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Post Game Questions Tori

Was the game fun?

The constant chaos and changing nature of the game made it enjoyable to play!

Would you play it again?

I would! Further, it would be fun to see the different versions of the game and how they compare to the one we played.

How long did it take to learn?

A quick read-through of the rules helped our group learn how to play in just a few minutes.

What was the interactive aspect, and how was it?

The game had players interacting with cards, drawing them, playing them, and discarding them. The mechanics worked well and made it so our game played out smoothly.

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Week 1 Questions Tori

In Your Opinion what should every game have? Why do you like your favorite game?

In my opinion, every game should have obtainable goals/achievements that intrigues and entices any given player. When I think about games I don’t enjoy, I reflect on objectives that are not pleasurable to chase, or that the route to achieve them leaves things to be desired. Thus, I hold high value in the experience of what the game asks me to do. My favorite game, Stardew Valley, stays true to this testament. Within the game, there are varying routes you can take to accomplish different tasks and master different skills. It hands the user the freedom to decide what they want to pursue, and constantly switches up experiences as to not make gameplay stale.

List the games you have played or currently Play.

To the best of my knowledge:

Tabletop: Apples to apples, Blokus, life, Scattergories, Sequence, Taboo, Ticket to Ride, Pandemic, Cartographers, Splendor, Telestrations, Wingspan, Codenames, Rummikub, Mysterium, Catan, Sushi go.

Digital: Cooking Mama, Gardening Mama, Nintendogs, Wii sports, Just Dance, Minecraft, Do Starve together, Stardew Valley, The Sims, Among Us, Jackbox, Leauge Of Legends, Valorant, It Takes Two.

Can you apply the three-act structure to your favorite game? What is its pacing and how long do you find yourself in each act?

Stardew Valley Is a game that allows the player to go at their own pace. Tasks have no set timeline, so users can choose how swiftly or leisurely they want to go about completing them.

Applying the three-act structure to my favorite game, Stardew Valley, It breaks down as follows:

Act 1 (Setup):

  • Introduction: The player inherits a run-down farm from their grandfather in the quaint town of Stardew Valley. They leave their monotonous city life to start anew in the countryside.
  • Inciting Incident: Upon arrival, the player meets the townsfolk and learns about the challenges of restoring their new farm. They also discover the looming threat of the Joja Corporation, which is trying to take over the local community center.

Act 2 (Confrontation):

  • Rising Action: The player begins to cultivate their farm, plant crops, raise animals, and explore the town. They build relationships with the townspeople and participate in community events. Throughout this time, they face various obstacles such as harsh weather, financial struggles, and the need to upgrade their tools and facilities.
  • Midpoint: The player discovers the mystical side of Stardew Valley, including the presence of the Junimos, magical creatures that can help restore the community center. This revelation adds a new layer of depth to their mission, as they now have to collect specific items to complete bundles and restore the center.

Act 3 (Resolution):

  • Climax: The player works diligently to complete all the bundles, facing the final push to gather the remaining items. This often involves overcoming the most challenging aspects of farming, mining, fishing, and foraging.
  • Resolution: Once the community center is fully restored, the town celebrates, and the Joja Corporation’s influence diminishes. The player has successfully revitalized the farm and the town, forming lasting bonds with the townsfolk and creating a thriving, self-sustaining community. The game allows for continued play, but the main narrative arc concludes with the restoration of the community center and the defeat of Joja Corp.

When coming up with ideas where do you find your start, with the metaphor or the mechanics?

When drafting ideas, I tend to find my start with a metaphor; a symbolic/imaginative concept. Before I can delve into the inter-workings and mechanics of my idea, I find I first must start with a metaphorical image or theme I want to explore.

Over the course of this semester, who would you like to collaborate with and why?

During the course of this semester, I would enjoy the opportunity to collaborate with Evelyn. I enjoy her work and style and would be interested to see how we could collaborate with one another to work toward a common goal.

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week 1 questions kelsey

In Your Opinion what should every game have? Why do you like your favorite game?

Every game needs a set of rules and a goal. If their isn’t a goal then why progress at all, it can get boring really fast. all the games i play may be more of a sandbox where you can just meander but their are still always new things to discover. i enjoy slime ranchers because it has great visuals, a slight danger aspect to hinder or jut break up the monotony of bright colors, and it always has a reason for you to keep making money and collecting slimes. even if you get all of the slimes their are friends that you can do chores for or you can just sit and watch your stock piles of food and money clime which is very satisfying.

List the games you have played or currently Play.

Minecraft, slime ranchers, slime ranchers 2, legend slime, mahjong, solitaire, Pokémon( X, Alpha Sapphire, Sun, Lets Go Eevee, Go), Splatoon 2, Hatsune miku colorful stage, beatstar, plants vs zombies, jetpack joy ride, Fortnite, Mario cart, Mario party, pacman party. i could keep going but this list would be forever lol.

Can you apply the three-act structure to your favorite game? What is its pacing and how long do you find yourself in each act?

i can apply it to slime ranchers. the first act is the opening to the game, its just a block of text that you can just skip past and not read but it sets up why your character is on this planet and what they are doing their. it is really quick. over the course of the first few days you get a few emails from other farmers saying welcome an this leads to you helping them collect random things around your ranch. some emails are from a friend on your home planet as the game progresses they remains about old times and basically say they miss you. i don’t think i have ever come to the end of this plot line but is is very interesting to read the first time you play. also something that has a good pacing based on how fast you progress in the world are these letters left in the lands outside of your ranch. they are from a man who had lived in your ranch before. they give quick insight about his thinking and kind of parallel the emails in a way. both seem to be talking in a way like they long for a lost love or someone they never got to tell their feelings to. when you get to the last one it gives you a good moral, it tends o feel like this is it but when you look deeper it shows a story of a man who realized that he cant sit here forever and he needs to go for what he wants to find. you don’t get to much insight into your own characters story mostly because your the one crating her ranch and what she prioritizes o their isn’t a lot about her character except for her past. the passing focuses heavily o the second act. i don’t know if I’ve truly ever made it to the true ending of the game but it seems to not gloss over but not hold a lot of time on the first and final act.

When coming up with ideas where do you find your start, with the metaphor or the mechanics?

it depends, most of the time i tend to start with the mechanics. in my game coding class in school we normal started with how the platforms work and how the enemies move before we think about the look and the quote unquote story.

Over the course of this semester, who would you like to collaborate with and why?

i would love o collaborate with Evan or Gideon or sara, they always have really cool ideas and are so easy to get along with, which is something i really look for in someone i partner/collaborate with. those also tend to be the people i look up to in the our major because they aren’t years ahead of me so i don’t feel to disconnected but they are still older than me and know the ropes a little better so they re someone i know i can ask my questions to and get real answers and not those cookie cutter answers.

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Brayden Bauer Game Ideas

A Bomb War

It’s a game me and my friends made when we were in high school and never really finished making it. It’s similar to the card game “war” where the players draw from a deck and play a card. Higher card wins. The a bomb part is where an ace comes into play. The a bomb trumps every card other than other a bombs. Depending on the suit will determine if your a bomb is better or not. 

Quickdash. 

Quickdash is a trivia based game with a few action cards. The trivia questions can be any topic but vary in points. During some of the cards the players may revive an action card that has to be played immediately. It can range from simple to more difficult tasks. 

Ww2 game

On the board there’s the axis and Allie’s powers. You collect cards to either advance or retreat your soldiers.(Examples could be trains, planes, surprise attacks, artillery, etc) You can hold up to 7 cards to play with and strategically use them to either defend your country or push forward. 

Super smash brothers card game. 

The two players each have a deck filled with cards. Each turn the players draw two cards either being characters to put into the field of play or items that can negatively or positively affect the field of play or characters. There are different maps the players can collect that can again change how your cards are played. 

Shocking potato

Simple game here with the only thing being you don’t want to have the potato when time runs out. Whoever has the potato when the timer stops is shocked and is out of the game. Last player in the game wins. 

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Game Ideas

  1. 3 Card Poker Slots
    • This game is a game in which revolves around luck mostly at the moment, but needs to be dug deeper into. The game involves a dealer giving you 3 cards at random, and if you hit a certain hand (2 of a Kind, 3 of a Kind, Straight, Straight Flush, Royal Flush) you get a payout depending on the rarity of the hand. It’s almost kind of like gambling… well it’s gambling.
  2. Dart Golf
    • This game is a simple one, in which all you need is a dart board and darts. The goal of this game is to have the lowest score possible. Up to 4 players play 9 rounds of darts, throwing 3 darts a round. The person with the lowest score after the 9 rounds wins. This game is interesting to me, because everyone’s first thought would be to shoot for the 1, but in order to hit the 1 you have to throw in between 2 of the highest numbers on the board (20 and 18), so there is strategy to it in order to find the safest place on the board to throw if you are not accurate.
  3. Match Maker
    • The idea of this game is simple. You get a standard deck of cards and deal 5 cards to all 2-4 players. Your goal is to get matching cards and place them face up in front of you. The players will take turns drawing cards, and if you get a second number that you have (EX: you have a 2 and during your turn you draw a 2) you place it in from of you face up and say “Match”. At the end of each turn though, you must discard one of your cards in order to keep the game moving and to avoid people hoarding cards. The person with the most matches when the deck runs out is the winner.
  4. Low-Card Blackjack
    • Ah, yet another way to gamble our points away. This game isn’t for the faint of heart. The idea of Low-Card Blackjack is pretty easy to understand. In this game, your goal is basically to be as close to 11 as possible, rather than 21. The uniqueness of this game is because it is designed to make people upset at their “points wagering” abilities. In a standard deck of cards, the most common card is a 10, whether it’s actually a 10 or a face card. So more than likely, you are going to bust when a hand is dealt to you. Instead of being dealt 2 cards, you are going to be dealt 1 card. That one card makes it interesting since if you happen to get a lowcard such as a 2 or 3, you basically have to hit since the dealer is most likely going to have a higher card than you, but at the same time you won’t want to hit since you are most likely going to go over 11. Just like Blackjack, if you get an ace and a 10, your payout is more. The game may seem complex in my description, but it is rather simple.
  5. Die Chess
    • If you couldn’t tell by now, I love games of chance. This game is no exception. In Die Chess, the general rules are the same as Chess. But, there is a die in the mix now? So at the beginning of the game, you and your opponent will both roll a single die to decide who gets to go first. The higher number rolled gets to go first. But the catch to this game is, before each turn you get to roll your die. The number that it lands on determines how many moves you can make before your turn is over. For example, if it is your turn and you roll a 5, you get to move 5 pieces. But, you are not allowed to move the same piece more than once in a turn. The exception to this rule is that if there are less than 6 pieces on the board, and in that case you cannot use the same piece again until you use the rest in the same turn (EX: you have 3 pieces on the board and you roll a 5, you have to use all 3 pieces before using the pieces you used in chronological order). The way to win is by eliminated all your opponents pieces.
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Game Ideas: Evelyn

  1. A game inspired by the movie – A Quiet Place. There are 1 or 2 people selected to be the hunters. They are blindfolded and given a nerf gun with a limited number of shots. It is best played in the dark with boundaries.
  2. A art competition where at least 2 people compete to create a painting of a desired object with water squirters filled with watered down paint.
  3. The game of life but college themed – choices of real colleges, types of residences, majors with a comedic twist
  4. Campus-wide game of Mario Kart using scooters. A course could be set up using cones and other boundaries in parking lots or the paths if blocked off. You could compete as individuals or as a team. Teams could be made up of clubs, sports teams, other departments to inspire some friendly campus rivalry.
  5. Interior Designer game in Virtual Reality. You could upload your own home and furniture to experiment with layouts and styles. This would be more of a freeplay game.

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Sara Estus – Game Ideas

  1. Continuation of “Stick with the Flock” I would like to revise the rules better and create a more effective game in terms of what I want the metaphor to be and how the game looks!
  • “Art Noted” a scavenger game Students are given a small photo of a close-up image taken of an art piece on campus, they are given one hint on its location in the style of a riddle and then they must try to find the piece based on knowledge of the area and the riddle.  Students can work in teams for time’s sake. If they find the piece, they win a point. The first to get 5 points wins! **This is meant to drive students to become more aware of campus art**
  • “These FRICKEN DUCKS” a tag-like scavenger hunt One student will be given 20 ducks of the same color and size to hide around campus in one building of their choice. Another group of students is tasked with finding and collecting the ducks before anyone else! (Cause man, we hate ducks!)
  • “Impersonation Game” How well do you know your friends?” Students must pick another student in the room to impersonate, you can’t be rude of course, so you must use body language, actions, and props to impersonate someone. We must find the good qualities about each other to find out who it is!

  • “I promise we are artists” is a Pictionary game, but we suck at drawing! One student is given a card with an object, animal, or thing and is tasked with drawing it on a piece of paper without lifting the pencil, and they can’t look when they are drawing it. They have 30 seconds to complete their new portfolio-worthy masterpiece, and the other players must guess what the thing is without hints.

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Sara Estus – Fluxx Review

1.) Was it Fun? Yes and no, I feel like Fluxx is one of those games where you enjoy it because everyone is in the same boat as you, panicking because you don’t know how to play, if you are doing anything right, etc. I feel like if I fully understood the game, I’d enjoy it and feel the actual challenge of it. But all in all, I think it’s a good game for the purpose it serves – to explain the value behind rules.

2.) What was the interaction? It’s always confusing at first. Like most games, you sit and read the rules for about 5 minutes and then play the game, but Fluxx feels like you have to keep going back to the rules to understand anything of what you’re supposed to do. After you THINK you have it right, it’s still confusion, with a hint of anxiety.

3.) How long did it take you to play? In this session we did not come to a winner, so we never really got to judge what it felt like to play a round. In my experience, however, I found it could be anywhere from 5 minutes to 50 minutes of play.

4.) Would you play it again? Only if Ames asked me to. No, just kidding, I think I would, but I’d want to play it again where I could sit and understand the rules. I think I just enjoy games that are quick to learn and not confusing, But I see why Fluxx is a popular game.

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Week 1: Question Set 1

Amber Holt

In your opinion what should every game have? Why do you like your favorite game?

Every game should be visually appealing. A game that is unpleasant to look at, especially video games, really decreases how I feel about the game as a whole. Unfortunately, when there are cute or beautiful graphics, I sometimes overlook the quality of the gameplay, because I’m primarily focused on the visual aspects. One of the reasons why I like my favorite game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, is because of the cute, high-quality graphics. It allows me to get even more immersed in the game, specifically trying to collect all of the cute designed furniture and clothing items. Aside from the graphics, the cozy and comforting feel of the game constantly brings me back.

List the games you’ve played and currently play.

  1. Video games: Paper Mario Color Splash, Paper Mario Sticker Star, Paper Mario Origami King, Animal Crossing New Leaf, Animal Crossing New Horizons, Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, Mario Kart 8, Super Mario 3D World, Super Mario U, Overcooked (all), Nintendo Switch Sports, Inside, Jackbox, Paper Mario Thousand Year Door, Tomodachi Life, MiiTopia, Super Smash Bros, Super Mario Bros, Mario and Sonic: Winter Olympic Games, Sonic, Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort, Call of Duty, Fortnite, Minecraft, NYT Games (like Wordle), Among Us, Zelda: Link’s Awakening, My Sims Kingdom, Roblox, Pinball Hall of Fame, Just Dance (a bunch of versions), Wii Play, Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey, Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story, Fall Guys, What the Dub, etc. 
  2. Board/physical games: Game of Life (multiple editions), Monopoly, Animal Crossing Monopoly, Catopoly, Your Worst Nightmare, Bob Ross Art of Chill, Catan, UNO, Scrabble, Scategories, Dan and Phil’s Truth Bombs, Trouble, Sorry, Operation, Phase 10, Go for Broke, Unstable Unicorns, Hues and Clues, so many more

Can you apply the three act structure to your favorite game? What is it’s pacing and how long do you find yourself in each act?

One of my favorite games at the moment is Overcooked, and I think the three act structure can apply to it. At the very beginning of the game, you are immediately thrown into a cooking battle, against a very hungry meatball, the onion king explains that you have to work together to quench his hunger, thus setting the stage and being the first act. The second act is essentially the whole of the game, going from level to level cooking in various places, trying to get better at cooking cooperatively and cooking increasingly challenging dishes. The third act—the push for victory—is ultimately the last battle, approximately 16 minutes long, where players go against the hungry meatball once and for all. The second act is definitely the longest of all the three acts, where you spend the majority of your gameplay. The first act would be the shortest and includes the tutorial and beginner levels that are just introducing you to how to play the game, make simple meals, and do the dishes. The third act in itself isn’t very long in comparison to the second act, since a lot of time is spent trying to master the kitchens you come across vs. one end battle. 

When coming up with ideas where do you find you start, with the metaphor or the mechanic?

I generally come up with the metaphor first when I generate ideas. I like to think about things that could give the project a purposeful meaning, and then I later hone in the mechanics to work with my metaphor. However, there have definitely been times where I came up with both.

Over the course of this semester, who would you like to collaborate with and why?

  1. One of the people I would like to collaborate with this semester is Sara. Sara and I have worked together before, on a design project for the literary magazine, Rune. I think our ideas fed off of each other well, and we both have high expectations of our work. Since then, there have been numerous times where we have come to each other sharing random ideas for campus projects. I love how we both think of meaningful and interesting ideas. 
  2. I also wouldn’t mind trying to collaborate with just about anyone in the class. Since I am one of the few, if not the only, graphic design major in the class, I would be interested to see how my graphic design skills could uniquely contribute to that of a UX/UI major.
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Fluxx Game Review

Amber Holt

  1. Was it fun? It was fun, but definitely not my favorite first game experience. I think I would have to play the game a little bit longer to fully develop an opinion on it. 
  2. What was the interaction with the other players? This game had a lot of interaction with the other players. Some action and rule cards made you directly interact with the other players, for instance, taking one of everyone’s card from their hand, swapping hands with another player, stealing or trading a player’s keeper card, etc. A lot of the interaction came on the part that every player’s turn would ultimately influence the actions of the rest of the players since players can constantly play a new rule or goal card on their turn. This would alter the next person’s actions who would have to adhere to a new goal or rule card. 
  3. How long did it take to learn? Initially, the game didn’t take very long to learn because it employs simple game mechanics that a lot of other card games use such as drawing and playing cards each turn. However, it became increasingly difficult to understand what was going on because the rules would constantly change. 
  4. Would you play again? I would. I feel like I need to play it again to really decide how I feel about it. I also would like to maybe play with a group of people who aren’t already coming into the game hating it.
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Week 1 Game Ideas – On Campus

Amber Holt

  1. Giant board game? – you get like a “game map” and you must travel to different locations, or buildings, like Wheatley, and answer trivia questions to collect an item. Every location has a unique item up for grabs and the first team of students to collect all of the items and return to “home base” wins. 
  2. Sort of murder mystery like Clue – Inspired by a game a club that I was in hosted in high school, you travel to different areas across campus, collecting clues that give you details about who the “murderer” is, in this case a staff member” that eventually lead you to that person. For instance some of the clues could involve what building they work in, what major, what extracurricular activities they help out in, their hobbies, etc. When students reach the “murderer” they receive free RMU swag or other goodies
  3. Scavenger duck (thanks to Sara) – students are encouraged to collect 1 duck of every color across campus. Students bring the ducks to a centralized hub where they get a punch card of sorts that marks that they collected that color of duck. Ducks are collected so that cheating is eliminated. For completing this, the participants could get a stuffed animal duck (to give incentive to play and not just keep the cute ducks). 
  4. Battle of the departments – A canned food drive that is a competition between the different departments at RMU. The food would be donated to a local food bank (or taken to our very own one on campus) at the end of the competition. The winning department gets donuts or lunch. 
  5. Game to conserve the most energy on campus – Chatham University did a game like this a few years back, promoting sustainability and energy conservation. It was a competition between floors in a dorm building to see who could conserve the most energy per floor. Because of the way the buildings were set up, they could go in and see per floor how much energy was being consumed. There was also some incentive like a prize for the floor to win. I also believe they had social media accounts or an online tracker set up so that the floors could see their progress and communicate with other floors. One issue with this was that some students, especially those who didn’t like their CA, would try to sabotage the results of other floors, constantly turning on lights. One benefit of this was that the school was able to recognize that students weren’t using their ovens (I believe) enough and they were removed from the dorms. This also helps eliminate unnecessary energy consumption and makes students realize the difference turning off and unplugging certain things can make.
    • For RMU to employ this, I think that it would need to be a competition between the different residence buildings and not particular floors. I think that would help to eliminate people sabotaging other floors in the same building. This would also have to have a time limit; for instance, 1 week (A good week would maybe be the week of Earth Day??). Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about how to measure energy consumption to say for certain how the results would be tracked, especially in RMU’s system. There would, however, need to be a really good prize to encourage students to actually participate.
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Game Ideas

  • Table Top Gaming Marathon on Nicholson Lawn. (Ping Pong, Pool, Football, Air Hockey, etc)
  • Glow and the Dark scavenger hunt
  • Name the professor based on the clues
  • Obstacle course that goes throughout campus
  • Minute to win it – Carnival games addition

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FLUXX Game Questions

Was It Fun?

At first I didn’t think Fluxx was fun an that was mainly because I had no idea what I was doing. However, as the game went on and I started to catch onto the rules an get a feel for how the game works (you need to play dirty), I started to enjoy it.

What was the interaction?

This game involves a ton of interaction. The game forces you to interactwith your opponents a lot whether you are stealing cards, battling your keepers, or sabbatoging your opponents winning abaility.

How long did it take to learn?

This game is not supper hard to learn unless you are just reading the instructions. When I first started out reading the instructions it made me even more confused then when my peers were explaining it to me. After observing what my peers were doing for a few rounds, I was able to catch on very quickly.

Would you play again?

Yes, I would most certainly play this game again.

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Game Design Week 1 Questions

In Your Opinion what should every game have? Why do you like your favorite game?

In my opinion every game needs to have some sort of challenge or end goal. I get highly competitive during games and if I dont have anyone to compete against or something to compete for than I find the game rather boring. My favorite game is monopoly because it is a great family game and the leader board can change rather quickly.

List the games you have played or currently Play.

Well let’s see although I don’t play video games that much anymore, I used to play a lot of games when I was younger. Here are some: Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort, Call of Duty, Zelda, Resident and Evil, Wipe Out, Just Dance, Mario Kart, Sper Mario Bros, Minecraft, Donkey Kong, PacMan, 8 Ball Pool, Crossy Roads, NBA Mobile, Color Switch, Slitherio, Snake, Word Escapes, Papa’s Freezeria, 2k, and honestly I am probably missing some. In terms of board games some of which I probably play now are: Apples to Apples, Monopoly, Life, trouble, uno, and cards against humanity.

Can you apply the three-act structure to your favorite game? What is its pacing and how long do you find yourself in each act?

I am not really sure that Monopoly can be broken down into the three-act structure because it’s not a game that has a narrative. Monopoly is a more-open-end came and the possibilities are up to the players in the game.

When coming up with ideas where do you find your start, with the metaphor or the mechanics?

I would say I start with mechanics and then work on the metaphor. I would rather start with what I would like each character to do rather than jump into the whole overview.

Over the course of this semester, who would you like to collaberate with and why?

There are nobody inparticular I would like to collab with. Everyone in this class is uniquely creative and has different strengths and weakness. It’s always enjoyable to me to see what ideas everyone else comes up with.