Challenge for Game Designers: Level 2 Game Design / Iteration and Rapid Prototyping

• game design
• July 13, 2011

I decided to finally continue with the Challenge for Game Designer course that I started way back in July of 2009. I just finished up reading the second blog post by Ian (the person running the course), in which he stresses the importants of iterating and rapid prototyping a game. The take away message from this reading is that a game gets better the more you iterate through it. With that, he gave us a small assignment to go back to the original game that you designed in Level 1 (Ice Mountain) and actually give it a play through. Afterwards he wanted us to make one change and see how that affects the game play. Below you can see a picture of the final result of the first play test. My girlfriend helped me by being my only opponent, I ended up winning as the green thumb tack

Observations

• Lots of boring iterative play. There wasn’t really a whole lot going on, just lots of die rolling with nothing really fun/exciting happening
  • Perhaps this could be solved by using more then one die. You could start out by being able to roll 3 dice, as soon as you are 1/3 of the mountain up you start rolling two dice. When you hit he top 1/3 of the mountain you roll one die
• Once a player got a head start, there was no real chance for the other players to catch up.
• The entire game revolves around luck, it all depends on how lucky you roll the die.
• No avalanches occurred the whole time we played.
  • In order to fix this, all players could start with one “avalanche” card. Which allows them to cause an avalanche whenever they desire on either part of the board.

After taking my notes into consideration I decide to make the following two changes.

Changes

1. While a player is between the starting square and the square marked with a two (see below) the player rolls 3 dice per turn. After the player passes the square marked with a two, the player rolls two dice per turn. Finally, once the player passes the 1 mark (towards the top of the board) the player is allowed to only roll one die per turn.
2. Each player is given the ability to cause one avalanche on which ever side of the board they choose. This is kept tracked by placing  two As at the bottom of the board and crossing them out when a player chooses to cause an avalanche.

Below is a picture of the final result for play test round 2. Again, I was declared the winner as the green tack .

 

Here are the my notes after testing the game with the new rules.

Final Verdict

• The new rules caused confusion with my previous rule of avalanches occurring when a number is rolled 3 times consecutively. What if a player was at the point where he can only roll two dice, and he ends up rolling two dice of the same number. Does that mean that if the next player rolls that same number (whether the player is rolling 3/2/1 dice) an avalanche will occur? It seems like this rule would either have to be changed/refined or completely taken out.
• The ability to cause avalanches added a bit of skill to the game. Players needed to be careful when they used it, since they would like to maximize the number of square they knock back their opponent. But, at the same time not knock themselves back.
• The rolling of 3/2/1 dice rule helped the game move along far more quickly. There was less of a mindless die rolling time frame at the start of the game.

That’s about it. It was really fun testing out my first paper prototype, even though I only spent 15 minutes on the design:). Looking forward to Level 3!

Challenges for Game Designers: Level 1 Overview / What is a Game?

• game design
• July 1, 2009

Ian Schreiber’s (http://gamedesignconcepts.wordpress.com/) summer game design course (*cough* free *cough*)  just started this past Monday. For each lesson (which he refers to as a level) he will make a post on his blog and assign homeplay (homework) to be completed before the next lesson. For the first lesson he went over as to what exactly is a game, and what it takes to make a basic game. Though none of the assignments stated to create a game, he did provide a small exercise half way through the lesson entitled “15 Minute Board Game Challenge”.

The basic premise of the exercise was to design a board game in which you are either “running towards something or running away from something” in 15 minutes. I chose to create my game in the “running towards” category, though I’m sure it could be easily changed to be a “running away from” game, and this is what I came up with.

Title: Ice Mountain

Goal: Be the first to climb to the top of the icy mountain.

Player representation: Mountain climbers

Number of players: 2 to 4

Game bits: Board, 6-sided die, mountain climber tokens

Board:

Rules: All players start by being positioned on the starting square (S). All players will roll a 6-sided die once to determine turn order, with the highest roll being first, second highest second, and so on. After order is determine, players take turns rolling a 6-sided die and moving that many squares forward. The game is over when one player lands exactly on the final square (F).

Game mechanics

• Get out of my way! (Getting knocked down by other players): If a player’s turn ends by landing on the same square as another opposing player(s) , have the player whose turn just ended  roll again and move the opposing player(s) that many squares back.
• You went too far! (Falling off the top of the mountain): As stated in the rules, a player must land exactly on the final square (F) in order to win. If a player rolls the die and goes past the final square (F), have the player go back the number of squares he went over, using the final square (F) as the starting position.
• Avalanche! (Being in the wrong place at the wrong time): When ever there are three consecutive rolls of the die with the same result (e.g. player one rolls 5, then player two rolls 5, then player three rolls 5) an avalanche occurs. If the number that is rolled consecutively is 1, 2, or 3 the avalanche will happen on the left side of the mountain, if the number is 4,5, or 6 the avalanche will happen on the right side of the mountain. If a player is on the side of the mountain were the avalanche occurred, that player must move SOUTH exactly one square. If there is no square south of the player’s location, the player is moved to the starting square (S).

That’s it! It felt pretty good sitting down and designing a game withouth having to think about how it was going to be programmed . Looking forward to level 2 on Thursday!