Wait...WHAT? A game of acting out weird stuff.

This was it. The final game project for this class. I feel like the semester went by too quickly and I really wish I could continue making fun little board games. This time, I was in Group 17, but these groups were chosen by us. After the success of the last game, I decided to pair up with my friend Eric again so we could make a game that would top the last one. We first struggled to come up with a game. However, after seeing a video from one of my favorite YouTube personalities of them playing a funny acting game, it gave me the idea for our next game. This is when we came up with "Wait...WHAT," a game of very random and hilarious scenarios that puts people against each other in a competition of "Who is the best actor?" We decided to design our game more specifically for players 18 and up as that was what the majority of our class was, and we didn't want to restrict our creativity to compensate for younger children. We wanted to come up with the most random and hilarious scenarios.

Our game has a pretty simple concept to it. In teams of two (or if you're daring, teams of 1), you must act the scenario that is given to you. You draw three cards on your turn: one WHO card, one WHERE card, and one WHAT card. These three factors determined what your team, as well as the other teams, had to act out within that round. Teams would get 30 seconds to think of what they want to do before they decide to act it out. Once that time is up, they are given 90 seconds to perform that scenario to the best of their ability. After each team has acted out the scenario, everyone then votes on who they think did the best (and before you say anything, no, they cannot vote for their own team). The votes are individual and do not count as team votes.

Our first initial playtest went quite well. For this playtest we decided to restrict it to teams of two since we wanted to see how enjoyable the game would be in teams like this. We originally did a pretest before the first playtest, and for this initial pretest, we did individual teams instead of teams of 2. This individual thing ended up not being very enjoyable since most of us felt very uncomfortable acting by ourselves in front of others. We took this into consideration for our first playtest, and it ended up working really well in the long run. Everyone we playtested with for the first and second playtests really enjoyed the game, saying that there wasn't much to be improved and that they would highly recommend it.

Our work time was used very efficiently and diligently, and we were able to get a lot done. We made sure we used online resources to our advantage and we made sure to contact each other whenever something was up or if we needed to get anything done during our own time. All of our assignments were done on time and were done very well. We felt we did everything well and we didn't have any problems working together. Overall, I felt this game turned out really well and we hope to improve it even more if we ever plan on working on it on our own time.

Infector, The game all about Zika

This time in my CAGD class, I was placed into Group 13 and was tasked with making any game my partner and I wanted to make….sounds easy enough. However, the catch was that it had to have the theme of the scary, new Zika virus. Our target audience had to be for 30-40-year-olds, which was both good and bad. It allowed us to make our game more complex, but at the same time, it’s hard to have a complex game in a short timeframe. So, my partner and I thought for quite awhile. We just could not think of what to do, but then, we had it. Our game is titled Infector, an asymmetrical game about preventing the Zika virus that isn’t as easy as you think.

The game involves 3 “Good Guys” against a common enemy: The Infector. The Infector is also played by another player, and his turn is different from a regular player turn.

Each player, including the Infector, has their own set of action cards that they can use on their turn, granting them certain abilities like adding 5 to their roll, being able to use multiple cards in one turn, or even prevent a mosquito attack. The Infector’s job within this game is to prevent the players from opening his locked door where he is located, thus condemning him from spreading the virus to the rest of the world. His job is to infect the other players with all of the symptoms of his virus using his mosquito minions and his Abominations.

The players, along with their action cards, have special “ultimate” abilities that they can use when they have enough charges to use them. These are displayed by spinners that each player gets (except for the Infector) that get raised by one each time it is the player’s turn.

Overall, our game was well enjoyed by all of the playtesters that we had play it. Unfortunately, our first playtest did not go too well: our game was way too long, gameplay was really slow, some players were OP while others had no purpose, etc. Originally, we wanted to implement a timer into our game, so if the players didn’t unlock the door in time, they would lose. However, due to the game being much more strategic than we originally thought, we decided to scrap the idea of a timer since the game ended up going on for too long. Plus, the Infector was able to just screw the time up by taking their sweet time to do their turn, causing the Good Guys to have less time.

However, we were able to implement multiple Abomination types, allowing for more in-depth gameplay and ways things could happen, allowing for the Infector to infect players easily, and we also made it so if a key was taken from a player in a successful mosquito attack, that key would be returned to the nearest key room to that player. Also, once that mosquito has successfully taken away a key, it is no longer able to take any keys from any players.

All tasks within our group were completed on time and were very evenly spread among both of us. We each did around half of each assignment given to us, and each assignment was turned in on time. We also collaborated on the design of the board and pieces, as well as parts of gameplay.

Overall, I think our game is very good where it is right now, but it has a lot of potential to be a lot better. If we decide to continue work on this game, I’m sure we could easily perfect it. In the future, I hope to be able to meet up with my partner in person and playtest on our own time as that would allow us to fix more than we did. It was a fun project and by far one of my favorites so far.

Farming Revolution: The Best Farming Game You'll Ever Play Ever

For this project, I was placed into group 5 in my CAGD class, which consisted of me and another guy named Kevin. We were tasked with making a board game that was a role-playing game, had a farming theme to it, and was targeted to 15-20 year old girls who had an interest in science. Not really the best combo for us...but, we managed to come up with the game Farming Revolution. Farming Revolution involves both well-thought strategy, as well as good focus. Be the first to complete your farming empire before your competitor!

We had a pretty easy time with our task completion. We were able to do everything equally and we were both able to have sufficient amounts of input into what the game could require, what the game could have, and what should be scrapped. Our first original brainstorming sheet for this game was around 3 pages in length, involving things such as places to train your skills, more animals and tools, different ways to rank up, etc. However, for this project, our game could not be longer than 15 minutes, which caused us to have to rethink some ideas or just scrap some all-together. However, we managed to figure out different ways of shortening key aspects of the ideas that felt most important to us, just so we could have a nice flow for gameplay.

Our first playtest was a little bad. The way we had the board set up consisted of different animal zones, as well as a central grid in the middle of the game board. Our rules were quite long and they were worded very weirdly. The playtesters that played our game thought it was very confusing, too long, and not very enjoyable. Once we figured these things out, we went back and shortened the rules, making sure that all of the rules were easy to follow, and that anything that was important was properly highlighted. As for the board, we completely scrapped the central grid, as none of our playtesters used that correctly and it just gave my partner and I more work to deal with.

Things we probably could’ve done to help our design process were:

• To meet up more outside of class to do more proper playtesting before the official playtests
• To communicate more outside of class other than the small chat box that Google Docs have
• To figure out times that we could’ve taken out of our days to specifically work on the game and nothing else

I feel like these things could’ve definitely shaped our game differently, but overall, our game still turned out very well in the long run.

Our second playtest went very well -- we got many more playtesters, our rules were much easier for them to follow, and they were able to get the hang of the game very easily, allowing them to have a lot of fun playing our game. After scrapping the central grid, it allowed our players to get a feel of what's going on, and it didn't make them feel super confused. We implemented a dice roll into our final product as it made the gameplay much smoother and made it easier to get to the end goal.

Overall, I think this game shaped up to be a very good game with tons of potential. I feel if we would’ve taken a little more initiative to do more things to help our design process, I feel the game could’ve come out even better than it did. However, I still feel our game was quite successful, and I hope to possibly be able to expand on it in the future.

Dreadful Threes: A Game of Honor and Luck

So, I’m part of Group 18 within this CAGD class, and our game is called Dreadful Threes. This is a pretty simple game that can be learned quite quickly and easily, and can be a fun one that you’d wanna play multiple times over. Dreadful Threes is a game about luck and honor, but you never know who will or will not follow that honor. The premise is simple: come out on top with the most points at the end of the game; however, everything is uncertain.

The age group for this game is somewhere around 7 and older as the game does require some prior knowledge of basic math skills (anyone could pretty much get the hang of it), and the people who play will be required to make quick decisions and will need to make use of their full attention as it will be needed if you want to see the other players’ facial expressions. This game doesn’t require much strategy, so it can be played more casually and easily as opposed to games that require a good amount of setup.

Now, the game is said to be a game of luck as the game fully revolves around that principle. As the game progresses, each player is dealt a certain number of cards (the same amount as the number of players, so, for example, if 4 players were playing, they’d get 4 cards each turn) and each player has to put down each 3 or multiple of three (6,9,12) that they receive (or, if you’re risky, you can hold back those cards, but be warned…). Whoever played down the most cards within that turn loses a point, which in turn makes this a game of luck. Each player starts out with 10 points, and whoever is the last man standing or the person with the most points by the end of the time limit (HA, bet you didn’t expect that coming).

After the initial, pre-emptive playtest that my other group member and I did before the official playtest, we realized how much of our game wasn’t working as originally thought, causing many loopholes and rules that just made you lose too quickly. We have a rule in our game where Aces can give you a bonus point if you play them down as a sort of resource, but originally, without that card, we weren’t able to accumulate points, allowing for the uncertainty that any game requires to disappear, showing clear winners. However, we added this rule on, along with the rule that you could gain a point by successfully calling someone out while they lose two points, so the uncertainty stays in effect and can’t be changed.

The official playtest day went surprisingly well, and every person who came over to play our game was able to easily figure out what to do after some short playtime, and they were able to have fun while doing it. Initially it did seem like they had a little bit of trouble figuring out how to play, but after some simple explanation, they were easily able to handle playing it fine. I think what probably got them confused the most is the fact that you had to discard your cards that you receive after every turn, so we do plan on making that a rule that stands out more. We have also updated our rules a bit so they are more understandable and less likely to be skimmed over, especially since it’s a card game (and no-one really wants to read rules for a simple card game, right?). OVerall, I do think this game is coming together nicely and I could definitely see it as a game to play with my friends and family, and hopefully maybe even get it noticed a little bit by more people.