Category: Game Design Studio 1

• Game rules

• Photos of:
  • the game when setup 

Details of the pieces

Trivia cards –

Elimination Markers:

Reward Tokens

• any process photos – I didn’t happen to taken any process photos during this game.
• any design iterations – This game didn’t have any changes since I chose not to expand upon it.
• Your thoughts and lessons learned from play testing

An overview of changes to make

• More variety in the trivia categories, especially with tougher, non-pop culture questions.
• Add a “challenge” option to question answers—maybe we could contest a wrong answer from the other team.
• Make Reward Tokens more flexible, like allowing extra dice rolls or changing the turn order.
• The elimination process. Once a player is out, they have no role—maybe let eliminated players help in small ways.
• Add more variety to the checkpoints, like negative effects or rewards for the other team.
• The trivia categories need to be more balanced in difficulty.
• Make the endgame more exciting—add a final challenge or twist to make it more competitive.

Your thoughts and lessons learned from play testing

• Players generally picked up the game fairly quickly, especially the basic mechanics of answering questions, using tokens, and moving along the board. It took only a few rounds for them to understand the flow of the game and how the strategic elements (like the checkpoints and Survivor Tokens) worked.
•  There were a lot of fun moments where teams tried to outwit each other, especially around the checkpoint rewards and when players started targeting weaknesses in the other team’s knowledge.
• The timer caused some stress, as players felt rushed to come up with answers, which led to frustration and sometimes poor decisions.
• Some players felt that certain trivia questions were either too easy or too difficult, leading to some uneven moments in the game.

Game rules:

The game when setup :

Details of the pieces:

• Prompt Cards: A stack of cards containing statements or questions for players to use.
  • On their turn, a player draws a card from the Prompts Pile.
  • The player reads the prompt aloud and decides to share either a truth or a lie related to the prompt.

Front of “Prompt” Card:

Back of “Prompt” Card:

• Lie Cards: A stack of cards with challenges or tasks for players to complete if they guess incorrectly.
  • Incorrect Guess: If a player guesses wrong, they must follow the instructions on the drawn Lie Pile card, which may include:
    • •. Performing a silly task. •Sharing a secret. •Completing a dare.

Front of “Lie” Card

Back of “Lie” Cards

• Wild Cards: nclude special cards in the “Prompts Pile” that introduce unique rules or actions when drawn.

Process Photos – making

• I don’t think I have any orginally process photos since I made all of it digitally and used all the same files since the beginning.

• Design iterations – There hasn’t been any real design alterations since I decided to not move forward with this one and it was the seconf game I made. I hope to expand on it in the future at some point though.

• An overview of changes to make – This game still needs a lot of work. I think I would love to add some sort of point stytem rather than it just being to get so many cards to end to the game.

• Your thoughts and lessons learned from play testing- This game could be very entertaining to say the least but it really depends on the audience. Some playtesters weren’t affraid to be caught in a lie and that made the game fun. Other rounds weren’t as fun. I think I need to incorperate a way to encourage players to tell lies no matter what.

Connor + Reese Collab Game

Game Rules

The Game Setup

Game Piece Details

Design Iterations

• Cartoonish art style, with a color spunk appealing to the eye. Illustrations correlate to the theme, with cool colors representing ice, water and snow. On the iceberg board, the skulls represent a game over, and the deeper the water, the darker the blue. Design is kept simple, advocating towards a unique feel to the playing experience.

Changes Made Overview

• We were focused a lot on the graphics of this prototype, which is why our biggest change came from a design iteration. This change involved what the character board would look like. The first idea was a sunken pirate ship but changed when we settled with the iceberg. We adhered to the story of the game, which involves pirates seeking refuge on an iceberg when their ship has crashed. Besides, it was convenient to shape the iceberg into three columns for the players.

Changes to Make Overview

• As with most of the games, a major change will include clarifications within the rules. This includes more examples, in order to put things into perspective for the players. I feel as if the rules are very short in explanation, so increasing each rule specifications will result in more player comprehension. I have to keep in mind, it’s always best to keep things short and simple, in order to avoid confusion when understanding the rules.
• The design for this game can only get better, and we have changes we’d like to incorporate. For starters, the iceberg game board needs to be on a solid foundation. This can include any type of board for the paper to stick onto, increasing durability. With a solid foundation, players don’t have to worry about playing on a flimsy paper, but rather on a flat board.
• A thought we have had was an incorporation of difficulties. There could be a potential “easy” “medium” and “hard” mode, allowing players to alter their experience. It is a matter of how we can incorporate these ideas into our rules.

Thoughts and lessons learned from playtesting

• One thing I’ve learned during this type of playtesting has to do with the capabilities of the player. Our game relies a lot on memorization, which can be a niche skill for gatherings of people. Now we can assume anyone playing our game has adequate memory, but how can we make this appeal to those who have poor memory? Little considerations like these diversify the playing experience, allowing anyone to have fun.
• Another thought we have had during our playtesting is how we can make this game more complicated. Watching players interact during the game seemed awkward, and it was only a matter of people taking turns guessing. I think that we can think of ways to make the game more intense, raising the stakes. As long as the players had fun, that’s all that matters. However, I want to see this game go beyond basic interaction, giving people more to talk about their playing experience.

Question Set 1

1. What Mechanics would you like to use for a game with a theme that revolves around being the size of a nanometer? I would play around with the scaling of things and make the player have to change sizes to fit through different objects. 
2. Who are you making games for?  I am making games for my little brother and my roommate. 
3. Who will be your playtesters outside of class? My older brother my roommate and my teammates. 

Question Set 2

1. Can you think of a game you were able to play without referring to the rules?  Rock paper scissors, connect 4, black jack, 31 (scat), LCR, euchre
2. How do you define what a game is?  I would say its up to the creator. You can make a game out of pretty much anything. As long as there are set rules and and end goal with a winner. There doesn’t always have to be a loser. 
3. What features can make your games more intuitive?  Keeping the rules simple and a clear explanation of the rules. 

Question Set 3

1. What was your gateway game? What do you play to introduce others to gaming?  I think a good gateway game is mario kart or something on the wii. 

1. What features do gateway games share?   I feel like gateway games have to have a somewhat easier difficulty level so that they can win and get hooked on that winning feeling. They also should have lots of pretty colors and look pleasing to the eye. 
2. What are the 10 beautiful mechanics and what should you aim for with your own?  You should aim to make the game easier fir the player to do little things in the game. Such as when you killed someone in Fortnite early in the games life. You has to pick up all the individual things that they had. Later on in the games life when you killed someone they made it so that if you just walk over them you collect their stuff. This speeds up the game a lot more. 
3. How does luck and strategy factor in to game play?  Luck and strategy are very different yet go hand in hand. One could get lucky because they used good strategy or one could get lucky with bad strategy. 

Game Ideas thats can be played using cards

game 1: Players use cards representing the four classical elements—Fire, Water, Earth, and Air—to battle against each other. Each element has strengths and weaknesses, and players must strategically play their cards to defeat their opponent’s cards. The goal is to win the most rounds by having the stronger element in play.

Card Types :

Fire: Beats Earth and Air, but loses to Water. 

Water: Beats Fire and Earth, but loses to Air.

Earth: Beats Air and Water, but loses to Fire.

Air: Beats Fire and Water, but loses to Earth.

Game 2: this game is for two people. One player picks up a card from the standard 52 card deck. The next player has to guess higher or lower with ace being the lowest and king being the highest. 

Game 3 : This is played with a standard 52 card deck. You deal the cards out to all players in a clockwise direction till there are no cards left. Each player picks a card and puts it in the center face down if someone spots a match to their card they shout “Match” and that player picks up all the cards in the middle. The winner has the most cards. If two players say match at the same time then it is a tie and the next round is double or nothing. 

Game 4:  Be the first player to make a hand totaling exactly 10 points. Use a standard 52-card deck. Remove the face cards (Jacks, Queens, Kings) from the deck. Aces are worth 1 point. Shuffle the remaining cards and deal 3 cards to each player. The rest of the deck goes face down as the draw pile.

Rules

 Each player looks at their hand and tries to make a total of **exactly 10 points** using any combination of their 3 cards. On each turn, a player may: Keep their hand and pass their turn. Draw a new card from the deck and discard one from their hand to keep a total of 3 cards. The game continues with players drawing, discarding, and trying to make exactly 10 points. The first player to reach exactly 10 points says “Ten!” and wins the game.

Game 5 Use a standard 52-card deck. Shuffle the deck and deal 5 cards to each player. Place the remaining deck face down in the center as a draw pile. Players take turns drawing a card from the draw pile and discarding one card from their hand. The goal is to collect 5 cards of the same suit (hearts, diamonds, clubs, or spades). Players must always keep 5 cards in their hand after every draw and discard. The game continues with players drawing and discarding until one player has 5 cards of the same suit. The first player to collect 5 cards of the same suit wins the game!

• Question Set 2
  • Describe the best game you’ve made this semester in 200 words? Follow Michelle Nephew’s advice.
  • In all honesty, I believe that my best game that aligns with Michelle Nephew’s advice is my game The Tattoo Parlor. The rules of the game are clear and engaging: pick the prompts, set a time, pick a winner. It is fast to learn and requires almost no brain effort, making it approachable for a wide range of players, though there is a target audience. It is a game that you could replay for as long as you’d like to, as the client switches from person to person each round. The game was humorous and the playtesters loved it, they could make it their own and still had fun while staying completely engaged. There is a no cheating component, as players are free to search what particular prompts look like, encouraging more creativity and engagement. The theme stays consistent, with a design centered around various tattoo styles and trends. This not only enhances gameplay but also boosts marketability, as its target audience would naturally include tattoo artists, tattoo enthusiasts, and people who enjoy light, funny party games. It could constantly be updated with the newest tattoo trend, and promote tattoo shops to make more revenue. It also could encourage collaborations with famous artist/shops. My game successfully blends thematic consistency, replayability, and humor into an experience that players would want to return to again.

• Question Set 1
  • What is the difference between a “working” and a “display” prototype?
    • The difference between a working and a display prototype is when you have a working prototype it is playable and a display prototype is design ready
  • What is required of a working prototype, and what might cause one to fail?
    • There needs to be a clear rule set, almost like you’re reading a “For Dummies” book, one other reason that it might fail is a lack of engagment between players
  • What makes for a good prototype according to Dale Yu?
    • A simple design, testable components, engagement,thematic integration, improvments
  • What advice from Richard Levy will help you pitch your game?
    • I think the best advice I could take out of it was to handle rejection gracefully, I need to be able to be told when something isn’t ready or not right.
  • Where might you pitch your game?
    • I would like to pitch my game to Dolphin Hat Games, they are super unique for their game Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza
  • What do publishers look for in a game?
    • Good gameplay and player feedback.
  • What makes a good set of Rules?
    • Simplicity, and fairness should be part of a good rule set

Attached above is the first version of our game skater skirmish. In this iteration, the skatepark was much larger and less refined than the final version.

In this version, the deck of cards was also much smaller and included a smaller amount of tricks. I believe this version was important since it gave us a stepping stone to do much better, from a design that already took us long enough.