- 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.
design courses, syllabi, schedules, resources and policies