30/05/16 Blog Entry

This is my final blog post for this module, and the main tasks I worked towards today was finishing my digital demonstration, as well as my 20 minute presentation/ evaluation. I’ve worked to plan following my sprints and burndown chart, and have finished all of my musts and some of my shoulds which I listed at the start of this project. So this last entry will focus on me evaluating what I’ve produced rather than developing it,

I finished my digital demonstration this week, using my previously created rulebook as a form of reference for the video, with it acting as a basic ‘tutorial’ for the game. It clocks in at around 1 minute 40 seconds long, which allows it to fit into my project presentation as an extra to help keep the audience’s attention on me, without it dragging out for too long and becoming monotonous and/or tedious. The video also contains very cartoony and goofy sound effects, which enforce the family friendly target audience of the game and really embodies the weird and wacky character designs. As explained by (Harrell, 2014), the audio is a commonly overlooked element when watching videos, and can really make or break a viewing experience as it can completely break the immersion of a video if done incorrectly. Because of this however I spent a great deal of time getting it just right to really make the experience that more memorable to the viewer.

I feel the main advantage of me doing the digital demonstration instead of the game, is that the video will be able to more closely resemble the board game. Compared to me programming in all of these functions that the real game has into software like Unity or Unreal 4, instead I can make a video showcasing how to play the game, in a much more interactive and engaging way (using text boxes and animation frames/ tweens to move my digital images), allowing me to explain the fundamental purpose of my game in a more entertaining and snappy way, than actually getting people to gather round to play it in my presentation. Here’s a screenshot of my video below:

I also created my presentation in PowerPoint, which functions as my evaluation. In this I covered every topic I covered during the project listed in the assignment brief (such as my planning, proposal and research), as well as the development my game (and the other games I gained inspiration from in my gameplay journal). I ended the presentation with what I feel did and didn’t go well, evaluating all of my points instead of just describing them, in order to take my presentation to a university level.

Now my production has come to a close, I finished and wrapped-up all of my project planning and management tools to reflect my current progress. I added the remaining points to my burndown charts (meaning that I’ve finished all of my musts and some of my shoulds), and also my sprint backlogs. I’ve also updated my task board (available online at https://trello.com/b/dgVnY8JY/adam-b-s-project-task-board ) with the objectives I’ve completed for the project, and lastly I updated my risk management plan with all of the actions taken (like dated examples of my regular file backups). This means all of my project management tools are finished and reflecting my current progress, and I’ve managed to complete my project on-time with the help of all these resources. The various dates listed on my sprints, as well as having the whole project broken down into separate tasks meant that I could plan out the various job I would do each week, without overwhelming myself or leaving it to the last minute. My burndown chart in particular still has 100 remaining points for the ‘everything’ section, however I’m fully up-to date with my musts and should one (both shown below).

Overall though I feel the project went well and I’m very proud of what I’ve created in this relatively short time-span, as also evaluated inside my presentation. There were a few issues here and there, such as me having to learn how to use software like Illustrator from a very basic level and also having my game rules constantly be changing, but overall I managed to overcome them using my preparation/ planning tools, as well as using methods I learned in the professional practises assignment. If I could do the project again I’d like to focus my time into improving my character artwork, as with some more personal development into my skills they could have looked even better. Likewise if we had more time for this project I would have programmed a digital game too which I was unable to achieve for these last 4 weeks, in order to branch out my learnt skills further and to a higher level too.

26/05/16 Blog Entry

This sprint entry marks the last week of the final project before the hand-in. I kickstarted this blog entry with my project supervisor meeting, and while I’m progressing along well, there are a few amendments to be made regarding my burndown chart and game rules. I showed Sue my current burndown chart which includes every must, should and could, and she suggested I make two burndown charts instead: one chart outlining all of the points for my musts/should for the physical game and digital demonstration (which I’ll be focusing my workload on), and to also keep my current one showing every sprint. This way I can break down my individual tasks even further, and talk about them in relation to my project management at the end of the project. Here are the two updated burndown charts exhibiting my current progress, with the musts + physical shoulds at the top and everything at the bottom:

As you can see from these charts, I’m very much on-track with my progress regarding my musts (with the last week being incomplete as it’s for my digital demonstration). The second chart however shows points for a lot of possible mechanics as shoulds and coulds in the digital game which I may not have even made in the first place. This makes it look like I’m behind schedule, but I’m not.

I also conducted a final playtest for the board game in lesson today for one last piece of peer feedback. Overall the general reaction to the game was much more positive, and Jason in particular stated ‘it was a lot more enjoyable and engaging to the last version of the game, the different characters made every player feel important with their own job role.’ Jon also said ‘I loved the characters, it’s a vast improvement from last week and feels more personal. I would however like a more diplomatic approach to winning the game (like bartering and trading)’. Isaac especially enjoyed it, and though the game was generally a lot less monotonous to play than last week now his previous suggestions have been applied.

Overall the game received a very positive reception from my fellow students, with the general consensus being that it’s a fun game to play. The main piece of feedback for improvement I received was regarding a trade system, where if I wanted to make a more strategic and hardcore game I could include resources and/or money to trade as well as having health tokens. Overall though I’m happy to see I finally created a quality product outlining all of the aspects I listed in my proposal’s quality plan, with the 5 main goals I wanted to achieve. I will now list these below and how I met them:

• “Be able to keep a player’s interest throughout the game”- The game’s variety with the random chance cards and back-and-forth tug of war with the capture zones meant that players were always on the edge of their seat, engaged into what could happen next.

• “Include a variety of game design techniques as researched in game design”- My game has evidence of all of these different techniques that I’ve researched. Such as endogenous value in the health/ capture zones, a good flow channel in the variety of events that can happen (random cards + combat) and balance in the different characters (each character has an advantage and disadvantage).

• “Have variety in the gameplay (like different characters and random events)”- I have both random events in the form of the cards, as well as the different characters with their unique traits.

• “Have accessible rules that aren’t difficult to learn”- The game keeps a level of accessibility with its nice looking board and rulebook, making it understandable to children and adults who may not play many games.

• “Have elements to increase the game’s replayability, and not be a ‘one and done’ deal”- I have the extra gamemode for professional players who are looking for something extra, but a game may have a different outcome every time you play depending on the characters chosen and the chance cards that appear. It promotes the player to play more than once.

Next-up I changed the game’s rulesheet to be much user-friendly. For the game’s rules as suggested by Sue, I will be giving myself an arbitrary word limit of 700, since right now it’s considered too ‘wordy’ and not many new users are going to want to read through it all with me including too much text. I don’t have to hit that word limit, but it’s something to aim for while ‘trimming the fat’ so I know I need to be more aggressive in removing unneeded words. In fact, with the feedback suggested above, not many people (except Clare and Jason) wanted to read the rules, and I explained the updated mechanics as we went along. So to start this process I initially researched and looked at some of the rules for some existing games to see what does and doesn’t work in a professional setting. The first rulebook I looked at was a game titled ‘Fluxx’ in class and online at (Looney Labs, 2016), which was incredibly clever with its listed rules. One of the first sentences it even says in its rules is that they know people hate reading them, and there’s an included card with minimal text on it, showing that the people behind it are very self-aware. This card shows the most basic of the game’s rules (shown below), and is easy to read for players that want to leap straight into the game and to skip the boring learning process. Even the presentation of the rules are pleasant to look at, utilising various colours and speech bubbles, which is something I’ve taken inspiration from that I will include into my own game’s rulebook.

Next is the rulebook in Monopoly, and for a board game that can be considered more complicated the rules are fairly accessible but much more extensive and wordy than Fluxx, and is an example of rules that I want to avoid for my own project. A typical Monopoly rulebook can contain paragraphs of text, however that’s really to be expected due to the complexity of the game. As seen from  (Hasbro, 2007), on the official Hasbro website, the list of rules are incredibly extensive, and while it’s nice that there are cute yet relevant pictures littered around the page, it instantly disengages most players from reading. However most younger players may find themselves getting tired of reading through all 8 pages of text and play without it, only to find they don’t know what they’re doing later on in the game. So I will try to avoid being so wordy in my own set of rules to avoid what Monopoly has done.

(Jensen, 2014)

A card showing the basic rules,

and all that’s needed to play.

Lastly for this sprint in the final week I began my work on the digital demonstration of the game, importing all of my assets and beginning the plan introductory sequences (doing things like scripting the dice rolls, so they follow a planned format for a video tutorial as each space gets explained as somebody lands on them). Since I have all of my digital assets completed, it meant I could import them all into Sony Vegas to create a mockup high-quality animation showcasing the rules of the game, and it being played in an easily digestible digital format. I decided to choose Sony Vegas in the end over Adobe Flash CS6 due to the range of video editing tools at its disposal (compared to Flash being more strictly animation software). I used both pieces of software to get a feel for them, and have settled on Sony Vegas as a piece of software that also comes with very robust animation tools, as well as having other more streamlined features like exporting directly and quickly to an HD mp4 file (since Quicktime is a required piece of software for you to do the same thing in Flash). I also used various sound effects and music tracks for the animation, sourced from freesfx.co.uk with royalty free rights.

This brings me to the end of this blog entry, and in the next and final sprint I will finish the work on my digital demonstration, as well as me creating my 20-minute presentation/evaluation just in time for the hand-in.

23/05/16 Blog Entry:

I began this week by amending my quality plan to be more specific, detailed and measurable, and by including various instances of how I know my game’s of a good quality if I follow the steps I have set out. Previously my quality plan wasn’t very specific with the goals I needed to achieve in order to make a quality product, so now my game is nearing the end of the main production stage I can compare it to the quality plan and physically see if my game is of a good quality.

In this entry I also drafted the remaining characters for the dinosaur team (shown below), and finished the ten character designs by fully colouring them in Photoshop. From there they were ready to print out into cardboard and be professionally laminated (to avoid creasing, thus allowing them to last longer after multiple playthroughs), which I then stuck onto colour-coordinated counters (blue counters for birds, and red for dinos). I also conducted some research prior to this into the advantages of lamination (essentially putting my print outs between some thin, transparent casing) to see if it was worth laminating my materials, and according to (Digital Printing, 2014) it adds an extra layer of protection to your content, as well as giving them an overall professional feel. Laminated materials last a lot longer than basic print-outs do, and can withstand the test of time much longer considering they’re more resistant to bending and tearing.

Because the character designs are now finished, I adjusted the game’s official rules to include these various abilities for the 5 different character classes on each side, as well as the extra rules mentioned in the previous feedback sections. I also made the document a lot more appealing to read, using bright colours and text bubbles, which adds to the game’s family friendly target audience. I even added an additional game rule for more experienced players, it aims to add more variety to the game, shaking up the game’s entire formula completely (by focusing on getting every player inside one area at once instead of five, with different ‘walls’ that pop up each turn), and thus enhancing the game’s replay value and increasing the game’s flow channel for experience players who want more of a challenge. Since if players get bored of playing the usual rules every time, there’s an additional bonus that makes things a lot more challenging and interesting, while still keeping the game balanced with an efficient use of the flow channel (having a constant case of action without the game ever getting too boring or frustrating). My research into Settlers of Catan helped for this with its randomised board layout, as it gave me an insight into how variety may be achieved in a board game, and how variety is key.

Following the previous feedback, I also printed out more health tokens for the game since in the last playtest we ran out. To also follow these professional practises, I laminated every card, token and character piece in order to increase the longevity of the items. Pieces like the board are already showing signs of bending, so casing them in laminate will mean that it’s much harder to damage them during gameplay. The character pieces in particular are much better off being laminated, since it allows the material to be a lot more firm when standing up and being moved around. Here are the finished character designs, and also the printed and laminated character pieces:

Now my game has been updated following the peer feedback I received, the physical board game is now complete! This means tomorrow I will do my final case of peer testing and feedback to see how people like my finished product (which can be included in my evaluation). Then for the final week of my project I will focus on producing the digital demonstration of the game, as well as the evaluation and final pitch presentation ready to be handed in and presented the following week. I’m am very much on schedule this week following the dates for the backlog sprints, and due to complete the project while including all of my musts and a few should from my sprints. I also updated some of the dates in my risk management document, as I continue to make backups of my work. Lastly I also updated my project task board with the different elements of the game being finished, with just the digital demonstration being left in process. This means I’ve completely the majority of my physical practical tasks with the digital content left to complete!

19/05/16 Blog Entry

After my project supervisor meeting there were various changes and additions which we discussed. So I began this entry after out meeting adjusting various aspects of my quality plan, risk management plan and project backlog. A big thing I changed was in my various sprints, I switched my digital prototype game to a should, and specific aspects of the game to coulds, instead my digital demonstration is now a must as agreed in my meeting. If I have time further on in the project I can definitely come back to it and progress my work further. These adjustments to my burndown chart is deceiving though, since all of the totalled points include optional should and coulds regarding my digital game (which I may or may not even make depending on the time constraints), it shows that I’m working much further behind then I am in actuality. If you count the sections of making the physical game and digital demonstration, I’m working on schedule ready to be finished by the assignment hand-in. Here’s a screenshot of the graph showing the situation (where as you can see, a lot of ‘possible’ outcomes take up more points than the definite ones):

I updated risk plan showing not only prevention methods, but also mitigation techniques as well to damage control any accidents which may happen. For example, I continuously add dates to when I backed up my work to prevent data loss in an accident, and if an accident were to happen I would be able to restore my files from either a USB device or cloud storage service. I will be updating this regularly from now on too, if any of these identified incidents do occur as well as dates to when I take action on things (like backing up my files to a safe location.)

This is the first week where I had a playable product to show and physically play with. There are a few components missing, like not having individual characters at this stage (with me using generic counters instead for the time being and everyone being equal), but the board is still in a very playable state. I printed the board, tokens and chance cards onto a firm card material, which makes picking things up a lot easier than simple A4 paper. For the peer feedback with this current version of the game I got six people to play a full game of the board as a test (played by me, Isaac, Ben, Jon, Clare and Jason, with a picture of the board with all the pieces as they were being cut out below). I also got these people to play the game for any suggestions they had, and I wrote down notes as we played the game with some suggestions on how to make the game more fun and engaging. Here are the testing results!

Ben Musgrave suggested the day before: “Wouldn't it be more fun in your board game if when you were battling you dealt the difference in damage, so if the opponent rolled 5 and you rolled 3 they would deal 2 damage instead of 5, it makes your roll matter”. However, after playing the game with this rule in place it actually ended up slowing the pace of the game right down. Because everyone starts with 10 HP, and the loser of a fight gets knocked back only one space, most people would continually fight each other back and forth in a tedious manner until someone lost, which got very frustrating at points. To remedy this, in the future the winner of a fight will directly deal the damage they rolled on the dice, and the loser of the fight will be pushed back to any of their captured bases or the starting area. This will help break up the monotony of continuous combat, and adds another layer of strategy when players are deciding whether they want to fight or not.

Once the game was finished I compiled various suggestions on paper and will talk about the major ones here, and what I will do to amend the issue. A big point people made is making it easier to keep track of times when you miss multiple turns. For example, when you’re capturing a base you miss the next go, and you’re free to leave after that. The problem is people can easily forget how long they’ve waited for. To fix this issue, we came up with a plan: on the next turn after a player begins the capture that they’re motionless for, put one of your team’s capture pieces next to the tile. Then on the following turn when you’re free to leave, move that piece onto the tile as you go. This works as a clear indicator as to how much longer is left until an area is secured, since if a capture piece isn’t directly on the tile you’ll know there’s still another turn left.

There are various quality-of-life improvements which were suggested too, like having a designated section to put the deck of cards and also when two allies are fighting together, they both roll a dice vs the other player who only wins 1. If the solo player wins the fight though they’ll deal double damage to both enemies. This is also a very clever system to promote teamwork, while also giving the singular player a glimmer of hope in a battle that there’s still a chance to turn things around. As an extra rule Jason came up with for more advanced players, there could even be a mechanic that involves teams raiding the enemy starting areas. This would help flesh out the game’s mechanics, while also giving advanced players another goal to work towards if they wish.

Here’s a picture of the whole notes page I wrote down, listing some of the smaller details people picked up on:

Overall this feedback was incredibly helpful towards my game’s development, as it allowed me to get a range of opinions midway through development which will help shift it into become a much more balanced and designed game. I’ve already started adjusting the game’s official rulebook with some of these changes, and will see how they match up to the research I’ll now be conducting.

Lastly I decided to user test my own game, after now officially playing the game myself I can make my own evaluations on it. I have to say it’s very fun to play with a group of friends, and the team-based strategy element can lead to some very humorous suggestions. As other people suggested though the combat in the state it was in was fairly monotonous to go through after a while, as people constantly kept engaging in fights with each other it became quite a chore. Fortunately some of the suggestions in the feedback will help mitigate this main issue with the game.

One other element I felt was missing during the user testing was the depth of gameplay, which is where the unfinished character classes come in. Currently every player character is exactly the same, but once I introduce different characters into the mix with various skills and weaknesses the base gameplay will get much more exciting, with a lot more possible strategies. Likewise I feel that there should be a larger variety of chance cards in the mix, as having 10 good and 10 bad cards each with different effects could get a bit extreme with some of the effects they have (like resetting the positions of every player on the board). Because of this I will develop some more cards to be added alongside the current ones with more subtle effects (like adding 2 onto your next dice roll instead of being on a much larger scale), in order to make those more powerful cards rarer to find and thus, more rewarding to the player, giving them much more endogenous value and keeping the game’s flow channel high with bursts of thrill and excitement.

Following this testing I decided to research some more relevant and technical board games with a similar theme to mine, which are focused on capturing and conquering. This week involves my research into the games Settlers of Catan and Pandemic, and how I could utilise some of their base gameplay mechanics and fit them into my own board game! Before I begin my gameplay analysis though, I will conduct some more research into what makes a good board game. According to published author (Selinker, 2012.), who wrote the Book to Board Game Design, there are various things to keep in mind during development. A big thing they mentioned was knowing what you were aiming for and focusing on that, whether it’s a kiddy game for children or a strategic puzzler for hardened board game players, your game needs to focus on its audience and try to not alienate them with its concept. You need to respect the time and audience of everything you do, from visual presentation (a child wouldn’t want a realistic and horrific board with scary themes), while also making the rules clear without handholding them. Nobody wants to read paragraphs upon paragraphs of text in a rulebook, however making them simple to understand without insulting the intelligence of your audience can go a long way in making a successful product. Lastly a board game ideally should include its own gimmick or unique trait, something to make it stand out from the crowd and not only get noticed, but to make the game generally feel fresh and fun to play. This is a concept I’ve been focusing on since the start of the project, as I’ve constantly tried to add new ideas from myself and peer feedback, while also removing the idea that in practise just don’t work very well.

(Marais, 2013)

Now onto the gameplay journal, and the first game I will discuss is Settlers of Catan. This is a multiplayer board game  This game has a similar premise to Monopoly in the fact it tasks players to build houses/settlements to win, in order to gain control over the island Catan. This game has more of a technical mindset and focus compared to Monopoly, with the genius idea of the game even being randomly created at the start of every match, with different tiles representing parts of the island being placed in a honeycomb shaped grid (with these tiles having different properties). This make no two playthroughs feel the same, and helps give the game more longevity than other popular board games, as matches rarely feel the same and the flow channel is increased since players never know what to expect next.

The game’s main draw is its bartering system, as players can haggle with each other in order to trade for resources like wood and sheep, which increase and decrease in value as various events unfold. This is kicked forward where some resources aren’t even obtainable to certain players, making trading a compulsory part of the gameplay where you need to trade to win, but you also benefit your enemies in the process! This appeals to the game’s more adult and sophisticated board game enthusiast target audience, and when it comes to the various bartle types the game appeals to, socialisers are the ones who benefit the most from this type of gameplay, since they revel in communication and bartering.

Settlers of Catan’s endogenous value lies in the various buildings you can make (like houses and settlements), and as they improve your empire gradually gets more formidable. The game combines an area capture mechanic from Risk with the buildings and upgrades from Monopoly. Considering my game also borrows concepts from both games, it’s good to see what Settlers of Catan does well. Another interesting twist the game puts on this mechanic is that players can buy as many different items that they can afford, as long as they have the space to put them onto the board. It really helps balance the game so people can’t just hoard belongings as they save them for a rainy day, and instead must strategize for the short and long term, and plan what items they need right at that time.

The game has even been ported to iOS devices and also to the PC. It keeps a lot of the base gameplay in tact of building and conquering, but streamlines all of the menus and processes to be more fitting to a game with touch or mouse controls. Overall though the game’s widespread popularity among the board game world is evidence that it’s a strong title, and its deep, competition gameplay mechanics combined with the fact it’s randomly generated each time you play will make this game a popular household choice for years. There are aspects I can take away from it for my own board game, like adding variety and trading between players, which are mechanics to consider for my own game in order to increase the longevity of the product.

(blah2, 2015)

Next I’ll move onto the game Pandemic, which looks and plays similarly to Risk (in the fact the board is the real world map and the gameplay is focused on capturing and conquering), while still being a much more obscure and niche title. The game’s main hook is that it’s actually a cooperative game, where all of the players work together as they travel around the globe to win. So far every game I’ve looked at previously has a completely competitive edge to it, but in this game the 2-4 players must achieve the game’s main goal of curing the world and all of the 4 diseases which are plaguing it (all of which are colour coordinated, showcasing the game’s use of semiotics for player feedback and recognition).

Each player takes a different role at the start of the game (such as a scientist or quarantine specialist, and each character has their own traits and abilities similar to my game) along with a deck of cards (which act as the player’s main source of endogenous value since they can make or break the tide of the game), and different ‘infection’ and ‘outbreak’ counters which are dotted around the map. These places are connected to each other, and the players have to ensure things don’t get out of hand as the infection continues to spread. Once all of these disease have been cured though, the players instantly win. It helps bring a greater sense of excitement to the game’s flow channel, as horror or victory could be just around the corner and the player never knows what to expect next.

There are various elements to the gameplay here that makes it very strategic (like Settlers of Catan). From players sharing their research/findings as they move around the board, building areas that research these disease to discovering cures. It doesn’t have the random sense of variety that Settlers of Catan has (since the board and places are always the same being set on Earth, and aren’t randomised). Since there are also three different ways to lose the game, it can cause quite a disruption among allies as they begin to argue as things don’t go their way. This social element is deviously woven into the balance of the game, and players need to form a solid strategy without much disagreement to come out on top.

Lastly as usual Pandemic appeals to all the various Bartle types for people who may want to play the game. Explorers will enjoy roaming around the board, Achievers can craft new cures to help them win, Socialisers can chat to allies and form coherent strategies and Killers can work towards wiping out every last virus from the map. The game caters to a variety of people who may look for different reasons when it comes to playing a game like this, and it really helps the game’s case when it comes to attracting newer players for its niche target audience, despite the game’s relative obscurity.

To conclude this game research, especially in relation to my personal feedback towards my game, was incredibly useful for me to analyse. I looked at some more obscure and niche strategy board games which involves capturing land and supressing different areas of the map, which can be strongly related back to my own game’s core concept.

Now finally I started drawing the characters. I began by drafting out all 6 characters in Illustrator (shown below) using the Pen/Brush tools with Vectors. I came in on Friday and was assisted by Dan in learning various techniques to use in the software (such as changing different styles of lines and ways to bend vectors). This shows in the quality of my work, as you scroll down through the characters they visibly get better and more detailed, as I practised my skills and improved in using the software, as an example of personal development. I will continue to make the last 4 in Illustrator, and colour them in via Photoshop next week, and will also print them out onto counters to create the character pieces for the game! These characters will also be put onto the game’s rules to make it nicer to look at for the viewer, while also being next to the description of each character and their designated abilities. Which leads me onto the finishing touches and additions for the game before I start making the digital demonstration in the game ready to be presented.

16/06/16 Blog Entry

Due to shifts in the priorities my game project, and me spending more time planning and researching than I initially imagined, I didn’t completely the entire board game in a single week’s sprint as I initially planned. This is the point in my backlog sprints where I should have an entire board game. A big change that contributed towards this is that I will also be more likely to make a digital demonstration of my game than a prototype, and focusing heavily on my written work aspects: thus allowing me to play to my strengths. The board game at the end will act more as an application of all my acquired knowledge, acting as evidence that I’ve improved throughout this process and applied it into a game. Because of this I’m shifting my priorities towards this area, and the digital demonstration will still be made, it’s just it will be something designed to fit into the presentation at the end of the project, and it will really help increase audience engagement as well as inform the audience how the game plays much better than just having the physically printed-out game on the day.

I feel this is the better direction to work in, as it shows a better example of professional practises due to my more extensive planning and research into the direction my board game is taking, rather than me just diving right in and making something in an entire week. I simply set my expectations too high in my project proposal and now the focus has changed, there’s still plenty of time to continue working towards a great project.

I am kickstarting this sprint by writing another entry in my gameplay journal, and the two games I’ll be analysing today are the hit detective board game Cluedo and Mario Party 10, a digital board game on the Wii U that’s played on a video games console and not in real life like a traditional board game. I chose to play a digital game to analyse this week in order to broaden my horizons in just how many different board games there are out there, and comparing Mario Party to Cluedo will allow me to see what gameplay mechanics do and don’t work in a game, regardless of what platform it’s actually being represented on. I need to see and compare how the two mediums can coexist in a world that’s progressively getting more digitalised during the development of this project. With recently created websites like https://tabletopia.com/ which allow players to “play 200+ board games with your friends online in an experience almost like gathering around a real table” (Tabletopia, 2016), physical board games could definitely be declining in popularity. But the question I’ll be answering is: are digital games really that much better.

(Must Have Toy, 2013)

First is Cluedo, another free-for-all physical board game that includes a massive amount of strategy, and arguably a lot more wit and skill than Risk or Monopoly which I previously researched. The game plays out in a detective setting where there has been a murder in the mansion (with the board being set out like the layout of a house), and each player races to become the first person to discover the murderer, murder weapon and the location of the crime. This rustic and old fashioned visual style of the board fits the theme well, and all of the cards, pieces and characters share a similar theme. The game also makes great use of semiotics, with all of the murder weapons (like a candlestick or dagger), having their own specific shapes and proportions, making them easy to identify at a glance. Even all of the characters are identifiable, since they’re all based around a single colour like red, yellow and blue, with charming character names like Colonel Mustard to match. It really helps keep the audience engaged.

The game keeps its competitive edge with an excellent use of the flow channel, as there’s a constant nervous tension throughout the game as you sit on the edge of your seat, and whether or not your murder theory proves to be correct through the process of elimination. This means the game’s endogenous value comes from your own knowledge and reasonings than any form of in-game currency or collectables, since your own concepts and theories grow in value as you eliminate the improbable and constantly change your mind on how the murder happened as the truth is slowly uncovered, it’s genius.

Cluedo itself is a very balanced game since everyone from the start has a fair chance to win, and the main limiting factor to success is a person’s lack of logic. The game tries to appeal to as many different bartle types as possible, despite its more adult target audience with gameplay that children will struggle to get on with. Explorers who play the game will enjoy roaming about the manor and uncovering its secrets. Achievers will want to figure out who and what didn’t take part in the murder, and eliminate any impossibilities as quickly as possible. Socialisers won’t be able to work with their fellow players, since the idea is to keep your own knowledge hidden. However they can still converse with players during the game, and maybe even taunt or mislead their friends to trick them. Killers are the main players to be left out, since the game’s about solving a murder instead of starting one. They’ll still take great pride in figuring out the answer to the game’s murder first and winning the game, though, keeping the element of competition Killers enjoy.

(Nintendo of Europe, 2015)

Now onto Mario Party, a game created by famous game designer Miyamoto who I researched in the games design unit. It, like Cluedo, also works in a free-for-all affair, but there are elements of teamwork which aren’t seen in other board games. It’s wacky and fun, and was definitely built with families in mind and I simply couldn’t imagine playing the game on a physical board without the gameplay having some major retuning (especially since there are various ‘minigames’ to be played throughout a typical game session, which will be incredibly difficult to replicate on a physical board game since they all have different controls and win conditions). There are essentially three types of board games in this one comprehensive package, which are all executed very interestingly and there’s useful for me to talk about in relation to how I’d execute my own game concept:

First is Mario Party, the first mode which blends competition and cooperation well, in which players all move around together in a vehicle from the start of the board to the finish, and the player with the most stars (essentially points) at the end wins. It brings a lot of opportunities to plan ahead, and trap your opponents into landing on a bad space since you all move around together, but you still work together for certain events that take place. Next is Amiibo Party, which plays similarly to Monopoly as players move around a board in a circle to collect stars instead of cash and without the property collection aspect. You even use actual figurines which are tapped onto a controller to move around the board, replicating that experience. Last is Bowser Party, which is a 1 vs 4 game where four players all essentially are against one play who plays as the big evil boss. It’s the boss’ job to take out all of the other players’ health, while the others run away across the gameboard in order to survive. It’s very creative concept, and uses a form of teamwork that is asymmetrical yet balanced to create a real sense of frenetic fun that’s enjoyable by both parties: the team and the solo player. I should try to implement gameplay mechanics like this in my own game, so it’s never unfair for either side and they both have a chance to win.

(❤Sunny❤, 2015)

The four players must work together to win against one other person in 5 player multiplayer, however in a casual party setting this is more fun than frustrating and never feels unfair.

Mario Party surprisingly utilised various game design techniques well underneath its cute and friendly exterior. For example as you play the game it contains great endogenous value in the stars, as the main collectable in the board game, it works on a simple premise where whoever has the most, wins. It’s a simple concept for a simple target audience. Likewise, player turns are incredibly short and snappy, increasing the game’s flow channel since you’re not waiting around that much. Plus the 80+ minigames that you play take everyone out of the turn-based action and mix up the game with something else, which prevents it from getting tedious or frustrating. Since my game won’t be able to include separate games like a board game on a digital console can, instead the action will be broken up by the lucky chance cards players can draw when they land on a purple space.

Mario Party, like Cluedo, also has its fair share of charming and recognisable characters, which really helps keep the game engaging with its diversity of characters! Whose cartoony shapes and proportions follow the game’s wacky and kid-friendly style well: like Waluigi’s shockingly long legs and cheesy voice, or Wario’s huge head, these are characters that would be considered evil and scary in other games, but they’re laughably goofy here, and it really works fit the silly atmosphere it tries to create. It is a party game to be played in groups after all, just like most of the other games I’ve covered in this blog. My game will also have its fair share of silly but lovable characters, so seeing how well done and consistent they are done in these games can really help me decide in which direction to take them. They all have their unique own personality, and they all stand out from each other.

The area in which Mario Party struggles the most is balance. This is an incredibly unbalanced game which, outside of the minigames you play throughout the game to win you some point, relies heavily on luck with the roll of a dice determining the outcome of a match. However this is where its erratically designed rules come in, which are the underlying problem: the entire game can swap around at the drop of a hat. If you’re unlucky enough to land on an evil space on the board near the game, it could be cataclysmic for you, ranging from losing half or all your stars, to evening out everyone’s stars between them making everyone tie for that turn. It can be incredibly frustrating for veteran gamers, but in a way that really is the point. When a board game’s luck-based like this, even casual players who hardly ever play games have a chance of winning, it brings the family together to just have fun and not to take the game too seriously, and that’s a respectable decision and the game’s intention. There are plenty more strategic games out there, like Cluedo, for those looking to plan and strategize. My game in particular I’d like to see blend these components and not go to either extreme these two games went to. It will be more heavily focused on skill than Mario party, but not be so draining and cunning like Cluedo.

Overall to conclude, I have to admit I received a lot more enjoyment from Mario Party than I did Cluedo. Perhaps it’s just all the fancy digital graphics that can keep my attention for longer with its colourful visual style and charming characters, however I just felt a lot more engaged playing through it and Cluedo felt almost overwhelming at times with its deep logical system in place. They’re both great games in their own right though, and provide various concepts that I can take forward into my project too! However Mario Party was just a lot more fun to play with friends, and you really have to go into Cluedo with the right mindset.

Following on from this research I started development for this entry and I created health tokens with the numbers 1, 5 and 10 on them to represent a player’s value of health in the game (and they either gain or lose these tokens when they take damage or restore HP). These tokens continue to use the same colour-coded formula as a form of semiotics (so the health tokens for the birds team will be blue, and dinosaurs red, as another step to help differentiate the two more). They also help carry endogenous value for the player and makes the owner want to hang on to their tokens as much as possible, almost as a form of currency. Since if you run out of them there’s a consequence, just like Monopoly’s money which I also researched previously. While there is less overall health in the game which is also designed to be lost at a faster rate than Monopoly money, it will be balanced with less of a penalty for losing all your HP (so when a character dies in my game, they’re out for a turn or two, compared to when you lose all your cash in Monopoly and are out of the game for good). This gives it more of an accessible and family friendly edge, while also not leaving any players out halfway through: as they can all play together until the very end of the game. Here are a couple of examples below:

For this entry I also finished the cards I began to produce last week, and they’re colour-coded like the board and tokens to make them consistent. I then started the long process of creating individual cards, each with a different scenario on them. Likewise their colour-coordination also ties into semiotics, since the player will see the red colour of a card and instantly know that they’ll be in an unlucky situation before reading it. I created 20 cards in total, with 10 being positive and 10 being negative, each containing a different situation. I wanted to have a bit of variety in the deck of cards, but since I wanted this prototype to be ready by Monday, I didn’t make as many that a finished board game would have. Here is an example of both a positive and negative card, and their effects on the player involved:

I asked Tom what he thought about the current number of cards, and variety of situations in the deck. This is his feedback: “You're gonna need more scenarios for the final game, I think. Monopoly has 16 different situations for both Chance and Community Chest in its most original format (though it's been buffed up to as high as 30 nowadays). But for a Thursday prototype? Eh, I'd say 10 would be enough, though perhaps print duplicates, maybe. Will they all be in one card pile?”. I have to agree, for a small taster prototype 20 cards is fine, but I will definitely create more in later blog entries.

After this I began to type up the official rules of the game which will be printed out alongside the game board on paper. I’ve designed these official set of rules to be easily understandable and to not follow my usual ‘flowery’ writing style. They’ve very brief and to the point, outlining as many different aspects of the game that I can, while trying to cover any ‘loopholes’. Fortunately if there are any parts of the game I have missed or overlooked whilst typing up the document, they will be noticed and taken advantage of in the next blog entry when my peers and I test the game for feedback.

That’s all for the prototype development for this blog entry, I’m hoping to get some peer feedback in the next blog entry, since I’ll be going into class for my project supervisor meeting in the morning and will have the rest of the afternoon to work alongside that advice, and to also test physically my board game for the first time. As such I’ve compiled various board game assets to be ready, but a few things (like Tom’s previous feedback for a counter), haven’t been implemented yet and I want to see how this version of the board will be received before I expand on it. I also didn’t start to draw any of the characters for the board in this blog entry, which will be printed out and stood upright onto counters. I will instead begin working on them in the next blog entry once I’ve made adjustments to the board from the peer feedback and testing I conduct.

13/05/16 Blog Entry

For this entry I started to create some starter designs for the chance cards, tiles and board itself for my board game which can be improved at a later date, with the base gameplay of the board following the structure of my previous plans. First I did some research into tools and techniques in Photoshop so I could begin developing my assets for the board game. Managing layers in Photoshop will be a key component when creating a board game with the software, as I could quickly and easily rack up dozens upon dozens of active layers. So I did some research into organisation in Photoshop, and according to the official Adobe documentation (Adobe Help, 2016), grouping various layers into categories (like all the board game tiles and capture zones) with CTRL + G really helps keep everything organised. As an added bonus, these groups are easy to close and expand, allowing you to select everything inside them at once, or separately with the ‘auto-select’ toggle if I need to modify individual layers within a group. This is an incredibly handy skill for me to learn, as finding and managing layers with my previous knowledge would have been a nightmare, and helps mitigate the risk of me making a mistake and losing potentially hours of work.

I also conducted some research from various sources into what actually makes a good board game, to get some professional opinions on the matter. According to published author (Hinebaugh, 2009) who wrote a book on what the fundamentals of a good board game should be, it needs to be fun and engaging. Complicated mechanics are good to have for skilled board game enthusiasts, however presentation is key. Having all of these skilled mechanics but showing them in an intimidating way can put off many potential players who may have enjoyed your game from even trying it. Journalism site (Board Game Duel, 2014) have different opinions on this matter though which are interesting to consider. They believe mastery of a game is key, and if it’s too luck based with not enough skillful elements, then it’s impossible to play it at a higher level alongside games like Chess or Checkers. Variety is also key, as doing repetitive, monotonous tasks for the entirety of the game isn’t engaging, and defies the entire point of the board game: to have fun and pass the time. To quote them: “These games typically have good variance, many different strategies to victory and a sharp learning curve. You can’t discount a good game of chess though.”.

These findings are incredibly helpful to my own personal development of a game, as I can try to avoid falling into some of the ‘traps’ that common board games fall into (just being a repetitive, monotonous slog from start to finish). My own game will attempt to avoid some of these issues with its gameplay mechanics: avoiding the monotony of moving around the board with players physically strategizing with allies, being able to enter combat with enemies whenever you encounter one and also with its chance cards which could mix-up the game at a moment’s notice, keeping players on the edge with a good flow channel balancing frustration and boredom. All of these spice up the game, while still adding more to the game making it so much more than just simply rolling a dice and moving your player around a board. Likewise I will work on my simple, child-friendly presentation of these mechanics, since the designs themselves will have to be accessible to look at and be easy on the eyes for my game to hit its large potential target demographic.

Now for my initial stages of practical work! I first made the tiles for the board in Photoshop (pictured below), using splodges of different colours (light blue, dark blue, purple and yellow to be exact) to design them similarly to actual slate tiles while still having them colour-coordinated. Since the game is team-based, I created two different colour tiles to match both of the team’s sides of the board, while also making it more visually appealing for younger players. These tiles are designed to look simple, yet stylized. And the compact design is easy on the eyes yet it gets the job done as a standard board space. Here’s an image of the default tile before it was recoloured:

Next I drafted out the board on paper to see how it would look. It’s simple, but follows the board’s basic premise and layout. It’s a simple draft which focuses more on functionality than aesthetics, however it shows the game’s premise of both teams starting in their areas, and being able to move in one of three directions from the start to capture the different bases around the map. I can use this is a form of reference which I’ll expand upon when it comes to creating my board digitally.

Lastly I created a more ‘finished’ draft design in Photoshop for the game using Photoshop. I first got a picture of the sky and space (sourced from (Singh, 2015) and (Weinfield, 2015) respectively), and spliced it into two to fit the two sides of the board (with birds representing the sky since they fly and dinosaurs space, as a nod towards the fabled asteroid strike that wiped them out millions of years ago). From there I added various filters to it and watercolour effects to blur over the images and give them a much more stylised look to fit the theme of the game. I then created the two starting spaces for the characters, where like the original draft, they spread out into three directions to encourage teammates to either spread out or stick together and balance the game to how each team wants to strategize (spreading out will capture bases faster, but there’s safety in numbers).

After I made my first digital game prototype, I asked some of my fellow students for their thoughts and opinions on it. Following peer advice from the image below, I was advised by Ben M to space out my board’s tiles some more in order to make the game feel less cluttered, as currently everything is very tightly packed together. Tom also suggested that “You might benefit from additional paths or choices in where the players can move. In a team based game, they'd likely be bumping into each other a lot, which could be bad if you don't intend that.”. Tom also suggested that I change the colour of the dinosaur team from dark blue to red, to increase the contrast between them. And to also make the board symmetrical, as currently one team may have the advantage. Isaac suggested that. “You should consider creating multiple board designs which include some information so that the player can understand basic concepts of the game.”

This is all incredibly helpful advice for me to take forward, and as the first form of peer feedback since I’ve started the main project, I will certainly follow these criticisms to create a much more well-designed and fun game. Here’s a comparison of the board I made before and after feedback was given!

Before advice:

After advice:

The enemy team colour as shown above really helps contrast the two sides as a more clear-cut ‘good’ vs ‘evil approach, but while still keeping birds vs dinosaurs as the main theme for a wacky twist. Plus, the lucky chance tiles being coloured purple make more sense now, with the colour purple itself being a mix of red and blue. It really helps the board look more visually pleasing as a whole. Symmetry was a big trick I missed the first time round too. I did try to make both sides somewhat balanced by having the same number of spaces to reach places but with different layouts, however Tom pointed out that’s still an imbalanced game and unfair to play, as one team may have a potential yet undiscovered advantage. I fixed this, along with some more branching paths to encourage exploration in order to make the game truly fun, yet fair and balanced. Some of the suggestions like Ben’s idea of spacing out tiles were something I unfortunately couldn’t physically do due to size limitations of the board game’s file, however it’s definitely something to consider for future installments of my game!

As an idea to make my game more fun once I’d finished the feedback improvements, I asked Craig and Tom for some ideas to improve the base gameplay. They both said that since one of the teams have to capture all 5 squares, it could become very long-winded with one team constantly capturing one of the 5 bases infinitely, making the game possibly never end.

Tom’s suggestion to fix this problem: “The board game could potentially be long winded, so you should implement a lockdown system that really creates an end point. Perhaps an extra counter moves every time the player rolls a certain dice number, and when this counter reaches its goal, the game instantly ends?” This is a very clever method that they’ve devised, as it ensure games are fast and snappy, while still allowing the game to instantly end if one team were to capture all of the bases. It’s another thing I will definitely consider to implement further on down the line, along with a more spacious and less cluttered game board.

The last few things I made were an early proof-of-concept version of the chance cards (example below), which are drawn whenever a player lands on a purple space. I began to draft out the design using three main text boxes: the card’s actual effect, whether it’s positive or negative (while also being colour-coded to be instantly recognisable to the player as a form of semiotics which I previously researched) and also the name of the game at the bottom (to keep the game consistent and to ensure they don’t get lost somewhere else, with the owner forgetting which game they’re a part of).

Following on from this development there are various improvements and changes to be made, plus the character pieces and health tokens which have to be designed, printed and physically created, which I’ll begin to work towards in the next entry!