Board Game_09 27/10/11

Our group go together and built the box, threw all the pieces together and had the finish product, minus the rule book.

We were all so excited with the finished product we had to go and test it out. We all met up at the Playhouse and cracked out a 4 player 2v2 game.

Ever since we started play testing the game we never timed the game, to add an average game time in the rule book. I feel that it is important that when a consumer wishes to buy a game they want to know how long the game will last. Depending on what kind of game they are after they may or may not buy it.

After an intense 4 player game, I got an average recorded time of 1 hour. But to be honest it was a very laid back game. We were all chatting amongst ourselves while playing and constantly distracting each other.

This game requires the player's full concentration. If we play the game seriously I think that the game time will be less and the general strategies and techniques of gameplay between players would be better, making it interesting.

At the end of the day, players can play it however they want. So long as we make money hehehe... Just kidding! :)

Board Game_08 25/10/11

During the last few sessions I have met with my group and have basically been working on our write-ups and building the board and its pieces ready for hand in.

Earlier on in the project I conducted some research. I focussed my research on board layouts for strategy games. I looked at board games such as Chess and Risk. I also looked at a more abstract game, Ludo, which wasn't really a strategy game, but I appreciated its board layout and gave me a lot of ideas on how to make the board look.

The board design we came up with had four different colour/symbol coded deployment zones, similar to Ludo. The board also has a centre point, where the players have to reach to win. I wanted to integrate this idea into our board game. Sadly after many beta tests with the centre game piece scenario there were a lot of loop holes, so we scrapped it.

I wanted to attatch the images of the boards to this post, but sadly I encountered some errors durng the upload process. 

Board Game_07 14/10/11

This session was literally talking about the games themes and the board layout.
The rules have been finalized, the number of pieces per player and boards size.

We all talked about the different themes we could do. I chose to design a board for air and space. Other themes we had come up with were desert, jungle, ocean, cave. Any tropical feature really.

Board Game_06 10/10/11

Todays group session was an oppertunity to speak with our lecturers and get some constructive feedback about the current status of our board game.
We managed to settle the conflict regarding the boards layout and size. It was just a matter of settling the mechanics. Some of the rules we had noted were either too complex or just pointless.
Our idea of having a variety of themes to attract a broad target audience remains the same, but its just a matter of discussing which themes to use for children, teenagers, adults etc...

Since our game uses numbers, it'll be easier if each player has a refrence card to keep score of their pieces.

After the play testing session the other day and we have agreed that all three sets of game rules work. Each set of rules are easier than the next, which makes the overall game appealing to the audience we're aiming for.

The tower defense conditions are still in the works but from what Kai told me there are a lot of bugs.

We then moved on to discussing the movement conditions and a new layout to the board, because triangle pieces on a square board didn't really make any sense. So we decided to put triangles inside the squares. We the came across the issue of the pieces facing in the wrong direction when engaged in combat with their opponent. I suggested that each space should consist of a trangle within a circle, and any surrounding space can be supported with the boards landscape layout. Me and Kai suggested we could use symbols on some of the spaces (like in Scrabble) to use as bonus spaces or level ups. Joey said it would make the game too complex and we'd be trailing away from the simple strategy gameplay.

We thought three movement turns per player, similar to Warhammer's movement when each player can move a selection of their units where ever. However, players may forget what stage of movement they are up to and will complicate the gameplay.

Overall we had decided to change the boards grid layout to circles and the board is going to have a 9x9 sized board with the triangles surrounding the centre, for the players deployment zones.

Board Game_05 7/10/11

Another short session today but during our meeting we managed to beta test a successful trial of our board game. From what I saw when watching a couple of our group members play the game, it looked very easy to learn, play and from the looks on the players faces, very strategic.

Board Game_04 6/10/11

We spent our morning session discussing the board's scale and went over the rules of the game in a bit more detail. I had a chat with the group member responsible for the rules and mechanics of the game and gave him some feedback on the development of the tower defense objective.
We have finalised that the tower defense option is recommended for 3-4 players, but 2 player gamers can use it as a campaign option. We don't want to be rescticting players of what they can do in the game, it may take longer to complete though.

Our top group researcher has been doing a great job looking into the history of board games and all its aspects, so she will continue with the research.

Half the group took a small trip to a couple of toy shops in town to find some pieces we can use for beta testing.

Afterwards me and the other board game designer started working on a fully functioning, sustainable board with all its components ready for beta testing tomorrow.

We didn't really set eachother any goals after todays session. After looking across at everyones work effort, everyone has been doing great work. I can't wait to see the finished result.

Me and my fellow board game designer came up with a great, waste saving packaging idea. The board itself is the box. Since I was recommended to make the unit deployment zones triangles, I doubled the size of the board and realised if the corners were lifted it would create a pyramid, with all the components stored inside.

After all the hard work we put in on the board design today I reckon it'll be ready for beta testing tomorrow !

Board_Game03 5/10/11

Today was mostly a feedback day. We shared our working and findings, discussing about them in detail. We had a long discussion about the games rules, and after much talk we reckon we have nailed them. 

I showed the group the board game I designed and it was too big.

One of our group members did a little play test of the game with just under 10 pieces per team and he found it was too many, and the game went on for too long,

The trouble was in order for the game to work we have to have a reasonable amount of pieces to allow each player to have enough units of each trait.

We settled to have 7 counters per player (1-4, 2-3, 2-2, 2-1).

Once I resized the board I had a little play around with the deployment of the pieces, and I’m convinced that it will work!

Me and another group member thought up an idea to have a central objective to make the game more interesting if there were more than 2 players involve.

We haven’t got confirmed rules for this idea yet, but it sounds like a possibility.

I suggested a variety of scenarios that are noted down on a deck of cards (like in the Risk board game). Each card will have a different objective for both attack and defense. 

We set our board game modeler the task of making a rough model of the board itself, including the tower in the middle to accommodate the extra players.