CAGD 170: Board Game

Postmortem Unit 3

December 4-10, 2023

Link to rule sheet: (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cmL6AGPo3UMHpvTTXcgqofO50L-tz62iZTkHetMs33Y/edit?usp=sharing)

In Unit 3, I was put into Group 11 with Justin Culver and Calihan Vrablick to create a two-player board game named Barrier. Justin was the project manager who led the design process. Calihan was a game designer and helped to refine our game mechanics and was in charge of the board pieces. I was also a game designer who mainly edited and put our ideas on the rule sheet. Since we had three people for a two-person assignment, we had no issues completing everything we set out to do, which gave us extra time to refine and balance a lot of our dice rolling mechanics.

Barrier is a two-player game on a 10x10 grid where each player races to reach the opponent's side first. While doing so, players can strategically place barriers in order to stall the movement of their opponents and setup pathways for themselves. They can also take their chances on dice rolls to flip the tables in an otherwise dire situation, all for the chance to gain an advantage over their opponent to win the game.

Example in-progress game of Barrier

The player interaction pattern for Barrier was Player vs Player, and our target audience was aimed towards anyone that is 8-15 years old with our relatively simple board pieces, rules, and art styles. As for player types, we aimed to satisfy Competitive, Craftsman, and Artistic players.

Competitive players would most likely enjoy playing Barrier because they are actively competing against their opponent. This competitive aspect is further emphasized by the fact that only one of the two players are able to win the game.

Craftsman players will also most likely enjoy this game because of the ability to create, edit, and destroy terrain. They will also have to be able to work with different sized barriers which forces them to strategically align their barrier placements.

Artistic players might also enjoy this game because there are many unique layouts they can choose in order to stall out their opponent. Creativity is rewarded because it can catch opponents off guard as well as set up unique win conditions for the player.

One of our biggest issues regarding our game development process was figuring out how to balance out our 5th dice roll. To give a quick summary, our 5th dice roll rotated the entire game board 90 degrees clockwise while leaving the player pieces in the exact same coordinate positions. Our first problem was figuring out what would happen if a player landed on a barrier piece, so we made players break any barrier pieces they landed on if they happened to land on a barrier. We then ran into another problem with players getting into completely boxed in rooms with no way to escape after the board rotated. To fix this, we made it so that players would be able to destroy all barriers within the same vertical row of the player's position.

First version of dice roll 5:

However, as you can see in the image provided above, this destroyed way too many barriers and made players hesitant to invest in barrier placements. For our final version of dice roll 5, we decided it was best to keep it so that barriers in the vertical row would only be destroyed if players land on a barrier (as shown below). Through good communication with our playtesters and each other, I think our group did well to balance out the power and potential of dice roll 5.

Final version for dice roll 5:

One thing I would definitely focus more on in future assignments is setting up appointments further ahead of time. In past projects, I had only worked with one partner at a time so finding times to work together was easy and simple. However, in our three person group, we had a much harder time working together at the same time outside of classroom times. This did not hurt our development process or efficiency in any way, it just created situations where groupmates would not have the opportunity to put in as much work as the others. As for my final thought, this project and course was an amazing experience and I got to learn a lot about working in a group for game development!

Playtest 1 Unit 3

November 13 - 19, 2023

Unit 3 is about making another 2-player game. This time however, we had the choice of either making a board or card game as long as it has physical game pieces that contribute to the gameplay. My group created Barrier, a two player board game where players try to reach the other side of the grid before their opponent does. While doing so, they can roll dices for a chance to flip the tables or place barriers to stall their opponents.

For this playtest, I had the opportunity to play The One True King, Barista Jam!, Knockout Arena, and an unnamed game that I unfortunately could not find the name for.

Out of the three, I played Knockout Arena the most since I played it in class with my other groupmates. To summarize the gameplay, each of the two players in the game first select a character class to play as. Afterwards, the players place their character pieces on the grid board.

Image of the game grid taken from Knock Arena's rule sheet:

Player pieces provided from the rule sheet.

Once the characters are ready to go, the players then alternate turns, choosing to either move their position or attack the enemy. All classes have different movement and attack abilities from one another, so the gameplay varies between each class. The first person to get knocked off the grid loses the game.

Moving back to the subject, the formal elements of Knockout Arena are:

Players:

Two Player.
Player vs Player.
Players choose their character > Players play rock-paper-scissors to decide who gets to go first > Players take turns using all their moves to attack or move around the grid > Game ends once a player falls out of the arena.

Objectives:

Primary Objective is to knock the opponent off the arena before you get knocked off.
Side Objective is to prevent yourself from getting knocked off by utilizing your items and abilities.

Procedures :

Draw out the game board using the picture provided from the rule sheet:
Each player chooses a character from the following pool:

Boxer: A movement-based class that has the most moves in the game. Is great for pressuring and running down opponents.
Electro: A class focused on whittling down the opponent using its tesla coil item and ranged attacks.
Monster: A strange yet comedic class that relies on its teleportation mechanics to maintain a favorable position on the board to make up for its lack of mobility.
Armored: A crazy class where it does more damage / knockback the more damage it takes. Also can place a barrier that can potentially block or negate knockback.

Place the characters on the board at the marked square points on the grid.
Rock paper scissors to decide who goes first.
Prepare a 6 sided dice from the one provided by the Google search engine.

Rules:

Each class gets a set amount of actions, some having more or less than others.
Actions can be used to

Move around on the game grid.

Some characters have specific movement patterns they must follow, like how chess pieces do.

Attack.

Some attacks costs more action points than others.

Use Items.

Items that are already placed down can be moved once again for the cost of an action.

Manipulate the value of the dice roll.

Costs an action for each dice point removed or added.

Each round, players roll a dice to see what special move they get depending on the dice roll.

They can only perform one dice roll per round

Players must write down how much damage they take over the course of the game.

Some moves have more knockback based on the amount of damage the victim has taken.

Unless stated otherwise, knockback always goes in the opposite direction of the attack.
Players lose if they get knocked off the grid.

Resources:

Dice rolls for special attacks.
Action moves per round.
Player Items.
Different types of attack and movement abilities.

Conflict:

Only one player can win the game, so players must fight each other to knock each other off the grid.
Some classes have huge action amount advantages over the other, which in a way could give a player a massive advantage over the other. Classes must be chosen carefully.

Boundaries:

Players cannot move off the grid unless they want to lose.
Players cannot move more than the amount of action moves they are given.

Outcome:

One player wins by knocking the other opponent off the game board.

Postmortem Unit 2

September 25 - October 29, 2023

As stated before, Unit 2 was about making a 2-player board game surrounding a theme and audience. I was a part of group 9 in section 2 of the class and helped to create Note Quest.

Note Quest is a musically themed 2-player board game made to target college students. The game board is formed with three hexagons separated and broken down by rows of quadrilateral pieces. The goal of the game is to collect all five of the notes on the board before the opponent does. While moving around the map, a dice is rolled each round for a "Tempo Change". Each side of the 6 sided dice represents a different event and works to shift the advantages between the players. This ranges from the players getting pushed all around the map to swapping each player's notes for the miracle comebacks.

Note Quest's default board layout:

To appeal to our audience, my partner and I wanted the art-style to be simplistic yet goofy because a lot of college students nowadays like colorful and / or silly themes. For example, a popular game that fits this description is Valorant, a well known FPS that can be identified from its cartoonish art style as well as their use of vibrant colors.

To achieve the visuals we made, we used Photoshop and Paint MS. We utilized the simple brush strokes to draw most of our things out while making sure that the visual would still be easily identifiable. This gives the game's appearance a more casual feel to sort of ease the audience with its approachable graphics.
Visual we made for our rule sheet

One thing that went wrong during our iteration process was at the beginning of the unit. At the beginning, my partner and I worked a little too fast on our Game Treatment and our grade for that assignment reflected that. Even though we completed all the in-class requirements, we did not take the time to apply the concepts from the book to our paper. In other words, we needed to show more of our learning from the book to create better content. This led us to get a score of 16/23 for that assignment, which we considered to be a bad score.

Over time, we learned to slow down by looking over our assignments after finishing them. For example, whenever one of us found something off about our rule sheet, we always made sure to fix the problem and repost it onto the rule sheet forum posts. Resubmitting and reevaluating greatly improved the quality of our assignments, and I'll be sure to continue doing so for future projects.

Some of my favorite things that came out of this project was the images for the trombone and saxophone. I made these using Paint MS, using the brush tools to create the outlines and the fill tool to color the instruments. I also used a couple of visuals to make sure the drawings were not difficult to decipher. I believe they fit in with the simplistic theme of the board pretty well because it achieves the balance of effort while not looking like a total masterpiece, an art style reminiscent of PilotRedSun's scribble abomination art.

Trombone
Saxophone

One thing I would definitely change about my design process from this point onward is my working speed. Working fast does not always guarantee satisfactory results and could massively impact the quality of the content. I believe taking steps to read over and edit completed work is something that I have overlooked a lot lately and is something I should definitely be focusing on in my projects going forward.

Playtest 1 Unit 2

October 1-15, 2023

Unit 2 was about making a board game surrounding a theme and audience. I was a part of group 9 in section 2 of the class and helped to create Note Quest. It is a musically themed board game made to target college students.

Note Quest's default board layout:

During the development process, I was tasked with playing board games designed by other groups. The games I played were The Hungry Queen, Speedy Food Wars, Sweet Sabotage, and Triassic Tussle.

In class, my partner and I had the opportunity of playing Speed Food Wars against each other. If I had to describe the game in a short sentence or two, I would say that it is a unique blend of Solitaire and Tic Tac Toe in that it has some gameplay mechanics from both of them. However, I would also say that it is very different from both because the win condition is different from both games.

Game layout of Speedy Food Wars taken from the designers' rule sheet:

To get back on subject, the formal elements of the game are:

Players:

Two Player.
Player vs Player.
Players draw cards until they have 6 cards > Players place and draw cards to increase their pile's value / decrease opponents pile value > Winner of the round draws a symbol on the 4x4 grid > Players draw cards until they have 6 cards.

Objectives:

Main objective is to reach 7 symbols before the opponent does.
Side objective is to win each round by keep the value of your pile higher than your opponents.

Procedures :

Make a 4x4 grid on a paper.
Draw an X and an O diagonally next to each other in the center of the grid.
Deal six cards to each player.
Set the rest of the deck in the middle.
Have both players take a card from the deck and place on both sides of the deck.

Rules:

No player can have more than 6 cards in their hand.
Players can place a card with a value one higher or lower than the card currently at the top of their own pile or opponent's pile.
Rounds end when neither player can play any cards.
When the rounds end, the player that has the pile with a higher value wins the round.
When placing their symbol, they can choose to place their symbol in an empty spot next to an existing symbol of theirs.

The winner can also replace an opponents symbol if the winner's symbol is adjacent to it.
The winner cannot replace an opponent's symbol if it is their last one.

Image from the Speedy Food War's rule sheet showing the O being replaced by the X.

Ace's are the highest valued cards and can be stacked with a 2.

Resources:

6 cards for each player
Symbols representing each player on the 4x4 grid.
The middle deck for drawing cards.
Card piles that the players must attack / defend.

Conflict:

Only one player can win the round, so each player must work to best the other player.
The grid also has limited space so eventually one of the players has to take spaces away from the other player.

Boundaries:

Cannot place symbols outside of the grid.
Must place cards on top of one of the piles.

The card being placed also must be one value lower or higher than the card it is being placed upon.

Players cannot hold more than 6 cards at once.

Outcome:

One player wins by having 7 of their symbols on the grid at once.

Postmortem Unit 1

September 18-24, 2023

Unit 1 was about modifying the base game of Solitaire by adding or changing features with your assigned partner. I was part of Group number 4 in section 2 of the class and made three major changes to our version of the game, Tower Solitaire.

To sum up the premise of our game, Tower Solitaire is a more difficult yet exciting version of Solitaire. With 7 less cards in the players hand and 7 more to uncover on the board, skillful players will be able to speed through the game with the help of the new and exciting joker card mechanics. The joker cards can be used as wildcards, which can substitute for any card and color on the board. They can also be used to start new rows which have to be followed up with a king afterwards. The board layout has also been changed, having a simple 5x7 layout instead of the original staircase formation. We didn't really have a target audience in mind, but our Tower Solitaire would most likely be suited for teenagers and up. There are a lot of rules so kids might not be interested in learning the game.

Layout of Tower Solitaire

One main issue we had to deal with was that after the playtesting from others, we realized that our game relied too much on luck to get through our early game. Since there were so many starting cards on the board and less cards in the hand, the player could lose the game really fast if an early king popped up on the board. This means that 1 out of the five pillars would get locked until an ace is found, which is not very likely especially since aces and kings have to be the same color to be placed in the ace piles. To fix this, we added another Joker mechanic to the game. We made it so that the Jokers could make their own separate pile starting with the king after the Joker. This helped out the early game a lot because it gave the player another way to move kings away from the piles.

Joker Pile

One thing that went well in the Game Design was how we were able to establish our game's identity from the original Solitaire. The gameplay was a lot smoother because of the jokers and the starting rectangular layout made it stand out from the original staircase design.

Another thing that went well was the implementation of the Jokers. The Jokers prevented many situations where players would get stuck just because they were missing one card. Since they could be used to start new piles or replace cards, it allowed players to flow better throughout the gameplay. Overall, the jokers really improved the experience of Tower Solitaire.

Something we weren't able to add were pictures made from Photoshop. We didn't really spend the time to create fancy images for our rule sheet. Instead we used our decks in real life to set up game scenarios in order to explain rules or concepts. I think this turned out really well because it was much easier to do and it was very clear on how things worked. For example, we were able to explain the ordering really easily using this image that didn't take long to setup:

A problem we faced was dealing with the King cards in the game. The game would get really hard in the early versions because they would block off the player from clearing a row in a lot of runs. We later fixed this issue by allowing the player to create Joker piles to move those Kings around.

We also had a lot of play testers struggle with our first and second rule sheets because of communication issues. To fix this, we added a lot more pictures to help with the confusion. This made it so that if the players could not understand the wording, they would be able to just follow along with the pictures.

One smaller issue we sort of faced was coming up with the name for our modded game. Nothing really snapped until we started looking at the unique identities of the game. We tried names revolving around the Jokers like "Wildcard Solitaire" but they did not really click with us. Then, we took note that our layout was vastly different from the original one, so we went with "Tower Solitaire".

In projects going forward, I think I will for sure start to use more real life images for rule sheets or explanations. I used to think they were really hard to set up, but doing it for this project made me realize that it really isn't that bad if you have the resources to do so. Our next project is going to be the board game, so it might be a bit more challenging to do so.

Rule Sheet

September 3 - 10, 2023

The rule sheet was a 1-2 week long project where my partner and I worked on modifying the gameplay of Solitaire. We focused on making the gameplay flow smoother by changing the layout of the board from a descending staircase to a 5x7 rectangle of card rows. We also implemented Jokers into the game that could imitate any card and color for the board.

For the first version of our modded Solitaire, we took the time to think about what we wanted to change about the game. My partner, who has played much more Solitaire than I have, noted that the gameplay was already really well balanced and thought out. This made it very hard to add additional features and rules to change the game, so we decided to focus on quality of life changes instead to improve the flow of the game.

The first thing we thought about doing was changing the rules about the colors having to alternate between stacked cards. I proposed that it would make it much easier to get through the game and make it more fun to play because it would speed up the progression of the game. However, after a bit of thinking, we decided to not implement this change because easier does not automatically mean more fun. By removing the alternating color mechanic, it made Solitaire a little too easy for more experienced Solitaire players.

Instead, my partner proposed that we should turn the upside down staircase layout of the traditional Solitaire board into 5 rows of 7 cards. This gave the player more room to work with because there were less cards in the hand to worry about and more on the board. Less cards meant that the player didn't have to reiterate through the hand as much which is one of the things a lot of casual Solitaire players have issues with.

We then started working on the rule sheet and added some pictures to show what the layout of the board should look like.

On the second version of our modded Solitaire, we wanted to continue improving the flow and pace of the game. Since we had already changed the layout of the board, I wanted to augment another aspect of the game. Things such as the cards, colors, and number order seemed to be the things that were easiest to change, but didn't really seem to have much more to offer than what they already were. The color mechanic was needed for the challenge, the number order already made sense, and the cards were needed for the number order.

After taking a step back, I realized that Joker cards weren't used in the original game at all. I then told my partner about how we could implement the Joker cards by making them a substitute for any card or color in the game. He enjoyed the idea and further refined it by making it so that it could only be used in the hand or board and not in the row of Aces. After putting that idea in and playtesting it, we both decided that it was enough of an addition for the second version. Keeping the modded version simple is a great way to satisfy all types of players. It kept it easy for new players to learn the ways and faster for older players to pick up on the changes.

One of the things that I will definitely take with me from this experience is that working on call is much better than working through texting or typing. In some of my old past games, I used to type and text with teammates which would work but it wasn't as fast as talking in real time. For example, if I wanted to type out how my thought process worked, a teammate might ask a quick question in the middle which would ruin the train of thought if I had to delete what I was in the middle of typing. In real time though, I would just answer the question quickly and go back to what I was saying instead of having to retype what I was initially typing in the first place. Talking in real time really just improves the work flow.

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