CSG: Game Dev

Today was the final play test of the semester and that right Emil will be joining us in play testing. over all he thought the game was solid, not to much bad was said about the game. I've had a lot of fun playing and helping create the game. this course was helpful in understanding games in general and different design ideals as well as the process of those ideals in a analytical matter. Before I took this course I was one dimensional about how games ideals come together but after taking this course i am beginning to understand the concepts of game design.

The Reaction Icon  While more play-testing one of our teammates wanted to test a new mechanic he thought of. Reaction is the name of the proposed mechanic. What it does when its played, which could be at anytime, could affect the player that the card is against.

Another way to get feedback on your game is to have other people other than you and the team play the game. I had a couple of people, who don't play table top games that much, play the game with each other. What I notice when watching them is that the stun mechanic was occurring more than we'd like it to happen which slowed the game down. When the team had the meeting most of the problem exist in rest of the team's play-testing. We had to change how long the stun last and add some remove stun effects to some of the characters, equip and item cards.

While we were play testing with our little note cards, we was getting ready to digitize the cards we had. My task was to create the equipment and item art and if i was up to it create two more character concepts.

After many changes to the cards stats we continue to play-test. While play testing we notice that the injury mechanic was happening way to much so we had to change the injury effects on the cards as well as the whole injury mechanic. Instead of just being injured for a turn, the player gets injured for three turns and gain damage. After testing the mechanic we seen a major improvement in the amount of injuries that occurs in the game, so we kept the changes.

Today we are testing out our mechanics for our game it really simple rules from the initial gdd just to see if the fundamental combat mechanics work as intended. As we were play testing we notice some unbalance numbers with all the cards. the overall concept of the game works its just the numbers aren't allowing the win condition to work.

Since we decided to make a card game we have to create some cards. According to the game design document we have three types of cards, character, equipment, and item cards. I was stuck with the task of creating the equipment cards. I have to make 15 equip cards with name and effects on them. one problem with my cards was that the effects wasn't balance like giving positive effects to players instead of  giving positive and negative and or expensive effects.

As we start on making our game mechanics and rules, we have to follow on what type of feeling or aesthetics players should get when playing the game. I think the fact that the game has characters, which still have to be flesh out, shows that it going to have an fantasy aspect to it.  The fact that players are competing against each other would fall under that aesthetic. Once again it has be worked out more but that is were going to start it off. 

Super Jerks, are team name that comprised of four people had to come up with ideals for a table top game. We already agreed on what game we were going to make before midterm we had other good idea but I believe the scope was to high. We choose smash bros concept called Bash (working title) because we all like super smash bro.

Now that mid terms are over and understanding the relationship between the aesthetics and the many  games given by the teacher. my class mates and I are tasked with creating are own table top game from scratch. 

Munchkin card game The last game that we are playing is Munchkin the card game. my understanding of aesthetics in these card games is getting clearer. I found 4 core aesthetics for this game; fellowship, fantasy, expression and challenge. In fellowship if the player can’t defeat the monster the in front of them, then the player is face with a choice. They can attempt to escaped but will lose some progress if it fails or the player can asked other players to help. Fantasy to be able to be somebody else from the race to class. In expression in each player hand has at least one class or race card in their hand with a few weapon and or armor cards to equip your character. Challenge a singular method of play that creates pleasure from overcoming the obstacles in front of you.

Since my instructor told me about these extra credits videos it been very insightful to know more about game industry. This particular video caught my attention because in my small world demos was one dimensional. In the video they described many ways of demoing or giving early access to them. 

Today we have to chose the best game in the "World" aesthetically. We felt as a group that Pokemon would fit that criteria. we wrote our top 10 favorite games and pick a game that we've all played which was Pokemon.

Gloom Gloom is a game that we played. it was supposed to have sad feel to it were the players get family cards and in order to win you have to kill your family faster that the other players. Crazy right! You get modifier cards that have different effects some negative, as an positive for the player and positive which can cost you the game. The character portraits do a great job of lending personality to the characters, the borders in the cards maintain the Gothic feel very well and the clear cards work as intended, allowing you to see the underlying cards even after many have been added.

Small World Today we played small world, a board game that sold over 500,000 copies. From the title of the game “Small World” that you get a feeling that you have little space with a lot of people occupying your space. When we played the game the rules was confusing. we the manual should have shown more images describing the different scenarios.

While still trying to understand the aesthetics in detail a classmate sent me a link to the official MDA study from scholars as part of the Game Design and Tuning Workshop at the Game Developers Conference, San Jose 2001-2004. What I got from the article was the different types of aesthetics and what mechanics drive these aesthetics.

This video really helped understand the different aesthetics of video games. I used to think that aesthetics was just something you see visually. The video explains that game don't have to be one dimensional. you can have a game like portal which has the first person style like COD but have a strategy style game tetris.  

Card Hunter Card Hunter is an online game it feels like D&D and a little dragon age on the single player campaign aspect of it. going on different quest like D&D and dragon age have a mythical, medieval feel from the playing board to the character the movement of the game pieces feels like D&D. The environment can change the outcome of the game by effecting the movement of the player.

This week we played Catan, table top game how the board looks and puts you in a pacific place in time. T he cards can play a factor for the feel of the card game building relationship with the other players by trading or not trading. T he changes or choices of the game the trading of resources and the placing of the game pieces using the resources to make your settlements or roads outcome of the dice roll can change the feel of the game.