Ames' syllabi

Dumb Ways to Die

I never played this game as a kid because – as the name suggests – it looked dumb. I understand its objective and how it appeals to the people who would be playing mobile games and using public transportation. But it’s just so babyish. 

Pepsi Man

I’d love to know who the first of the “brand superhero”s was, and why so many brands after thought the morph-suit-with-company-logo on the chest persona was so useful. It was neat to learn that the Subway Surfers format of gameplay is thirty years old.

Sneak King

I still can’t believe that this game made it anywhere past a pitch meeting. The “Sneak King”/”sneaking” pun hardly seems funny enough to develop an entire game for. This had to have been one of those tax writeoff games that they knew would perform poorly.

Chex Quest

Like I’ve said 1000 times before, I don’t play video games. But I know Doom, and I think Doom is awesome. But replacing Doomguy with Chexguy… that’s genius.

Getting Over It

As someone with above-average internet literacy, I know all about this game. Never touched it, never met someone who has, but I could tell you every obstacle in it. I think the little cavern where you have to hook on to the light is the coolest one. You kind of lose me up in the troposphere where you go backwards on all the shipping containers.

Painstation

We played this all the time at my buddy’s house in middle school.

Cow Clicker

I actually did have Cookie Clicker for like a day. I think all games are pointless – imagine how I feel about these ones. I will say, though, some of the cow avatars are insanely creative.

The Graveyard

I would never make it to the mausoleum in this game.

Oregon Trail

I love the Oregon Trail. If I’m on a desert island and you allotted me one video game, it would be the Oregon Trail. It’s so funny and can vary so much.

Townscaper

Is this really a game, or is this more of a drawing tool? I thought this game would be more like one of those ones where you have to make a 2D bridge within a budget constraint. Like with the wood and metal and ropes. That was not the case.

That’s supposed to be a gif. I don’t know if it plays on here. I hope it does.

I think there’s too many games in the world. I think there’s too many games that are commentaries on that fact.

Even so, I’m in a class where I have to make games. And I exist to please.

Sisyphus game is a game akin to cookie clicker, as there is no end in sight. But, boy, do you want to keep clicking. Every tap inches Sisyphus forward, but every so often fate sends him backward.

You get drachmas for every significant distance you travel, and those can get you new characters and balls to push.

This was when I started the game.

Originally I wanted the markers to look like little highlighted bubbles, and for a few people to be able to play markers per round.

That was not nearly enough symbols to convey anything fun.

I moved up to 7×7. I think the strongest additions were the body parts.

I did want to see if terms rather than symbols could help, but in actually playing the game, the ambiguity of the symbols allowed them to – interestingly enough – symbolize more than just one word.

I still wanted more symbols.

This is the final board. At least digitally. I thought the mixed up version would look a lot cooler, but having the semi-related symbols by each other did help out. At least in terms of finding the right symbol for what you wanted to express.

The final markers work as “are”s and “aren’t”s. Can you guess which is which? You get to place 6 for any one term.

This week, I thought I would try to test mechanics for my setting. I drafted a few characters with different mental health diagnoses, and each one gave a different debuff to that character.

Depression: +2 fatigue starting, +1 fatigue on failure.

Anxiety: +2 fatigue on failure. +1 fatigue on success to a random stat. Reaching max fatigue in a stat causes +3 fatigue in 2 random stats.

ADHD: cannot attempt the same thing more than twice in a row without trying something else. Any time a switch is made, +1 fatigue to the previously attempted stat.

Results:

These debuffs relied heavily on the implementation to work the way they did. I may end up scrapping this idea and go with a narrative driven game instead. This had, perhaps due to my modern day framing, perhaps due to mechanics, a bit too much of the desired effect. Players became less interested in trying to play these characters because they felt it too difficult to make meaningful progress.