Author: ronan

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Pollinator 2.0

Objective

As a worker bee your objective is to collect as much pollen as you can for the queen bee to then turn into honey for your hive. Make the most honey as a bee, and you win the game!

Set Up

Place the board within easy reach of all players. Shuffle and place the objective cards in a pile next to the board. 

Each player gets all of their honeycomb tiles according to the color of their bee, and keeps them next to the board. They won’t be used until you make honey. 

Each player is then dealt 3 Objective cards, but keeps 2. Those will dictate how much pollen you need to collect to make honey. 

Place bees on either black half hexagon on the hive. Players may start on whichever side of the board they choose.

To Begin

The player who is most allergic to bees goes first. Play then continues clockwise around the board. 

On your turn you may do one of the following: 

  • Flying: If a player decides to fly in any direction they must first roll the weather dice. The weather affects your flight as a bee. Then roll the d12 to determine how many spaces you can move. You must move the entirety of your dice roll, and you can not return to the same flower your bee left from. You may move backward and forward (as well as use shortcuts) so long as the rolled number is reached. 

You must reach a flower by exact dice roll count in order to collect the pollen. 

  • Make Honey: Once your bee has collected enough pollen to fulfill your Objective card you must travel back to the hive to convert your pollen to honey. After arrival at the hive by exact dice roll count (either black hexagon will do) a player must show their objective card fulfilled to the other players, and place their honeycomb in the hive. 

Only one objective card may be converted to honey at a time. If a player has fulfilled 2 objective cards, then they must spend their next turn making honey without moving. Discard all pollen. 

  • Draw New Objective Cards: On your turn you may also draw 3 more objective cards, but you may only keep 2. The others should be put in the discard pile. A player may have 5 objectives at a time. 

Keep in mind some objective cards may be better than others.

Bee Bumping

If another bee lands on the same flower as you, then you must combine all the pollen both players have collected and split it evenly (rounding down). Bees are very good neighbors and helpers! 

Weather Dice

– Sunny Day: Perfect flying weather, move your normal dice roll

– Windy Day: Flying is a little rough, move your normal dice roll and then backward one space

– Rainy Day: Flying is making your wings damp and slow, move half your dice roll

Pollen Max Out

A single bee can only carry 35% of its body weight in pollen. Therefore, a player can only carry 2 objective cards worth of pollen before returning to the hive to exchange it for honey.    

Ending the Game

The game ends when the hive is completely filled with honey! The player with the most honey made wins the game. 

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Pollinator V1 – Game Maker Notes

What questions did your players have?

Are all the flowers the same pollen? Can I make honey when I arrive at the hive? Can I collect pollen when I land on a flower or do I need to wait for my next turn? Did you know that flowers produce all different kinds of honey depending on their pollen? Do the honeycomb in the hive count as spaces?

How quickly did they learn?

Fairly quickly, Pollinator is not meant to be very complicated.

What kinds of interactions did the players have?

Generally lots of discussion revolving around left over pollen, bee dancing, movement, and pollen sharing from the bee bumping (needs fine tuned).

What confused the players?

Leftover pollen, how much pollen they could actually carry because of the mismatch of objectives with collected pollen. What was allowed to be part of turn actions. The usual.

What made the players excited?

The idea of needing to complete the movement of your dice roll instead of having it cut off because you get to a flower.

What did your players enjoy doing?

The players enjoyed breaking my game to the best of their abilities and did a fine job. Players enjoyed the general theme and objective of the game.

Did any aspects of the game frustrate players?

That all the pollen was different, and there was so much left over. There were some unanswered questions that needed addressed in the rule book. Ames didn’t like that he couldn’t double stack honey or get bonus points for having a bunch of leftover pollen when arriving back at the hive. Not having more than one entrance and exit to the hive was frustrating for players.

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Pollinator

Objective

As a worker bee your objective is to collect as much pollen as you can for the queen bee to then turn into honey for your hive. Make the most honey as a bee, and you win the game!

Set Up

Place the board within easy reach of all players. Then keep each color of pollen balls in separate piles. Place the objective cards in a pile next to the board. 

Each player gets all of their honeycomb tiles according to the color of their bee, and keeps them next to the board. They won’t be used until you make honey. 

Each player is then dealt 3 Objective cards, but keeps 2. Those will dictate which flowers you visit as a bee.  

Place all worker bees on the START circle right outside the hive. 

To Begin

The player who is most allergic to bees goes first. Play then continues clockwise around the board. 

On your turn you may do one of the following: 

Begin Flying to a Flower: If a player decides to head for a flower they must first roll the weather dice. The weather affects your flight as a bee. Then roll the d10 to determine how many spaces you can move. *See weather effects*

Collect Pollen: If your bee is on a flower you may roll to collect pollen from the flower. The number on the dice determines how much pollen you gather from the flower. 

Make Honey: Once your bee has collected enough pollen to fulfill your Objective card you must travel back to the hive (START) to convert your pollen to honey. Once on the START a player may show their objective card fulfilled to the other players, and place their honeycomb in the hive. 

Draw New Objective Cards: On your turn you may also draw 3 more objective cards, but you may only keep 2. The others should be put in the discard pile. A player may only hold 3 objective cards at a time. 

Each action is a turn. FOR EXAMPLE if you land on a flower when your bee moves, you must wait till your next turn to then collect pollen. 

Bee Bumping

If another bee lands on the same flower as you, and you have collected pollen you must split the pollen equally between you. Bees are good neighbors, and often bump into each other to help share resources. 

Pollen Max Out

A single bee can only carry 35% of its body weight in pollen. Therefore, a player can only carry 2 objective cards worth of pollen.    

Weather Effects

  • 1 – Sunny Day: Perfect flying weather, move your normal dice roll
  • 2 – Windy Day: Flying is a little rough, move your normal dice roll and then backward one space
  • 3 – Rainy Day: Flying is making your wings damp and slow, move half your dice roll
  • 4 – Sunny Day: Perfect flying weather, move your normal dice roll

Ending the Game

The game ends when the hive is completely filled with honey! The player with the most honey made wins the game. 

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Can Education Be Fun?

I mean, yeah. More than that, the reading made some really good points. I remember being in school and ‘playing’ typing games in which the faster and more accurate you typed, the more points and goals you accomplished (not fun, but I can type without looking at my keyboard now). Had my teacher covered my computer keys, and given me a game in which I could type my own responses or manipulate the game in my own way instead of typing what was in front of me my typing education would have been more fun. I don’t think I would have ever thought to make a math game about being part of a rock band (but that’s why we come to college). I feel like using the authors 5 points will help me better develop some of my educational game goals, and help me think outside the box. No more chocolate covered broccoli.

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Got Cats

Objective

Work to successfully manage a cat colony, by saving as many cats as possible. Do this by traveling through the feral cat colony and using action cards to help cats you encounter. The player with the most cats rescued at the end, is the winner.

Pieces

  • Games Board
  • Tiles
  • Action Cards
  • Cats
  • Meeples

Set Up

Shuffle and place all tiles grass side up in the corresponding squares on the game board. Choose a colored meeple to play as. Place the pile Action Cards next to the game board.

Getting Started

Each player begins by picking up 5 actions cards to keep in their hand. The player who owns the most cats goes first. In the event of a tie, play rock paper scissors. The first player will then be the first to pick a tile on the game board to land on. Flip over the tile chosen and take action based upon the tile instructions.

Players continue to take turns picking tiles and solving problems, until all the tiles have been flipped, and the cat colony is successfully managed.

On Your Turn

On your turn pick one of the 64 tile spaces that does not already contain a meeple/has not been flipped and flip that tile over. Read the instruction, then place your meeple on top. Your meeple is now stuck on that tile until action has been taken to resolve the tile.

A player must use Action Card to help resolve the problems on the tiles. A player may use a total of 2 action cards per turn. If you don’t have the required action cards for the tile, you may discard up to 2 Action Cards and draw new ones, those new action cards can’t be used until your next turn.

Once the tile has been resolved, you may move to a new tile. A player can keep resolving tiles until they either don’t have the required Action, or run out of their 5 Action Cards.

At the end of your turn, draw as many Action cards needed to have 5 in your hand.

Cat Tiles

If a tile flipped that contains cat’s you helped rescue, collect a cat piece.

*Roughest of Drafts to Just Post for Now*

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Week 4 Game Thoughts

Crossing the Bridge

I loved a lot of the mechanics in this game. I loved that there could be a traffic jam, and that the probability of crossing safely was uneven. However, I feel like I didn’t take the correct message away from the game. As a “serious” game, it felt too silly. Honestly, I feel like the art had something to do with that. I enjoyed playing the game immensely, but it felt weird to like a game about trafficking contraband. Maybe I’m also the issue.

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Week 3 Game Thoughts

Dumb Ways To Die

Honestly, not a huge fan. It’s a fun game and an interesting concept, but I get annoyed after playing for so long. I don’t think the point of the game is replay-ability, but I can’t see getting addicted to it. I’m glad it seemed to serve it’s intended purpose and probably even made money.

Fake it to Make it

Just seems like a way for kids to learn how to make money on the internet a little too early, but what do I know. I like the lesson in how easy it is to propagate and interact with fake news. I just don’t think a game like that is going to find the audience it wants to impact.

Cards Against Calamity

I had my wife play this game and her response was “I can’t play games like this I’m a theorist and capitalism doesn’t work, you’ll run out of money” so I think this game can be improved. If you play this game based upon making choices you feel are best, and not paying attention to mechanics (Max) I feel like you get something different out of the game. That’s probably the point.

Cast Your Vote

Too long, too much reading. No teenager in their right mind is going to learn the mechanics of voting and educating yourself doing something so mindless and tedious at the same time. This game only served to enrage my wife which was pretty funny. I guess now it’s my job to make a better game for kids to learn voting from since this one sucked.

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5 Issues

  1. Inflation – no one actually knows how this works
  2. Animal Rescue – save more cats (unless your Ames)
  3. Prostitution – give sex workers a union
  4. Retirement Homes
  5. Addiction
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Game Thoughts 1/23

McDonald’s Game

I’m not going to lie, I don’t think I ever even figured out how exactly to beat this game or if I even have the mechanics down correctly. I played like 5 more times after class, and just couldn’t beat the system. Maybe it’s because I truly just hate capitalism and not because I’m just really bad at a game. It obviously frustrated me enough that I played in my free time, but when a game infuriates me I will just quit (this quitting attitude does not apply to all areas of my life, just with things that waste my time). I would like to also add that this game did not in any way sway my attitude towards McDonald’s and that I did in fact have a Big Mac just last night.

Mo-not-poly

I played this game as the character in the 1% tax bracket, and I hated it. I felt horribly guilty for every action I took, and the obscene amount of money I acquired throughout the game. I hated the limited player interaction because I was the only one who was able to enjoy playing the game at all. It’s important for games to make individuals uncomfortable like that. Not everyone who played as my character would have had a problem with that, and I think that says a lot about a person. I thought it was an absolutely ingenious way to make a statement using a game we hate to love already.

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Infinite Games

Knick Knack Attack

Take any knick knack from your house that is destined to sell for 50 cents at your estate sale, and take it with you to someone else’s house. The goal is to discreetly exchange your knick knack for one you like better. The only rule is the Vampire Rule. You can’t exchange your knick knack for a new one unless you were INVITED into the house with the new knick knack. No breaking and entering. You can play knick knack attack literally any time you want for your whole life.

Westminster Way

To play you must hold open the door for at least one person per day. If you don’t manage to hold a door open for at least one individual in a given day, you’ve lost the game.

Egg Slap

A game we frequent at Starbucks. If you are working the oven and receive an order for a breakfast sandwich with no egg you must remove it, and slap another employee of your choice with the egg. It’s a gamble because it’s rare to get that order. It’s infinite so long as I’m slaving at Starbucks and passing on the tradition.

Never ending story

A game in which a group of friends create a basis for a story and send it to each other to constantly add new chapters and adventures. Like a never ending comic strip that friends continuously create together maybe via google docs.

Give Graciously

A game in which you always keep a bag of necessities in your car for homeless people, which you continuously give and refill until there are no more homeless people. The more bags you give out the more points you get.

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Game Thoughts 1/9

Flowers

I like the idea of the game and I understand why people play it. Flowers has beautiful graphics and animations. The sounds and soundtrack are soothing and pleasant. Personally, I just don’t play games like that. I find I analyze them more as a piece of art and not as a video game.

Journey

I was far more interested in this game than flowers. I loved that there seemed to be more mechanics to learn and master with the controller. For some reason I felt like I was achieving more in Journey than I was in Flowers. I also associated the Journey game with other similar games I have played which I think made me ask more questions about how they manipulated the environment differently.

Calvin Ball

I did not like this. No thank you.

Cow Clicker

Cow Clicker took me back to 2009 freshman year of high school. I thought it was a stupid waste of time then, and I think it is now. When I think about the amount of time people waste on things like Cow Clicker, I don’t doubt the inevitable extinction of the human race. That’s all.

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Collecting Game Ideas

Buzz Buzz

Buzz Buzz is a game where you play as a bumble bee and travel around a board of flowers collecting pollen. Once a player collects enough pollen they can make “honey”. Whoever makes the most honey is the winner of the game. (sounds simple but I’ve been playing with this idea for months).

Ghostly Silence

Ghostly silence is a game in which players must find a way to work together through the haunted house finding and trapping ghosts (ghost catcher would be handy). Talking about the game or ‘making noise’ in the house will trigger the ‘haunting’ deterring players from catching ghosts. The game ends when all of the ghosts in the house have been collected. I’d like ghost locations to change each playthrough (like Clue).

Cryptid Proof

Cryptid Proof is a game where players travel around a board with different cryptid locations with the goal of ‘photographing’ and proving each cryptid exists. Collect photos of each cryptid in order to win the game.

Library Prestige

Library Prestige is a card game where players each attempt to collect the most prestigious books that the can to fill their libraries (for fun we could put one Gutenberg Bible card in the deck). The player with the most amount of prestigious books is the winner.

Build-a-Zoo

Build a zoo is a game in which players collect different zoo animals in order to create the best zoo possible. The player with the biggest and best zoo with the most animals would be the winner of the game.

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Kobold Questions

What is the difference between a “working” and a “display” prototype? What is required of a working prototype, and what might cause one to fail?

A working prototype is intended to do just that, work. It is the version that will be used by playtesters and potential publishers. A display prototype has finished art and components and is intended for distributors and chain buyers. Generally the display prototypes are very beautiful and may posses unfinished rules but have graphics that attract interest.

Ways for your prototype to fail:

  • Not supplying all the pieces so that the game is playable
  • Not testing the game with the amount of players you say your game works for (3-5 is the sweet spot)
  • Not updating the rule book after making changes to the game
  • Adding components you haven’t playtested and then sending to a publisher

A working playtest must be playable, legible, and user friendly

What makes for a good prototype according to Dale Yu?

The first impression your game gives off is very important. Everything should be neatly organized and decently pretty. Having easy to understand, well written rules is also very important for your prototype. Having a full playable copy is

What advice from Richard Levy will help you pitch your game? Where might you pitch your game?

Before pitching a game it’s important to do your homework and research about different companies. Figure out if individuals have had good experiences with some companies. You should know your game history type, market, and the interests of companies you’d like to submit to.

Sell yourself well, and take rejection as “not now”. Some really amazing games have been rejected many times. Do not let rejection shake your confidence; however, you also need to control your ego.

Pitch ideas when companies are ready to listen, and have a pretty solid prototype. Make multiple submissions if you can, and limit the use of agents unless they have some pretty good success.

What do publishers look for in a game?

The fun factor, player interaction, immediacy of play, strategy, an interesting theme, an immersive experience, interrelated theme and rules, solid rules and mechanics, innovative rules, innovative components, easily manufactured components, compatibility with other products, the correct target market, a good title, expansion potential, multi-language capability, easy demoing, and collectability (sometimes).

So just a short list of things…

What makes a good set of Rules?

A good overview to grab buyers interest, a list of components, a well written set up, a definition of what gameplay looks like, different card types, a definition of the endgame and what winning looks like, examples of play/strategies/hints/optional rules/game variants, and last but not least credits.

Describe the best game you’ve made this semester in 250 words? Follow Michelle Nephew’s outline.

“I’m Cookin'” is a collaborative and competitive game where players collect ingredients in order to “cook” recipes. Ingredients are tiles that get pulled out of a “shopping bag” and recipes are cards with required ingredients and the point value indicated. Currently the game supports 3-5 players who each choose a character to play as that have certain attributes (for example “The Chef” gets a bonus point for every recipe with no substitutions). Players may trade ingredients or put their own spin on recipes by subbing in ingredients to complete a recipe. The aim is getting creative in order to cook enough meals to get a total of 15 points first. The ideal age range would be 10+ with the game taking an average of 60 minutes.

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Family Playtest Feedback

Not many individuals can say their family are great playtest critics, but I’m lucky enough to have critical and opinionated parents who never let me down in that regard. The game was well received and below are the edited responses to playtest questions (I edited out all the competition and yelling).

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

Dad: Deciding which recipe to choose

Laura: I liked the whole game, except when mom decided she needed to “fix” it

Mom: The playing board, I wanted an area to actually work on recipes instead of only having a pantry/fridge

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

Dad: yelling “I’M COOKIN'” when I got to cook

Laura: It was like a card game version of Cookin’ Mama which is one of my favorite games

Mom: Cooking and trading ingredients

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

Dad: Keep extra ingredients

Laura: No

Mom: Work my recipe on a space designated to do so

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

Dad: Trade ingredients without the other person having to agree. (I’m imagining some sort of force feeding? He just really needed cake batter and didn’t have it)

Laura: Idk, probably nothing. I like this game because I feel like it also teaches basics of ingredients for the actual recipes

Mom: My husband is too competitive

*collective yes on playing again*

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Kobold Questions Part 3

What is the difference between a game designer and a game developer?

Game designers come up with prototypes for games where as developers will take those prototypes and polish them to make a marketable version of the game ( and usually a better version). Game development is kind of a hardcore editing stage. Playtesting is done to try and break the game using as many strategies as possible (even extreme ones). Developers make sure that rules are crystal clear, concise, and easy to follow as that will be the only communication you have with the game player. Blind-playtesting is also a part of the development stage, ending with theme and titling of the game.

What are the challenges of balancing a game?

One challenge is choosing the amount of components to have in a game. The more components generally the more complicated a game can become making balance harder to achieve. Using “costing” can help to balance a game. This just means using components of a game have different costs that sometimes players don’t even think about. The trouble with costing is you want to make sure to keep the balance by having better cards “cost” more.

You always want your players to feel and hope that they have a chance of winning until the very end of the game. Games with elimination are boring for players who get kicked out quickly.

Avoid stealing players fun (1) no elimination (2) monarchies are dead and kingmaking sucks (3) don’t reward the Max’s of the world (4) inherent deceleration that is not noticeable (5) sweet spot for player interaction (6) move someone backwards at your own risk

What are the challenges of balancing a game?

(1) Don’t use intermediary terminology (2) use real words if it’s an attack just call it that (3) don’t make more work than necessary (4) add a little spice, but not too much spice (5) don’t make your rules smarter than your audience (6) if you can’t explain a rule, don’t write it (7) make your rules easy to read and comprehend stylistically (8) make the game easy to look at (9) playtest your final version! (10) Fix it in the FAQ

How has play testing changed your game?

I’m really in love with my game “I’m Cookin” which is funny to me because it was a last minute 2am idea I never thought I would develop. Playtesting has helped fix a lot of the mechanical errors as well as the vitally important pacing error of my game. My game has gone through 2 playtests which has been unbelievably helpful in starting to complete a more polished prototype of the game. I wouldn’t be where I’m at without playtesting.

I have a hard time picking who I would like to play my game. Another blind test with people who have never played would be helpful. However, having someone who has played each newly developed version is something I think would be a great perspective.

I think the audience for my game ends up being like teens/adults. I just don’t think kids who are too young to have started attempting to cook would enjoy the game at all. Although, it’s basically a matching game at it’s core so who knows.

Who should play test your game outside of class?

I would like my friends at the Four Horsemen to blind playtest my cooking game at some point once I get the polished version. I think have a group of gamers who usually come to the mall for D&D play and drink chocolate milk play my game would be an interesting perspective.

Usually though my family and friends are helping playtest my games outside of class. My wife is my number one play tester (not usually because she wants to be) which is great because she’ll give me her unbiased opinion even if I cry into my cat’s belly later.