackeys accidentally stole the anti-grav core.  As chunks of the city falls from the sky, you must build up a network of thieves, which requires tools, people, and capital.

Booze Cruise: The apocalypse has happened, and you and your mates have discovered an abandoned cruise ship full of alcohol.  Search, drink, trade, and destroy in a competition for who can get drunk the fastest.  Each player can only drink a specified preferred beverage (beer, wine, vodka, whiskey, etc.).

Liquidators of Catan: Catan has been settled, but is no longer profitable.  Be the first to liquidate all of your assets and vacate the island.

Weary Wedges: You’re a simple person with a lot of money, and you cannot be bothered to open doors in your mansion anymore.  Race around the mansion searching for door stops and propping open doors.

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Week 1 – Card Game Ideas

  1. Corporation – Players choose their type of business by selecting one of several occupation cards. Each player is handed a certain amount of money cards (or paper money) depending on the occupation chosen. Each round a player picks up three employee cards and chooses one to have for their business. Employees have personality ranks which can help or hinder the player’s business. Players can have up to ten employees, therefore if a player finds a better employee in the deck, they must choose one of their existing employees to “fire”. Then the player picks up an action card which can help or hurt the business or has the player make an executive decision. If a player runs out of money, they are declared bankrupt and exit the gameplay. The last player to have money or to have the most money after a month (30 rounds for 2-3 players or 15 for four players) wins.
  2. Lucky Kings – Using a regular deck of cards, two players are given eight cards face down and six cards are laid face up on the table. There can only be six spots for cards on the table unless a player picks up a king and they may place it on the table immediately. Players flip their cards one per turn and lay a low numbered card on a higher numbered card in the middle (ex. 7 of clubs placed on an 8 of clubs). Once the players have gone through their cards, they are given enough cards to have eight in their hand. Play continues until a player cannot add any of their cards to the table cards and still have eight in hand, and the other player wins. Or play goes until all of the cards have been used and the first to run out of cards wins.
  3. Atomic Dogs – Players pick up cards from a deck until one picks up an atomic dog card and is out of the game unless they have an inceptor card (tennis ball, dog therapy, bacon biscuits). Players may use various action cards to help themselves or hurt other players such as skip to pass picking a card, attack to skip you and make the next player pick two cards, favor to make someone give you a card of their choice, see the future to peek at the next three cards in the deck, and shuffle the deck. Each card would have something random on it like hot dogs, magical chicken butts, Indonesian Santa, and an all-seeing llama. Play continues until one player is left and is the doggone winner.
  4. Harvest 400 – Players deal out seven cards each and leave the deck in the middle. Players must lay down runs in sets of three or more (same fruit/vegetable cards and sequential numbers, or same numbers with different fruit/vegetables). Wild cards can be any number and any fruit/vegetable. Players must place 25 points on their first turn or they must pick up two cards and skip their turn. Players can place their cards on opponent’s runs. At the end of the turn, players pick up two cards from the deck. Play goes until one player has no cards in their hand and everyone adds up their points (wild cards are worth whatever point value it is used for on the run) and opponents subtract their total with the cards left in their hands. The first player to reach 400 or more points wins.
  5. Secret Sarge – Based on the recent game “Secret Hitler” and the Red vs. Blue web series, players are split to two sides: the Reds and the Blues. One player on the Reds is Sarge (the leader), less than half of the players are Red followers, and the other half are the Blues. In 5-6 players, Sarge and the Red followers identify each other, and in 7-10 players, only the Red followers know who each other is and who Sarge is; the other players have no idea who anyone is. Play starts with one of the players as General who decides who is Colonel for the round. If everyone agrees with the pairing, play continues, and if not, the player to the left of General is the new General and continues until there is an agreement. If there is no agreement after 3 tries, the first policy card on top is placed on the board and the marker for failed voting goes back to the start. General picks up three mission cards (Red or Blue) and hands two of them to the Colonel, who then decides which one to place down. Once 3 Red missions are placed, whoever is voted Colonel must honestly say if they are Sarge or not. Depending on the amount of players, a certain amount of red missions placed activates a certain action (General chooses who next General is, General investigates anyone, General sees the next three mission cards, or current General shoots anyone). If 5 Blue mission cards are placed, the Blues win. If 6 Red mission cards are placed and Sarge has not been killed or found by the current round’s General, the Reds win. If Sarge is voted Colonel after three Red missions are placed, the Reds win.
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Week 2 – Chess Board Ideas

  1. Corner Chess – Chess pieces are placed in the corners of the board, with the King piece in the furthest corner and the rest around it. Pawns would move diagonally toward its opponent and would attack horizontally while the other major pieces keep their natural movements and attacks. For example, a pawn would move two spaces towards its opponent, but this allows the opponent to strike horizontally or vertically. Rooks would move horizontally and vertically as in a regular chess game. Checkmate the opponent’s King to win.
  2. Reality Chess – the rules of each piece are entirely different. Rooks become defensive barriers, knights can move pawns for reinforcements, bishops can convert opposing pieces for a certain amount of turns, and the king and queen have almost equal movement and attacks. Starting position is regular except the knight and bishop are switched and the rook and the pawn in front of it are switched. Castling is not used. The goal is to take an opponent’s king OR queen and then checkmate the other.
  3. Where’s My Rooks? – Rooks are removed from the board. Knights sit next to the king and queen, bishops sit in front of the king and queen, four pawns surround the bishops and the rest sit next to the knights. This adds a third row of pawns compared to regular chess. If pawns reach the opponent’s back row for queening, they MUST change to a rook until both are on the board or have been used on the board. Checkmate the opponent’s King to win.
  4. Transport! – Six colored portals, two of the same color each, are laid out prior to play. Placement is up to the players as long as it is not where a chess piece sits at the start. Regular chess ensues except if a piece lands on one of the portals, it must immediately move to the other same-colored portal. Colored portals are removed from the game once four pieces have used the same colored portal (two white pawns count as one tally; one black and one white pawn are two tallies; one white queen and one black bishop are two tallies; pieces may travel back and forth and will still count as one tally used). A small version of the chess piece is placed on a tally board for a portal once it has been used by said piece. If a piece blocks the way and another piece lands on the same colored portal, there is no transportation. Once a piece moves off the portal, the portal is open and the opposing player MUST decide whether to move their piece off its portal or to move through it. Their move counts as one turn. Checkmate the opponent’s King to win.
  5. Tri-and-Go Home – Much like Chinese checkers, players use triangular pieces (same amount per player as chess) to jump over each other, including the opponent, to reach the other end and line up exactly as two rows. Pieces can jump forward (vertically or diagonally) or horizontally but cannot jump backwards. Players can jump one piece as many times as possible before the opponent’s turn.