9/21/11 - Week 3 of class - Brainstorming and Playtesting!

After watching Group 2's presentation, we jumped into some more play testing.  The game still seemed a little bland (though playable) and definitely needed something to spice it up.

We decided to add a resource (fuel) that had to be used to perform the actions of the game, including movement and playing action cards.  This also forced us to consider how players obtained fuel and let us to make some changes to the way our map was laid out (on our first run through, Jamie smoked us with lucky rolls that let her land on each refuel point).  We spread out the refueling spots, and added a cost to mining for fuel (you have to remain on the refuel point), which means you have to actually make a strategic decision.

So right now, if you land on a refueling spot, you gain an action card and 5 fuel.  We discussed giving people another choice; 0 cards and 5 fuel, or 1 card and 3 fuel, or 2 cards and 2 fuel, or some other set of combos.  This may just make it overly complicated though.  You can also sit on a refuel spot for an extra turn to gain more fuel and cards, but you are deciding not to move.

Our costs to movement, combined with our initial way of selecting movement, allows us a surprisingly large amount of ways for players to mess with one another. 

With the added resource, we suddenly saw a lot more interaction, as our decisions also affected the other players.  We decided with this change, we could have more aggressive (nastier) cards, but that we also needed a maximum hand-size.  At the moment, it's only 3. 

I'm a little worried that the strategy is a little too simple during our die-pick phase.  There isn't really a reason to ever not pick the highest die you can pick.  How can we make it more of a choice that matters?

• Perhaps anyone waiting to refuel has to skip the pick phase, which means they cannot take away a good die from someone else? 
• Perhaps the movement cost shouldn't scale as well as it does.  Perhaps the cost should be greater for greater movement speed.
• Move 1/Cost 1
• Move 2/Cost 3
• Move 3/Cost 5
• Perhaps more adjustments to the spacing between fuel spaces

Some of the above could significantly slow down the game, but we could speed it up simply by removing the outer row of hexes.

Some other things we talked about:

• getting six different color dice, so each player rolls their own die (which matches the ship color)
• designing a ship (Jamie was going to make some sketches) and then printing little hex tokens.
• We decided to add one final refuel spot (we need a better name for that) just before the Wormhole (to prevent players from getting stuck there with cards they can't afford to play).
• Creating specialty dice so the range is less than 6 (or just using 4 sided dice)  
• We need titles for our action cards (they're not really needed, but they help the theme)
• Professor Goeller suggested we play up the fuel idea in greater detail, linking it to the oil-peak theory that many people fear is playing out in the real world right now (this idea has been churning in the back of my head over the weekend and growing on me ...)
• Giving multiple sets of rules for the game.  A simple kids version, and more complicated full version, and a cutthroat interactive version. 

The map looks decent printed out, though I made a math error when choosing the size, but it'll still work for play testing on Wednesday.  I also realized that I forgot to make the path move obvious -- we'll have to brainstorm what the best way to do that is on Wednesday.

See -- just a giant grid with no path... 

 I also went "font shopping" and tried to come up with a logo design.  I went with simple at first, then added some hexes to keep with the theme of the map:

 (Though, my brain is now looking for some for of "Out of Gas" title for the game now ...)

I played with some other fonts for the logo ... none really appealed to me. I'll bring in a printout with the others so everyone can vote.
 
I didn't get a chance to work on the ship tokens, except conceptually.  I'm thinking a starfield background with a simple artistic space ship (more cargo-ship than fighter) that is painted in a simple solid color that differs for each player, with similar accents on each ship OR we go wild and draw six different types of ships (still different colors though) OR we do logos of fake Fuel Company names for our space fleets ("Hexxon Mobile!") ...

See you Wednesday!

9/14/2011 First Day of Creating Our Game

Last week we were assigned to each create 2 grid-based games to present to our group members, and potentially choose one to use as a model to create our actual game, today was the day they were due. Mike was the only one who actually typed up his game concept, as Eric, Jeff, and myself were not aware that typing our proposals was a requirement. Mike clearly knows the most about games and game design, however we are all throwing ideas back and forth and creating useful input as equally as possible. After viewing everyones game proposals, we actually decided to go with our original game concept from the first day of class. We had many of our ideas worked out, and the board drawn out already, so after a little brainstorming and debating we were ready to give our game a test-run. We played the game, all the while discussing things we might want to add/remove, and discussing the bugs of the game. One major issue we found, was that the game played through too quickly. We decided to resolve this by adding more "negative" cards to the game, cards such as "move back 2 spaces" etc., thus increasing the difficulty and time it would take to "win" the game. So far our game is looking pretty good. The hexagon pattern can be a little confusing to the eye, but we plan on changing some aesthetics (color, line boldness, etc.) to remedy this. This week we are all going to come up with some additional ideas for game play cards, work on the actual game board, and I am going to draw some artwork to potentially use in the game and for the game bits. We are making a lot of progress on our game, and are excited to see a more "final" product.
-Jamie