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.

Board Game_02 4/10/11

Our first line of discussion was finding our target audience. Since our game is a strategy based game, we can innovate that by sticking to the same genre but change its line of appeal such as the status of the counters, the colours of all the components, and change the complexity of the rules to make it easier for a younger audience to understand.

With reference to what was just said, to make the game appeal to a child, we would consider making the rules simpler and include shapes or numbers in the games mechanics.

 We had a long chat about the games mechanics, its components and a rough overview of the rules. We decided to have around 10 pieces per player, each piece with a different value attached to it. Movement and upgrades for each of the players counters is turn based (for example, a player could decide to sacrifice a chance to move on the board for the sake of leveling up one of their selected pieces by one point.

From board game research we found games that target certain audiences have a fixed genre that appeals to that age group (e.g. a fantasy element for younger people).

We also thought it would be a good idea to include natural organic elements and symbols to class as attributes for each players pieces.

The game will consist of 2-4 players, who can deploy in each of the designated sections on the board (unless it is two player, where each player MUST deploy in opposite corners of the board).

The actual pieces used in the game will be 4 sided triangles, which have a number on each face so that when your counter levels up the player can spin the piece round according to the number it levels up to.

At this stage we want to focus on nailing the mechanics and the games rules before considering a theme, narrative or genre.

We continued to debate about the characteristics of the games mechanics and how the points system would work

Nigel had a chat with us and gave us some constructive feedback, pointing out the pros and cons of the game. A lot were cons because there were issues like the game could go on forever, too many pieces on the board, the boat being too big, having more players. Just trying to point us in the right direction.

Once we had left the session we decided to just crack on with something each and get a solid set of rules down before we changed our ideas again. I assigned myself to design the board.

We did brainstorm a couple of other game ideas, but we were convinced that this concept would work best, so we are going to take a shot in the dark at it and see how it goes.

Before we parted at the end of the session we assigned eachother tasks to get a solid grasp on the idea. One person to work on the rules, one on concept art for the board, rule book etc… I was assigned to design the board.

I kept it simple, since it is only going to be used for beta testing at this time.

Board Game_01 3/10/11 (Introduction to the brief, developing ideas)

Once the brief was handed to us, our lecturers split the group up into teams. We then got acquainted with eachother and began discussing our strengths and weaknesses.

All of us were flexible in what we could do for the group, but some more than others had their heart set on certain tasks that they felt comfortable with. I volunteered to work on the final products presentation, layout and some concept art. Other group members are working purely on one subject, being concept art, research, modeling and the projects presentation.

After assigning everyone with a role in the group we decided it would be best to go home and begin our research ready for discussion during tomorrows session.

The majority of the group went to Toys ‘ R ‘ Us to have a look at current board games on the market. We found that the majority of the games on the shelf were children/family games.

While we were hanging around the board games section, we had a quick discussion on colour schemes and presentation of the game and its packaging. I will begin designing the board’s layout and research a variety of colour schemes, by creating mood boards and making rough sketches of the game. Once I have completed a set of draft game ideas I will hand them round to other students (not particularly games students) with a questionnaire attached for them to fill in, to get realistic feedback.

My personal goal for this task is to research into children’s games and create a series of mood boards showing the different colour schemes used and the ‘USP’ factor.