- the advantages ? other than that the first time i played tested they had literally every question about how to start because i forgot to add integral parts in the rules.
- for how the first group played like 30 minutes for how they ended up playing, for the second group like 15 minutes maybe, and the third time like 15 as well.
- they tried to trade and also found loop holes that were really stupid. they also liked to attack a lot especially in the first group.
- how to start with the first group and their weren’t many confusions with the rest of the groups.
- grouping up on people.
- loop holes, and forming alliances, building up aries.
- blurry cards, and how to start.
shark frenzy review
- he barley had any rules and for some reason it was in a poem format.
- winning was my favorite part
- have more things happen with my cards
- i wouldn’t change any thing.
- more cards, and a more competitive aspect like random action cards that can be used.
- fish, card, cool
Game Maker’s Notes and Game Review Notes
Looking back on the notes I took last Tuesday this may be a bit harsh so I’m sorry in advance if any of this critique went a bit to far.
Art Heist
What was the most fruatrating moment or aspect of what you just played? keeping track of where everyone was
What was your favorite moment or aspect of what you just played? getting to blame the other players
Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn’t? no
If you had a magic wand to wave, and you could change, add, or remove anything from the experience, what would it be? add other jobs because the joker is the only one who actually reaches for the art
What should be improved with the next version? more reasons to reach for the art because its obvious who it is if only one person is reaching for it.
Descibe the game in 3 words? mysterious, active, interesting
Bear Heist
What was the most fruatrating moment or aspect of what you just played? Being creative enough to figure out what to do
What was your favorite moment or aspect of what you just played? The chance of seeing if youll roll under a 3
Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn’t? nope
If you had a magic wand to wave, and you could change, add, or remove anything from the experience, what would it be? I like the game how it is
What should be improved with the next version? Maybe add more characteristics for the bears
Descibe the game in 3 words? fun, creative, collaborative
To Feed or Not to Feed
What was the most fruatrating moment or aspect of what you just played? Picking up only low cards
What was your favorite moment or aspect of what you just played? getting to feed my animals
Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn’t? no
If you had a magic wand to wave, and you could change, add, or remove anything from the experience, what would it be? add a rule for what happens if you tie
What should be improved with the next version? I think its pretty solid and a lot of the changes were added already
Descibe the game in 3 words? fun, competitive, intresting
Jokes on You Prototype 2
Players: 3-6
Setup: Shuffle the deck including the Jokers. Deal 7 cards to each player. Place the remaining cards in the middle of the table with another card placed next to it face up.
Gameplay: The goal of the game is to be the first person to get a run of 7 cards. A run is 7 cards in numerical order that are all the same suit(7♠ ,8♠, 9♠, 10♠, J♠, K♠, Q♠). You can pickup from either deck, but you can only grab from the top of the deck. The first player discards to the person to the right. Always pickup a card first and discard last. The rest of the game the players discards to the discard pile and the person to their right. The card discarded to the right will wlays remain faced down. If you pick up a Joker, you can use that card to take someone elses card from their hand. Once the Joker is used it goes into the discard pile and cannot be picked up again unless the deck is shuffled. Frist person to get their run and says “Jokes on You” is the winner.
Other Rules: If you run out of cards, reshuffle the deck
The run does not have to start at ace/one, you can start at any number as long as you can get 7 in a row. (you can’t start at Queen as you can only get two cards past it)
garden sabotage test
- nothing frustrated me, only my luck in pulling cards. also not getting to finish the game.
- getting to have as many cards in my hand as i wanted.
- no.
- maybe adding more of certain flowers, i know the point s for some cards to be more rare to get more points but i was struggling to get the cards i needed.
- only having a way to get rid of cards in your hand, cues the no hand limit is fun but at some point i think you would start running out of cards.
- pretty, strategic, creative.
academic integrity test
- i wasn’t frustrated at all everything made sense and was straight forward.
- getting to give people cards that are comedic with the prompt.
- no.
- no.
- nothing really needed improved.
- artistic, comedic, fun.
jam sesh test
- mostly it was the people, the game itself wasn’t ever frustrating, well maybe the amount of times we all rolled 12s.
- my favorite part was getting to make the songs and hear everyone’s peices.
- no, nothing felt like it needed to b added.
- maybe trading cards with others or being able to chose the key of your piece, but that would get very technical. also making it more competitive in a way, i know games don’t need to be competitive but it makes it more fun for me.
- having more cards.
- creative, simple, musical.
Sara Estus – To Feed or Not to Feed Game Review
1.) Running out of food tokens was hard, I think it changed the game a lot
2.) I enjoyed that it was repayable through shuffling the deck after rounds!
3.) I wish I could have interacted more with the animals I had, rather than just feeding them and putting them to the side.
4.) More food tokens, and maybe more animals?
5.) I think the animal cards having more purpose, and that there should be more food tokens as stated above!
6.) Animals Very Hungry
Sara Estus – Builder Buccaneers Game Review
1.) Trying to be super quick with building! It’s part of the game so I enjoyed it, but that can be hard sometimes to build fast.
2.) I enjoyed the aspect of having a range of different levels to build, with the levels reflecting super well with the building difficulty.
3.) Play the game longer, I felt like it ended super early, but for a prototype I’d say that’s good for further trial and error!
4.) A bigger board, with obstacles, pirates, treasure and different levels of difficulty.
5.) The length of the game and the board, as my previous comments on why.
6.) Fast Building Ships
Playtest Review Lauren Yunk
To Feed or not to Feed
What was the most fruatrating moment or aspect of what you just played? Keeping track of which animals were fully fed or still needed fed.
What was your favorite moment or aspect of what you just played? The fact that the game relates to war.
Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn’t? I dint think so.
If you had a magic wand to wave, and you could change, add, or remove anything from the experience, what would it be? I feel like it would be fun to have certain animals tie because then you could encourperate something where youd have to battle to see who would win.
What should be improved with the next version? Adding a different color food for when you are finsihed feeding your animal.
Descibe the game in 3 words? fun, competitive, simple
Builders
What was the most fruatrating moment or aspect of what you just played? Making sure the build was built neatly.
What was your favorite moment or aspect of what you just played? The competitive aspect of trying to do something neat yet quick to get the points.
Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn’t? Nope.
If you has a magic wand to wave, and you could change, add, or remove anything from the experience, what would it be? I would add more builds
What should be improved with the next version? The cards telling you what to build
Descibe the game in 3 words? speedy, entertaining, competitive
Jam Sesh
What was the most fruatrating moment or aspect of what you just played? knowing what notes were what
What was your favorite moment or aspect of what you just played? getting to hear my song at the end
Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn’t? nope
If you has a magic wand to wave, and you could change, add, or remove anything from the experience, what would it be? i would remove or change the part where the notes have to be four notes apart to be placed next to each other, if that is even what that rule meant, because as someone who knows nothing about music, I found that very confusing
What should be improved with the next version? design aspect
Descibe the game in 3 words? musical, fun, ineresting
Review of Evan’s music game – Colin Kenny
Sorry if it’s too mean Evan
Evelyn: Builder Buccaneer v.1 Review
Fun and interesting concept. Here are some thoughts to consider in future iterations:
Players were definitely frustrated and argued over who won and what constituted a “better built ship.” In order to prevent arguing, perhaps clearly define what you want the final product to look like. It might help to have a player judge as well.
Consider blueprint designs. That could be cool. Colored-coded pieces on the instructions?
Please include enough piece reference for every player.
I would consider the mechanic of choosing a blueprint. Perhaps its a pile of unidentified difficulties and it’s luck and randomized how hard the blueprint is. Or maybe define who picks first (ex: whoever won last time).
Game right now: chaotic, tension-building, creative
Garden Sabotage! Play Test Notes
Play Test #1
- What questions did your players have? Which cards were which? How pesticide worked? Where is the pesticide card? How many cards can be in each garden?
- How quickly did they learn to play? At least 20 minutes. Quite longer than I expected.
- What kinds of interactions did the players have? Players planted cards in each other’s gardens. Players also helped each other make the best moves on their turn since everyone was learning the game for the first time.
- What confused players? The first player rule—whoever has the most houseplants goes first. The players thought that this was determined by the cards that you were dealt. They also didn’t understand at first that you couldn’t plant multiple plants in your garden at once and that each plant you planted is a separate action. They were also confused by the fact that pesticide isn’t a physical card; it is just an action that you declare you are doing. Players also did not form a discard pile for the used plants, bugs, and garden objective cards.
- What made players excited? The players enjoyed the gameplay and the card art. The most exciting part would have been when players played bugs on each other’s gardens.
- What did your players enjoy doing? They enjoyed the fact that the bugs make the game more difficult and add value to the game. They enjoyed the size of the bug cards and appreciated that the end of the game isn’t totally obvious because players count their points after someone reaches 7 cards.
- Did any aspect of the game frustrate players? The objective cards were frustrating and confusing to players. The fact that you have to play the objective card after you completed the card wasn’t totally obvious.
Play Test #2
- What questions did your players have? If you just declare that you are using pesticide? Do you draw at the beginning of your turn? Do you lay the objective card down first?
- How quickly did they learn to play? Pretty quickly.
- What kinds of interactions did the players have? Players helped each other to understand the game at first and then sabotaged each other with bugs.
- What confused players? They were confused about discarding plant objectives for another being 1 turn. They were also confused about what they would do if they ran out of plant cards because there was no hand limit.
- What made players excited? They really enjoyed the gameplay and the card art.
- What did your players enjoy doing? I could tell that they enjoyed eating others’ plants with bugs.
- Did any aspect of the game frustrate players? The fact that it is pretty luck based on what cards you draw frustrated some of the players.
- Other comments:
- This group accumulated a lot of plant cards in their hands, so a hand limit might be necessary.
- This group ran into the issue where they planted plants in the garden that they didn’t want to plant and had no way to remove it.
Potential Changes to Make
- Simplify garden objective cards rules
- Maybe make good bug cards worth more because they are so rare in the deck?
- Reminder cards that show the different actions that you can take on your turn
- Clarify that objective cards are met automatically and you don’t lay them down until the objective is met
- Clarify that you can only plant ONE plant in your garden
- Make pesticide a physical card or object or otherwise clarify it
- Potentially make it harder to obtain pesticide
- Design a board to have specified places for the cards to make the face-up cards and discard piles make sense
- Design the garden boards so that there are spaces for the bugs
- Clarify how it is determined which plant is eaten by a bug
- Clarify what bugs do on the cards themselves
- Add the option to remove a plant from your garden as an action (or you have to get rid of all the plants on that plot)
- Make it 5 cards to trigger the last round
- Could add a fence that protects your garden from bugs for a turn
- Add an incentive to be the first person to finish
- Add a hand limit so that you don’t run out of plant cards.
- Clarify that only 3 plant cards can be placed on 1 plot
- Clarify rules regarding discarding cards you don’t want
- Potentially add color to the plant cards
- Maybe rename the plant cards to be flower cards?
Zombie Flux Review
Zombie flux is an interesting game to say the least. There are multiple ways to win the game and multiple way to mess up other players. One of the ways is reaching different goal cards. The players can use rule cards in order to change the rules in ways of benefiting or negatively affecting the players. Its a frustrating game for sure, don’t get me wrong. But I love the fact the rules and goals of the game change throughout it.
Catan Review
Fun game but its not fair when Professor Ames plays with us becausse he has an unfair advantage. All jokes aside, its a simple game that involves ruling the die to hopefully land on one of the squares that you have land on. There is definetly strategy involved in this because you can play it safe and just get the area near you or you can stretch your land out to claim more resources and get a bonus for having the longest road. It is a little rough though if you are not able to move because of the fact you will be extremely limited on resources. The trading factor fixes that a bit so you can get resources that are hard for the players to obtain. Overall i think its a fun game to play, I wish the land was bigger so the game can last longer.