Author: Audrey Miller

The game we played this week was Sushi. To be honest, I didn’t quite understand it. Once I received a pudding card, I played it because I didn’t understand the power of it when someone else played it. But then I wish I didn’t play it because I lost points because I didn’t have the most of that type of card. There were some other cards I didn’t understand either. I also didn’t understand the point system. I came in 2^nd place out of pure luck. I feel if we were to play it again I might finally understand it, but it went so fast I couldn’t catch what each card truly meant to the game. The mechanics of the game were super simple. I just wish I could have caught on to the points system and the true power of specific cards.

For the last 2 weeks I had my game “Animal Rescue” played tested. The first week I brought in a really rough prototype of the game, really looking for help on the rules. The game is made for 2-4 players and it was first played with 3. The guys helped me figure out more issues that could happen with 3 people. Like do we really need the 4^th animal on the opposite side of the board or was it okay with 3.? We did become successful at playing the rough prototype, making up extra rules as we went along. This also lead me to think of extra rules and restrictions about the board setup and how characters can move. After the first play test, I took the game and all my notes home and fixed everything we talked about. The 2^nd week we play tested the game with 4 people. It became a little more interesting adding an extra person. I also added more animals to make the game go longer, rules so you cannot jump over another character, and a restriction on one spot on the board. That spot is the direct middle square between the animals where the “tree” is located. No one can use that spot or jump over the tree to get to the animal on the other side, you must go around. The game was going well until some terminology struck with the chance card. I am not really good at writing down what I really mean, so I did have to ask everyone what the statement should really say. Because what something means to me, doesn’t mean to someone else. Also, the question kept up with the “do we really need 5 game pieces each”. I thought yes, because if it is a 2-player game with 8 animals, you don’t want a tie. But no, because if it is a 4-player game with 8 animals, we all really only played 2 or 3 characters at once. So maybe for a 4-player game, everyone could have 3 characters to play with 8 animals to rescue. If it’s a 3-player game there would be 3 characters and 6 animals to rescue. Then for a 2-player game you would have all 5 characters with 8 animals. Also, I originally planned for the game to have a 6-sided dice, then I dropped it to a 4-sided. This actually worked out better but I think maybe a spinner would be best. Also, for the chance card, instead of having a deck of cards to pick up from, I changed to an 8-sided dice and one card with 8 chance options. Eventually I would like to have my own characters instead of the Lego people, unless Lego wants to buy my game idea. I also still need to find a way so that the characters can carry their animal. I made the place-mat cards as a temporary thing but no one used it and when they saved their animal they just took it off the board and placed it behind their character. So, I could extend the board to have a place holder for the animals. The final big question everyone was asking was if you could place your character in someone else’s ‘home’ so that they couldn’t make it home with their animal. I wanted to say yes, because I never thought about that happening, but I wanted to say no because it’s not your characters ‘home’, it’s someone else’s. There are still so many questions and problems to solve, making this game. Eventually it could be a real game.

5 game ideas around the theme of building

 

1. Trailer park – the board game is a “map” of wealthy neighborhoods. It is your job to ruin the neighborhoods by building up a trailer park. Person with the most trailer parks at the end wins.
2. Junk yard art. Play until the junk yard runs out of junk. Every player is dealt a card stating what they have to make. There are cards that make you miss your turn when you “have to go to work that day”. Person who has the closest looking junk art to their image card, wins.
3. Western game. Back in the old western time when no one knew anything outside of their own town. Each player on their turn gets to pick to either expand the board, build a new town, trade, or use a good to better their score. Score is tallied by who has the most towns and the most / best goods. A player could automatically loose if they ‘get shot’ for trying to steal or cheat their way into getting a better good, or even if they step foot into a bad town.
4. Make-up artist. Have to give the dummy a make-over while blind folded.
5. Steel city. Beginning of the Pittsburgh era and everyone has to work together helping build up the city, but this time trying not to pollute the air.

5 Theme Ideas

1. Time Machine – go back to the land of the dinosaurs and have to try and save different species of dinosaurs. They cannot ride in the time machine, but you can ride the time machine back to the future to get supplies when needed. Work individually or as one big team to save as many as you can. You can only save one species at a time. To qualify as saving the dinosaur it must make it past the big bang. Once one species is saved, you can start your strategy over to save another species.
2. Tip the ice berg. Play as penguins and the goal is to be the one who tips the ice berg. The board plays against you, and doesn’t want to tip. Whose ever penguin eats a ____ number of fish first, tips the ice berg and wins.
3. Football checkers – line starts in the middle of the game board. Take turns moving your players trying to block and protect your end zones. First “team” to 5 touchdowns wins.
4. A ship of goods for trading is sinking, you must throw things over board to stay afloat. But the ship is taking on water and a storm is brewing. You must save cargo, or throw things over board. You are in control of your own hand of cards and must help save the ship with everyone else. You are pretty far from the coast and it will take the rescue team some time to get to your ship. If you and your crew can save more than $____ worth of goods, you win. The more expensive goods are the heavier they are. The cheaper, the lighter.
5. College themed game. Must pass college with the disadvantages of cheating on tests, forgetting homework, but bonus points for going to a party the night before a test and passing the test. The board is against you and you must over-come it and pass. First one to graduation wins.

Audrey Miller

 

The three board games played this week were Pandemic, Takenoko, and Impero. During the game Takenoko, we played in 4 groups of 2. This game took contribution of all players for one team to win. It was a very confusing game because each icon had a specific type of move to make and we had to keep referring to the instructions to remember. While playing Takenoko, it was obvious that the game was made around the story and the images on the game pieces were well planned and executed. The mechanics of the game seemed to be the final thing the game designers thought about. It was hard to follow at first, and every question we had, the answers were not in the instructions. The next game we played was Pandemic. This game seemed to have a lot of setting up, that was only needed for one person. After the game was set up, we just jumped into the game and didn’t read the directions because one player already knew the rules and just taught us as we went along. Pandemic was definitely and easier game to play but required everyone to contribute. Instead of one person or one team winning, everyone won. We didn’t play the whole game because we ran out of time when the other group was done playing Impero. But we finished the round with curing 2 dieses. The next game played was Impero. All the instructions were in Dutch or French or who knows what. There were a set of English instructions, but they seemed to be just google translated over because we felt as if it was missing more information. The directions told us to start somewhere that was not specified on the board, and the board had these little arrows on them that we couldn’t figure out what they meant. This game was over all insane. It was not a quick game to play. It took us about 20 minutes to play it. The other thing was we didn’t know how people won. We understood that if you take over a continent then you won that way, but the point system was not right. Then the six cards that sat on the top of the board that you could either pay for or get one for nothing, didn’t seem right to me. Because in my mind, of course people are only going to take the free cards because who wants to waist their coins when having more coins might mean something in the end. Just over all it wasn’t a good game and it needed some t.l.c.

The two games we played in class this week were Gloom Munchkin and Dominion. Playing Gloom Munchkin didn’t exactly make me feel gloomy. But now I see why it is called gloom. Because you have to kill off your own characters and who ever kills off all their characters first basically wins, unless you do not have as many points as someone else. From what we learned, is that you should not kill off all your players so soon. If you keep adding up your points first, then killing them, you will have a better chance at winning than someone who kills all their characters first. Because if the first thing you do is kill them, you might not have that many points. So, it’s a game of strategy and skill. You must pay close attention to what everyone else is playing so you do not make any mistakes. Sometimes it’s just luck of the draw and you end up making a mistake because someone picked up a new card that ruined your plans. But in the end, everyone has a gloomy day because they just killed off their own characters for their own self benefit to win a game. We were able to play this game a couple times because our first round went too fast because we all played cards that ended the game sooner and we didn’t have that high of scores. In the game Dominion, you must dominate and own everything. This is a super long game we only got to play for what seemed to be like 30 minutes. As soon as we all started to pick up on the logistics of the game, class was over! I think we made it into phase 2 of the game by that point because we were out of one deck of cards, and we all were starting to buy points and more gold and the higher-ranking cards. I do want to know what it would be like at the end of this game because it is all about how you play the 5 cards you have in your hand and if you play them right you will have a good chance that turn.

1. In a pool- The floor is lined with a checker board and the players are the pieces. Normal checker rules apply. But when a person is ‘king’ the player gets another one of their players on their shoulders.
2. Use of Lego characters. The goal is to rescue the Puppy that is placed in the center of the board. The first one there has to carry the puppy back home (to the starting position). The other players can chase down the lego man with the puppy to steal it. First one who makes it back home safe with the puppy wins. Roll (1) dice to move character. 2-4 players.
3. Eels and escalators. Use pipe cleaners as the eels and popsicle sticks as the escalators. Land on eel, you must slide down to the tail. Land on an escalator, get to climb to the top. Goal is to make it from the bottom left of the board to the top right. Roll (1) dice to make moves. 2-4 players
4. 4 in a row. Everyone starts off the board. Everyone has different colored chips. The goal is to get 4 of your color in a row, right to left; up and down; or diagonal. First person to get 4 in a row wins. Everyone gets to place one chip per turn. Everyone except the first player on the first turn, has to place a chip in a square that is next to another chip. 2-4 players
5. The board is Velcro. Hang the board on a wall and set up the board like a normal chess or checkers game. To play, you must pick up the piece you want to move and you must stand back and throw the piece. Where ever it lands on the board, it must be played. Even if it landed on the wrong colored square. If the piece is thrown and doesn’t make it on the board, keep trying until the piece is played. After 3 tries the person must give up turn and place the piece back on the board in the original spot it was picked up from.

1. Backwards go-fish. Everyone else knows your hand. On their turn they either have to tell someone a hint, ask for a hint of their own cards, or if they know they have a match they can put it down. If they tell someone else a hint, their turn is over – do not go fish, do not put down matches. If they ask for a hint saying “do I have any 2’s?” if yes – that is it. If no, go fish. If they try to put a match down and it’s right, they get to pick up 2 more cards from the middle. If they try to put a match down and it’s wrong, they have to give the cards to the next player. Whoever has the most matches down on the table at the end wins.
2. Every player is dealt a country from the “countries” desk. Then someone randomly selects a “time period” card from the Time Period deck. Next everyone gets 3 helper cards to begin with. No one else can know the country besides the owner of that card. Everyone else has to try and figure out what country everyone else has based on the type of helper cards they play for that country during the time period. The winner is whoever played the least amount of helper cards until your country was guessed. Play until everyone’s country is figured out. The player whose country is guess first gets to still play as guessers on their turn but do not get the helper cards anymore.
3. Periodic table cards. To win you have to have all the semimetal cards (6). Everyone gets 6 cards to begin with. There are 118 cards all together, one for each element. This game could be played many ways. Basis of the game is to have all the matching cards of a property. The semimetals are easiest because there are only 6 of them.
4. Good Cop Fake Cop. Everyone receives a card saying if they are a good cop, fake cop, witness, or random bystander who knows nothing. No one knows the rule of each player, but everyone is dealt 7 cards that have statements telling that person what to do when they play the card, either accuse someone for the crime, answer interrogation questions, etc. But with the cards that are played, if it is a ‘cop only’ card, only the real cop can play it. If they are interrogation question cards that have to be answered at the time of play everyone can play it. From the story line you must answer questions honestly. The good cop is trying to pick out the fake cop, and the witnesses and random bystanders are trying not to go to jail. If the Cop takes the wrong person to jail, he is fired and loses the game and everyone else wins. If the good cop takes the fake cop to jail then the good cop wins.
5. Paleontology cards. Team work to build a dinosaur while being timed. Almost like the fireworks game, the dinosaur has to be built from the feet up or else without the body and feet the dinosaurs head will fall and break. This game will come with dinosaur plastic body parts to put together so you have to build from the bottom up. This all has to be done in a 15 minute time period.