Week 8

Question Set 1

1. What is the difference between a game designer and a game developer?
   • A game designer’s skill revolves around the game’s aesthetics. This includes concepts, plots, settings and textures for a game. A game developer writes the code and oversees the technicality of a game. Additionally, they implement the game designer’s concepts into the game.
2. What commonly occurs during the game development process?
   • In the development phase, the game rules and mechanics are established. All of the final touches are made, and the rough edges are smoothed. When all is complete, the final game submission is ready to market by the developer.
3. What are the challenges of balancing a game?
   • The primary challenge is one of numbers. Larger numbers of components create exponentially large numbers of possible interactions, with the potential to have an unbalanced interaction. The second challenge is the idea of “costing,” and how to deal with its complexity. Making a move, or using components always has a cost.
4. What should every player of your game believe? Why?
   • A player must believe they have some reasonable chance to win until the game ends. This makes the game fun, as players have a goal to work towards.
5. How can you avoid stealing players fun?
   • Don’t kick a player out before the game is over, never create a king chooser, don’t reward the leader, include inherent deceleration, and a player’s ability to influence other players should fall between “none” and “lots.” Finally, don’t force a reverse.
6. What 10 maxims should you follow when writing rules?
   • Use no intermediary terminology
   • Use real words
   • Make no more work than necessary
   • Add flavor
   • Make your text no smarter than your reader
   • Discard rules that can’t be written
   • Take a breath
   • Go easy on the rules
   • Get your final version play tested
   • Fix it in the FAQ

Question set 2

1. How has play testing changed your game?
   • Witnessing other people play my game helps me understand what I need to adjust. Whether it be the rules, or the design, criticism is always appreciated. In the end, I get to make my game something for everyone to enjoy.
2. Who from class would you like to play test your next game or version 2 of your first game?
   • If I would have to choose, I think Evelyn should play test my game. She is really good at analyzing a problem, or quick to pick out something that doesn’t make sense. She has critiqued my board games which has helped me further develop them.
3. Who is the audience for your game?
   • For most of my games, I’d say my target audience is my age group. I make my games complicated enough for older audiences to understand, not something a child would find easy. Additionally, I enjoy playing games with my friends, so my games typically pertain to my generation.
4. Who should play test your game outside of class?
   • My friends, because I can trust them to be blunt with me. My friends aren’t afraid to tell me if something is wrong, so they will straight up tell me anything I need to know. Even yet, they can help brainstorm different concepts they’d like to see in my game.

Gallery Grippers Game Review

1. What was the most frustrating moment or aspect of what you just played?
   • There is a lot of information to consider. Everything can be a bit confusing at first, which is why the rules need additional clarification.
2. What was your favorite moment or aspect of what you just played?
   • I liked the challenge of trying to make it to the exit. When I have a ton of paintings, I get nervous I will get caught when trying to make it back to the exit. This adds some suspense to the game.
3. Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn’t?
   • I wanted to use my cards more often or put them to better use. The only time you use the cards is when you set off an alarm or if you get caught by security. Maybe there could be a way to get cards with different powerups?
4. If you had a magic want to wave, and you could change, add, or remove anything from the experience, what would it be?
   • Add a way to mess with other players. Maybe a way that we can either help each other out or use cards to take paintings from other players.
5. What should be improved with the next version?
   • There should be more established rules, with more clarification on cards and tiles. I think that the math system should be more clarified, because it was tricky for me to understand it at first.
6. Describe the game in 3 words.
   • Challenging, interactive, intriguing