Category: Game Design Studio 2

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Week 8 Reading and Responses

  • What are the challenges a team faces when working on an educational game?   It takes a village to get all the parts right. The text states, “Typically such teams consist of game designers, pedagogy experts, and content experts, each of whom must resolve significant and often fascinating ideological disagreements resulting from disparate disciplinary values, vocabulary, and culture.” Getting all of these right is the biggest challenge teams face. 
  • In the case study team members vetoed each others game ideas, what were the scientist’s, pedagogy expert’s and designer’s issues? some issues were that initially they had levels but that would affect the students ability to learn or access all the content because if they did not beat level one they would not be able to advance to level two where more of the   content was. The scientists could not understand games and game designers and the game designers did not understand evolution. 
  • What did the team learn from play testing their prototypes? They learned what types of games that don’t work such as the levels that got vetoed. 
  • How does play testing resolve conflicts among team members? Each test helps them understand each other better and what they need to fix for the next iteration. Every time they had to make a change they got to know and learn from each other to work better for the next one. 

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We Didn’t Start The Fire Game and Rules

For this week, I decided to prototype “We Didn’t Start The Fire” (does the name have to change for copyright purposes?? idk) . It is based off of the Billy Joel song. I know that a lot of people either really like the song or hate it, but I feel that it includes some useful references that Americans should likely understand.

To make the game a little more relevant, I decided to also include reference to the 2023 Fall Out Boy version of the song that contains even more newsworthy topics and events.

I think that this game is important to help people become educated on both culture and historical events. It is a very simple trivia game right now, but I see potential for adding some more fun mechanics in regards to the music aspect of the game. I really feel like I am mainly creating this game for my little brother, as he loves both trivia games and the Fall Out Boy songs. I see this being a great educational tool for at least him (and myself as I learned a lot in the making of this game).

Making the Game

To make the game, I found a few very incredible articles on Britannica that explain all of the references in both of the songs (over 100 in the old and over 80 in the new). I selected one reference from a few line “chunks” of lyrics and developed a trivia question based on that. I included the full lyric on the top of the cards so the full song is presented throughout the cards that I made.

The Rules

We Didn’t Start the Fire RulesDownload

Design

The design is fairly simple, with a red gradient, black square, and white typography. I was really excited to do this game because I think it has really good potential for some fun and creative typography.

i also made the cards very big because why not!

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Professor Ames’ Game – Eskapu: Playtest

What was the most frustrating moment or aspect of what you just played?

While there are a lot of moving parts to getting the game started and getting into the meat of the gameplay, besides considering that, I think the most frustrating thing about the playtest was trying to understand the consistency between players. It felt like “two steps forward, one step back” kind of deal, as when I would purchase a vehicle, someone else would blow it up (thanks Collin >:P) I think that is more an inconsistency with not establishing a sense of the goals at the get go, but other than that I didn’t find any serious frustrations.

  • What was your favorite moment or aspect of what you just played? 
  • I enjoyed that the concept really dives deep into the idea of the complications behind fleeing a country. It seems straight forward on paper, and then when you sit down and play you start to realize “shoot, I can’t do this because ___ stopped me!” Which really made me stop and think about what I was doing while playing.
  • Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn’t? I want to do a playthrough of this game where everyone is genuine and serious about the playthrough, focusing on “finishing” the game. I think if we gathered a bunch of people to play and made a podcast while playing it, that would be fun!
  • If you had a magic wand to wave, and you could change, add, or remove anything from the experience, what would it be? Set the goals from the beginning and write them down so we all know what is going on. That way there isn’t any overlap like I mentioned.
  • What should be improved with the next version? I want more ways to attack others, and I think a really neat feature would be to have spontaneous events, like if you roll a die, bombs can be dropped, or supply crates!
  • What was the game’s message?: ESCAPE! Basically, haha! This game’s message was about awareness of what power people can give depending on what role they play. In the real-world execution of this, the concept of power is truly a terrifying ability, especially in a war-torn country.
  • Describe the game in 3 words: ESCAPE, TEXTURES (WowWee), and BOMBS!

I would like to also say that this is my second playtest of this game. I played it maybe a year ago, and the tiles were cardboard, and a lot of the features in the game were not yet implemented. I would say looking back in comparison, I had a lot of fun being able to do more! I hope I can play it again!

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Sara Estus – Reading Response (Week 7)

  • What are the challenges a team faces when working on an educational game?

The challenge of creating an educational game as a team is the difficult task of creating a game that is both engaging in a sense of teaching the player something they might not be familiar with, while also maintaining a sense of entertainment, fun, and keeping players engaged throughout the game in solid execution of both mechanics and content.

  • In the case study, team members vetoed each other’s game ideas, what were the scientists’, pedagogy expert’s, and designer’s issues?

The scientist focused on the game’s effectiveness in communicating accurate scientific content. Their main concern was that some of the game ideas might oversimplify or misrepresent the science, reducing the educational value of the game. However, the pedagogy expert was primarily concerned with how well the game would facilitate learning. Especially when it came to some game ideas, which would not effectively promote the desired learning outcomes or would fail to engage students in critical thinking and problem-solving. And the designer was concerned about the game’s playability and the overall user experience.

  • What did the team learn from playtesting their prototypes?

Playtesting helped the team understand how well the game ideas were meeting both the educational requirements and the players’ engagement needs. It gave valuable feedback on whether the games were fun, engaging, and whether they hit the learning goals as intended.

  • How does playtesting resolve conflicts among team members?

Playtesting provided the team with concrete data, such as how players reacted to different aspects of the game through the educational, engaging, and experience aspects of the game’s design. This feedback helped resolve conflicts by giving team members evidence on which to base their decisions, rather than relying solely on subjective opinions. It also gave each team member a sense of whether their contributions to the game were executed properly.

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Week 7 Reading Response

  • What are the challenges a team faces when working on an educational game? Teams consist of people with different specialties and sometimes that can cause them to butt heads when they each have slightly different goals. For instance, “Game designers hope to create a highly interactive, compelling experience that is also fun to play. Pedagogy experts insist that the game must be an effective teacher. Content experts expect the game to include accurate, richly detailed content…” (p. 1). However, the challenges faced will definitely differ based on the type of educational game being developed. 
  • In the case study team members vetoed each others game ideas, what were the scientist’s, pedagogy expert’s and designer’s issues? The game designer wanted there to be levels built into the game, however the pedagogy expert took issue with this. This is because, “From her point of view, she did not want the game to prevent learners from accessing learning content” (p. 2). If players could not pass level one, for instance, they would not be able to move forward in the game. More vetoing of ideas occurred when, “The game designer immediately dismissed game ideas proposed by the pedagogy expert and scientist because they did not constitute “a game.” The scientist immediately rejected many of the game designer’s ideas because the science was incorrect” (p. 2). Game designers also wanted to include strong elements of a designer’s story, but they did not mesh well with the scientists who felt that they weren’t scientifically accurate enough. 
  • What did the team learn from play testing their prototypes? “Playtesting the first prototype disproved three assumptions. The first was the scientist’s expectation that extinct creatures from Earth’s past would be so intrinsically interesting that the players would be motivated to read and explore as much as possible” (p. 3). Players mostly just ended up guessing instead of treating the game as an educational tool. The team also learned that players experienced different levels of motivation to finish the game, with the mostly female playtesters having very low motivations. This caused the team to reintroduce the idea of levels. More generally, the team was able to observe the amount of engagement, learning, and fun resulted from playing the game, which are all key factors to developing an effective educational game. 
  • How does play testing resolve conflicts among team members? I think that playtesting helps resolve conflicts among team members as the team is actually able to see where players may struggle with some parts of the game and where they are particularly interested in or excel at. Differing team members are then able to realize that maybe the other team member was right about this one mechanic or concept as they are able to observe the results of it being tested. Team members are also able to celebrate their successes together as they have players who begin to enjoy playing the game they made together. 
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Week 7 Game ideas 

  • Victim Olympics – This could be an interesting board game that plays off of the idea of the term “victim olympics” where one group of people or demographic tries to put their struggles and challenges over those of someone else, trying to be more so the victim. The game could also incorporate olympic type events and sports to make the experience more fun. For instance, maybe there is a sprint that involves trying to outdo the other team. I think it is also important to acknowledge that this term can sometimes be thrown around in a context where they are saying it because they believe that people just want to feel like a “victim” or that they “want attention”, but in reality, their struggles should not be downplayed. Ultimately, this game would try to make the point that everyone’s struggles are valid and unique, and there is no need for competitive comparison. 
  • Pink Tax Game – Play as corporations that are trying to make the most money off of their female customers. You need to upcharge for feminine projects, or simply if the product is “girly” or pink. This game could also be competitive where it is the females against the corporations. 
  • Swift Logistics – Taylor Swift game about her flying from city to city (think logistics of her lifestyle and concerts and environmental impact) but try to not necessarily bring down her successes as a female artist but acknowledging that there are some downsides. This game could be about managing going from place to place and concert to concert and show the extensive resources that go into concerts and energy consumption. Thus, this would be a resource management-based game. 
  • The Parasite Class – based on the post on x that elon musk shared that anyone receiving financial assistance from the government is leeching off the resources, except the game would really highlight how that the opposite is true of most members of the lower class and it would showcase individuals experiences stories and situations to humanize it. Players would have to grant funding to individuals who need it. 
  • Project 2025 or a bunch of lies – This game is essentially a trivia game that helps familiarize people with the contents of Project 2025 since it is very relevant to American citizens. Since the original document is hundreds of pages long, this would help increase understanding. 
  • We Didn’t Start The Fire – a trivia game based on the song “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel. This sound contains newsworthy events and pop culture references from the 40s to 1989. This would also include the updated Fall Out Boy version that covers events up to 2023. The back of the cards could have pics of the different artists on the back so people can identify what song it’s from and roughly what time frame they are working with. I think this is important for people to be educated about both pop culture and historical events, because I personally don’t recognize a lot of the references in the song, but I know that they are in reference to history that is pretty important. 
  • blue collar monopoly – working on dangerous job sites, looking dirty, etc. (idk my boyfriend suggested this idea and I can’t remember what else we talked about this idea)
  • Realistic Game of Life- Some of the editions to make it more realistic: insane medical bills, your dog died as a card, layoffs but you don’t get a new job immediately, unemployment denied, job applications. Essentially just make the game less fun and cheeky and a little more serious and grim. 
  • Candyland, but it’s a critique on diabetes and the consumption of junk food. Cards would provide statistics about diabetes, obesity, and other negative health implications. The game would still be very visually appealing with lots of sweets, but the gameplay would help you realize some of the negative consequences. 
  • Operation but it is about plastic surgery and botched operations. You would have to give people lip filler, perform liposuction, BBLs, rhinoplasties, etc. If you touch the side like in normal Operation, you have botched the person’s appearance forever. 
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Ames’ Game Playtest

  • What was the most frustrating moment or aspect of what you just played? I think the most frustrating aspect of this game was the learning curve to understand what exactly my character’s goals were and the best ways to go about that. Maybe this could be reduced by providing some examples of how the player could go about achieving those goals? This also could have just been as a result of being very tired so it took me longer to grasp the concept 
  • What was your favorite moment or aspect of what you just played? I really enjoyed the pieces and how the gameboard fit together nicely. The pieces had a satisfying texture and I think simplistically and effectively communicated what they represented. 
  • Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn’t? I think that I would have enjoyed having an actual designated “graveyard” to display the pieces that I had blown up and taken out of the game. 
  • If you had a magic wand to wave, and you could change, add, or remove anything from the experience, what would it be? I would add more diagrams, pictures, and examples to make learning it easier for first time players, especially those who just need to rely on the rules. Just really dumbing it out down more than anything. 
  • What should be improved with the next version? Like i said before, diagrams and pictures would definitely be helpful and also think that the “goals and objectives” section for each of the different roles should be in the order of the turn order, because it is off by like one and I kept trying to refer to that as the turn order. 
  • What was the game’s message? We determined that the game’s message was partially about rebuilding society, but there were also other roles and factors at play such as war and the rebels who were opposing some of the other players. It presented a complex view of war and society in my opinion. 
  • Describe the game in 3 words. Strategic, competitive, challenging 

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Around the world in 80 day (Game Review)

What was the most frustrating moment or aspect of what you just played?

When you couldn’t remember some thing as soon as it got to your turn

What was your favorite moment or aspect of what you just played?

The challenging questions

Was there anything that you wanted to do but couldn’t?

Answer all the questions by myself….lol

If you had a magic wand to wave, and you could change, add, or remove anything from the experience, what would it be?

Add more questions to the cards

What should be improved with the next version?

More phrase cards

What was the game’s message?

It is educational in terms of global culture and geography.

Describe the game in three words.

Educational, culture, and humbling.

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Tori’s Murder mystery game

I loved loved loved this game. I had too much fun engaging with the characters and the game as a whole.
The thought put into props, storyline, twists and turns is very good and helps bring the story to life.
Also, the level of interactivity that is carved out by the game is really interesting. Forcing players to talk and work together.
I would love for the game to see more versions and more intricate stories.

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Around the World in 80 Day: Game Maker’s Notes

What questions did your players have? Is there a timer for the name the country section? Sometime it could drag on while players tried to recall countries. It would keep game speed up if I added a timer. Also, how do you tell if somebody said a fake country?

How quickly did they learn to play? Very quickly. It was an easy game and it could

What kinds of interactions did the players have? Competed against each other in mini games. They occasionally read the fun facts on the culture card, but as is, there is little emphasis on the culture cards. I would like to tweak this so people read them because they add to the game.

What confused players? Which countries started with letters

what excited players? Winning mini games and knowing more than other people

what did your players enjoy doing? Every person had a different favorite challenge I think. I liked seeing how many countries people actually knew.

Did any aspect of the game frustrate players? Checking the countries. I am going to add the right countries on the back of the card.

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SIGNAL REACT (Gideon Gyamfi’s Game)

A Fast reaction game

This is a game of speed, and when the game master calls out colors in the sequence, you have to draw them fast. The 1st person to get the most points in each round gets the code at the end of the round

Each person gets 4 colors. at the start of the game
and these are yours till the entire game is done
LISTEN CLOSELY AND DRAW FAST!!!!!
1st to draw gets the point
Draw at the same time they both get the point.

This is the “SEQUENCE LIST”
This goes to the game master.
Each number is a round.
And the game master reads out each color to the players to allow them to draw

Black and White Vintage Airline Bankruptcy Breaking News Instagram Post (1)Download
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Discussion: what is Doctrine & Cognitive Task Analysis, Full Spectrum Warrior, as well as Medical Simulation

Doctrine is like a set of strategies in military combat, or rules for a medical procedure. Overall, Doctrine is a guideline to help assist people in situations that aren’t necessarily expendable or accessible for beginners in day to day life.

Cognitive Task Analysis is a method used to break down how experts think and make decisions, so that others can learn from them. It is a method typically used to improve performance in these situations, whether that be for the medical field, or for the military.

A “game” that is now a game but was originally was used to train military personel: is Full Spectrum Warrior. This game included Doctrine tactics to exhibit how one should operate in these situations, as well as exhibited strong Cognitive Task Analysis by putting the player in these realistic environments with a lot going on, with high intensity in an environment that is true to real life as well. This game helps soldiers understand the true risk and reward of decision making in these environments.

Just like how soldiers train in simulations, doctors and nurses also train using realistic scenarios as well. Medical Simulations come in a plethera of forms, as there are so many different fields and procedures available for a person to train with. Overall, these simulations act as training for real life or death scenarios and are very efficient; rather than having someone train on an actual person

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Week 7 questions

  • What are the challenges a team faces when working on an educational game?

They face the challenge of balancing: education, interactivity, detailed content, and entertainment within the game .

  • In the case study team members vetoed each others game ideas, what were the scientist’s, pedagogy expert’s and designer’s issues?

The game designer dismissed the game ideas proposed by the pedagogy expert and scientist because they did fit the parameters for “a game.” The scientist rejected many of the game designer’s ideas because the science was incorrect.

  • What did the team learn from play testing their prototypes?

The design team found that including less detail would increase the amount of detail players noticed. Levels were created to entice players,

  • How does play testing resolve conflicts among team members?

“Playtesting not only helps designers refine the game mechanics, but it can also help resolve conflicts among pedagogy, content, and gameplay by moving disagreements from theoretical stances to demonstrated success or failure of design concepts”

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Review of Gideon’s The Unseen Directive – Colin Kenny

  1. What was the most frustrating moment or aspect of what you just played? Trying to scan the QR codes and then being met with requesting access to a Google Drive every time, and the thinness of the paper making it difficult to pull a card out and put it on the table.
  2. What was your favorite moment or aspect of what you just played? The narrative and the reveal at the end were very clever. I played with Kelsey, and throughout the game we new something was up and that the colors and the action of grabbing the right color meant something, we just didn’t know what.
  3. Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn’t? Well maybe being able to read all of the cards but for time we couldn’t.
  4. If you had a magic wand to wave, and you could change, add, or remove anything from the experience, what would it be? It would be cool to see this as a computer game or something that doesn’t require a moderator to give the list of colors.
  5. What should be improved with the next version? Better materials and better graphics, but I’m confident Gideon can do that.
  6. Describe the game in 3 words. Color Match Mystery