CAGD 170 - Video Game Design

Blog Post 3

Kevin Estes and Matthew Machado of group 7 have made a new board game called "Walk the Plank." Walk the Plank is a strategy-based board game in which two players go head to head and use planning and resource management in order to win. Walk the Plank follows two pirate ships in the midst of battle, where members of each ship's crew are looking to cross a wooden plank to board and invade the opposing ship. Each player takes command of a ship, they get to recruit pirates, send them on the plank, and battle enemy pirates in an attempt to get all three of their pirates onto the enemy ship. The first person to get all of their pirates onto the opposing ship first wins the game and the numerous combinations of crews that can be made made for each game being unique and exciting.



Walk the Plank is designed for kids and adults, age 13-30, but can be played by kids of all ages. We believe that the game will resonate well with people who are fans of pirates, as well as competitors. Players who are into games such as Final Fantasy and any pirate related games are sure to enjoy Walk the Plank. 

Throughout the development of the game, group 7 had no problems with task management or task completion. Tasks were divided evenly and even though some were completed individually, a lot of the tasks were worked on together. We did this for two reasons, one being that the work gets done faster with both people working on it, and it keeps from one member of the team taking the game in a direction that the other member is not a fan of. Working on tasks together makes sure that any disagreements are discussed and compromises are made.




During our playtesting, we found that there were a few big problems that needed to be fixed in order for our game to be fun and of good quality. The main problems with "Walk the Plank" were that it was very tedious, too simple, and a little bland in terms of looks.

The first problem that came up was that our game was too tedious and that quickly ended any fun that the playtesters were having with the game. This is because the game involves two pirates walking on the plank at a time, and when they meet, both players choose either the gun, sword, or fist card, and engage in a rock, paper, scissors-type duel. Pirates must cross a 12 space plank to get to the other ship, meaning they must win around 5 duels to make it to the enemy ship. This already leads to a tedious amount of duels, but considering that both players had five pirates, it lead to a game that was far too long and far too tedious.

We implemented several changes to the game in order to fix this issue and the changes definitely helped make Walk the Plank a lot less repetitive. First, we changed the number of pirates from five to three, making sure that the game isn't too short, but isn't nearly as long as it was before the change. The other thing that we did was we shorten the length of the plank that connects the two ships from twelve spaces to eight. This reduced the number of duels pirates had to win to make it to the opposing ship which resulted in a lot less repetitive, back and forth gameplay. These two changes had huge impacts on Walk the Plank and were a big help in making our game less tedious.



Next, we tackled the problem of our game being too simple, as that was another factor that made Walk the Plank not very enjoyable for playtesters. For the first playtest, we made our game simple to make sure playtesters could understand the rules easily. This was successful, but we realized that the game, although understandable, was far too simple to be fun for more than two minutes. This was because, at the time, the only real gameplay mechanic was dueling, so players essentially played rock, paper, scissors over and over for 10 minutes. This led to a very boring game that no one would find fun.

We only implemented one change to fix this problem, but it was such a big change, that it more than solved our games issue. Instead of players having identical, non-unique pirates, we designed six different pirates that had their own names and abilities. This both made the game less simple and a lot more fun, as there was a lot more strategy and decision-making involved. Players now recruit pirates to their crew based on what abilities they see as desirable. They now choose what pirate they send out when in order to counter the opponents pirate or prevent from being countered. This change greatly helped make Walk the Plank more enjoyable and we immediately saw playtesters have more fun playing our game after this change. Adding more decision making and strategy makes the game a lot less boring and allows players to choose based on strategy or to represent themselves.



The last problem that we had with Walk the Plank was that it looked too bland and unfinished. At the first playtest, everything about our prototype was bare-bones, as everything was made with nothing more that pencil and paper. Although this didn't affect the gameplay of our game, it did have an impact on how immersive Walk the Plank is, as looks can play a big part in getting really into the game.

This was the simplest problem to solve, as all we had to do was update our prototype to make it a little more pleasing to the eye. To do this, we first cut paper to look like ships and printed out the gun, sword, and fist cards to make them look more appealing. We then Improved the look of our pirate description cards and used real pieces to represent the pirates instead of just using small pieces of paper. Although this was the simplest fix, it did make an impact, as the game is actually more enjoyable when it is more polished of a prototype. We couldn't see anymore problems with gameplay, so we figured that working on the looks of the game would be our best next step, and I believe that we were correct in that assumption.

Walk the Plank has definitely come a long way, and we have a lot more complete of a game than we started with. As I see it, we have made a fun, enjoyable, strategy-based game that anyone can have fun playing. Even though there is still a long way to go before we have a "perfect game," I believe that we have a good start and Walk the Plank is a good game and definitely my best game of the year.

Blog Post 2

Kevin Estes and Usume Jovi-Usude of Group 3 have created the game, "Pot Brownies." Pot Brownies is a hot, new, completely original game that requires expert planning and outwitting your opponent. Being a stealth game, Pot Brownies is a board game based on baking where players have different roles and objectives. One player is the college student who wants to be the number one seller of pot brownies in the dorm. To do this, they must maneuver around the map, working to sell brownies to every room on the dorm floor while avoiding the floor's RA. The other player is the RA, who spends the game trying to find and catch the college student before he or she makes it to every room. The game is aimed towards college students, as it deals with a little more mature of a topic, but still involves fun and humor that will appeal to any and all college students.

Task Completion Problems:

Throughout the entire production of "Pot Brownies," we had little to no problems with dividing work and task completion. For every assignment or task, we planned a meeting so that we could work on it together. In doing this we avoided possible problems, since if we worked on it individually, our ideas could diverge and the game could suffer as a result. Working together allowed us to discuss what changes we made, preventing us from implementing changes that one person wants and the other doesn't.

Playtesting Problems:

Unlike with task completion, playtesting revealed several problems with our game that needed addressing if we were going to have an enjoyable game.

* Long Rules Sheet

* Map too Large

* Complicated Rules

Long Rules Sheet: The first of our problems was that our rules sheet was too long, therefore, many of the playtesters did not have enough time to play the game after taking the time to read the rules. Rules for one player was one and a half pages, the other was two full pages. Complicated rules aside, the sheet itself just had too many rules that both took too long to read and was too much to remember. Our solution to this problem was quite simple, as all we had to do was remove or shorten unnecessary rules and procedures until the rules sheets were at a reasonable length. We removed any repetitions in the rules and got rid of bad rules like movement or selling restrictions. After implementing these changes, playtesters finished reading in half the time which also resulted in smother play. 

Map too Large: Another major problem with Pot Brownies was that the game board was far too big. The time constraints for the game are that it has to be played in 10-15 minutes, and when you consider the time it takes to read the rules, there is no way to finish the game. Our map was a large straight line of squares that had a perpendicular line come out every third of the line. Along with this, the map also contained 36 rooms that the college student had to sell to. This alone makes it impossible to complete the game in 15 minutes. Our reason for this was that a normal baking sheet makes 12 brownies and we wanted the player to bake at least three times.

If we wanted our game to be able to be completed in 15 minutes, we would have to make some big changes. To do this, we first scrapped the original map for a new, smaller one. After some testing, we decided to keep the original design, but use less squares per line for both length and width. This allowed players to maneuver around the map a lot quicker. The other part of the solution was to reduce the number of rooms from 36 to just 15. This drastically reduces game time, as less time will be spent selling and the game can be ended much faster. In wanting to maintain the baking aspect, we ditched realism and make baking only give you five brownies so players still have to bake at least 3 times.

Complicated Rules: Our last, major problem that needed addressing in order to make our game enjoyable was that a lot of our rules were far too complicated. With the time constraint, players has to read and understand the rules in less than 5 minutes, and therefore need to be rather simple. Many of the rules we had weren't simple, and playtesters would either forget them when playing or just need to read the rules over and over again in an attempt to understand.

The solution, of course, was to rewrite our rules sheets, removing unnecessary any and all unnecessary rules and simplifying important, but complicated rules. Some of these rules were about movement, as my partner didn't like the idea of players going from room to room so easily and wanted movement rules to prevent that. These were far too confusing and were all removed, making the movement as simple as possible. Another issue was with the selling, as there were too many rules on conditions for when you can sell and procedures on what to do to sell to a room. College student players were always confused when trying to sell and would more often than not do something incorrectly. To fix this, we simplified it as much as possible, all you have to do is be in front of a room to sell, selling takes up a turn and you leave a checkmark on the room after the sale. In doing this, players more easily understood what to do and how to do it, both with moving around the map and selling to rooms.

With all of these changes, Pot Brownies was a lot better and easier to understand. Further playtesting confirmed that our game functions a lot better and it is now more balanced and enjoyable than before these changes. Although it won't be a published game anytime soon, Pot Brownies is a fun, enjoyable game that any college student will like.     

Blog Post 1

Supreme Solitaire is a new take on original solitaire created by Kevin Estes and Lorenzo Nagel of Group 8. In Supreme Solitaire, players work to create 13 victory piles, one for each card rank, with all for suits for the card starting with spades, then diamonds, then clubs, and finally hearts. The game starts with 5 piles of 5 cards each with only the top card face up. The player then uses the 5 piles and the reserve pile to find and organize the suits of each card rank. Like normal solitaire, supreme solitaire is a single player game that uses a normal 52 card deck. The target audience for Supreme Solitaire is people in their twenties or thirties. The types of players that would like our game are people who like games based on luck and those who aren't a fan of fast-paced games.

 

     Group 8 went into the playtesting session both nervous that our game wouldn't be as good as other games, and hopeful that we would get good information on how to improve Supreme Solitaire. Our game ended up doing fairly well in terms of quality, but we did get a lot of good data on how to make it much better. After leaving the class, Lorenzo and I had good ideas in mind of how to take Supreme Solitaire to the next level.

     The first big issue with Supreme Solitaire that the playtesting showed us was confusion with the rules and rule sheet. Most playtesters would spend excess time reading and rereading the rule sheet as they couldn't easily pick up on the rules. To fix this problem, group 8 has thought of 2 different solutions that, when implemented, should aid in the confusion of the players. One solution is to use more common terminology instead of ones used by the official solitaire rules. We have learned from our playtesters that words like "tableau" and "foundation" can be very confusing for players if they aren't familiar with those words. As a fix, we shall replace these words with easier, more frequently used words such as victory piles instead of foundations and play piles instead of tableau. The other issue was the rules themselves. Only one of the four playtesters understood how to play the game, and that was after some verbal assistance in understanding how to play. If we are able to answer those questions in the rule sheet, anyone will be able to play. Some of these things include putting more clarity on the fact that you should start out looking for spades, that there are 13 victory piles, and on how stacking on the play piles works. We believe that if both of these fixes are implemented, Supreme Solitaire will be a lot easier to understand and there will be a lot less confusion from players.

     After some additional testing of our game after class, we figured out that the likelihood of winning a game of Supreme Solitaire was actually quite low, as spades are very necessary and if a spade is at the bottom of a play pile, your chances of winning the game go down considerably. Therefore, Lorenzo and I decided that some rules will need to be changed. We discussed that the rules must make it easier for the player to win the game, but we wanted to maintain some difficulty and challenge to the game. 

     The big problem that needs changing is the specificity of suit order, as this is the thing that makes most games unwinnable. Our new rule will make it so that instead of stacking ranks in order of spades, diamonds, clubs, then hearts, players only have to stack ranks in order of a black suit, a red suit, the other black suit, then the other red suit. This will make it a lot less likely that the game is unwinnable and therefore with make Supreme Solitaire more fun to play. The only issue with this is that it might make the game too easy, as almost every game is now winnable and therefore it is  unlucky if you lose rather than lucky if you win, which is a lot less enjoyable for the players. We wanted to keep the idea of black red black red, but we still wanted to add something that would keep some of the difficulty of our game. The solution to this was a timer. A timer solves our problem perfectly, as we can keep our new rule, but the timer will introduce a new resource that will make Supreme Solitaire more intense and fun. After some testing, we concluded that we will implement both of the new rules, the thirteen victory piles being in order of black suit, red suit, red suit, black suit, and a three minute timer.

     Along with adding rules, we also have to add rules to make Supreme Solitaire a more balanced game. Lorenzo and I decided that we will remove stacking in the play piles all together, as that is not needed. We will also change up the rules so that only when nothing else can be played can you move face up cards on the play piles to an empty spot where an entire play pile has been used.

     With these notes and changes, you now have a new and improved Supreme Solitaire. The game is still fun and challenging, but is now aimed towards players who like fast-paced games with little luck involved. Group 8 believes that this version of Supreme Solitaire will be more intriguing and enjoyable than the old one and we hope to continue improving our game to create a fun experience for all players.