Finale

We are all wrapping up what we need to do for our game. Last class we had playtesting so everyone besides one member in a group went around to play other groups’ games. One person in each group stayed to explain the rules and directions to the players. Peter from our group stayed back to answer any questions, and ask for feedback within our game.

The first game I played during playtest was my personal favorite. It was called “Espionage” and had a detective theme. It was fun matching cards and collecting pairs, even though I would get mini attacks when all of the players had to turn their cards and make pairs. The only downside was when we were not able to make pairs for a while, and when we had to think of a detective. It was tough thinking of a detective, and both my opponent player and I were stumped by it. Also, I did not like the action cards as much.

“Kitchen Chaos” was the second game I playtested. I thought the game was really creative, and can definitely see the hard work the group members put into it. It also made me really hungry because I did not have breakfast that day. However, it seemed complicated and the creators only seemed to be winning the game. In addition, the game was really based on luck, which can be a disadvantage for the players. It personally made me not want to play. Overall, the design and the presentation of the game were brilliant.

The last game I played was “Stop N Go.” The thought of the game was good but I did not enjoy it as much as the rest of the games. The game was simple but was not clear enough, making it complicated. It was nice playtesting everyone’s games because it kind of gave us an idea of are progress on our game. The major disadvantage and criticism we received for our game was the presentation because our playtesting cards were in black and white. Color always seems to be more alluring to players.

It is exams week and everyone is busy, but we are all trying to finish our tasks on time, and making our game as perfect as possible. Everyone completed their tasks on time and uploaded pictures of it on our Facebook group. I was the only one to submit mines late since I was in charge of the box and I didn’t have glue so had to borrow it from a friend. Since Peter is the only one with a car, he went to Kinko’s to laminate our cards. Nick made the final touches on the rules and created the reference cards. We were notified about the reference cards in our last class. The reference cards are to assist the players while playing because there will not be a member from each group always explaining the rules. Therefore, reference cards would assist the players when in doubt. Tomorrow is our final presentation for our group, we are hoping for the best! 

-Hardi Shah

Play-testing the Game

It was the fourth week of working on our project and we were still unsure of the game’s ability to function. The fact that we weren’t able to develop an understandable yet involved set of rules was disheartening for our entire group. Even though every class would begin with us reaching a conclusion, towards the end we would end up doubting ourselves after Professor Parks made his commentary. I expected nothing more from this class but to leave disheartened and unsuccessful at developing a well functioning game. However, this week was different.

After making the necessary adjustments to all the flaws, it was time to test the functionality of the game. We were finally able to develop a system for scoring points that did not involve the player doing calculus, in a sense, or anything complicated. I was interested in seeing how this new system would work so I impatiently dealt the cards as required by the rules. As we played “R U Serious?” for the first time, the first round went surprisingly well. Everyone had to initially pick up a “Building card” followed by a decision of either choosing an “Action card” or two “RU Express” tokens, which was a form of currency. I liked knowing that this game didn’t completely revolve around luck and chance.

Play-testing this game allowed us to catch more flaws that we would not have noticed before. As we moved onto the third round of our game, we realized that we needed to add many more “Building cards” to the deck. We started running out of cards so we had to start all over again. I feel that my experience of play-testing the game would’ve been different had I known that there wasn’t a limitation on the amount of “Building cards”.  I ended up playing the game safely and conservatively rather than actually taking any risks. I was worried that we would run out of cards so I avoided doing anything that could potentially cause us to restart the entire game. As we played a few more rounds we continuously made adjustments to the rules. We realized that there should be a limitation on the amount of cards a player holds in their hand. We also realized that the majority of our “Action cards” consisted of negative consequences, which resulted in having everyone choosing the currency. Upon this realization we decided to add more positive “Action cards” that would actually benefit the player rather than just harm another player or potentially themselves.

Ultimately, the game was headed in a good direction. The rules were easy to comprehend and if a player was confused at first everything ended up falling into place after a few rounds. I was extremely nervous about Professor Parks visiting our table. I was secretly worried that he would catch a potential flaw that we were not able to. However, after going over the basis of the game with him, he completely understood everything and did not make any negative commentary. This uplifted all of our spirits and relieved us of all our built up stress from the previous weeks. We all left class that week as happy game developers!

-Pinal Patel