Final Thoughts on Project

Final thoughts on the project by the group was that we were satisfied with the game we produced. We felt that it was a very in depth game with lots of potential and plenty of different play styles. The rules are very clear and thorough, we covered every scenario and possibility that could happen in the game. We also thought of many ways players could mod the game (which some suggestions are located in the back of the manual.) We worked many hours figuring and testing some aspects of the game and worked hard to make everything by hand. By doing everything ourselves and putting the blood (literally, Travis gashed his finger while cutting metal for the magnetic tiles!) sweat and sleep deprivation into this game instead of outsourcing the production; we couldn’t be happier with the end product.

We also felt that the main weakness was that it was too in depth. It was not a game that a casual player could sit down and play just on the fly. They would either have to read the instruction manual or have an experienced player explain to them as they went. We went into so much detail with the game for the players to understand it in full in every scenario that we didn’t have enough time to properly test some of the new mechanics that was added to the game in the end.

Over all we would all say that we worked well together in the short amount of time we had, felt we obtained the aesthetic, and thoroughly (and unintentionally) insulted albinos.

Wednesday, April 7th – 8th

We added a motorcycle. The motorcycle allows players better movement. Previously we had that the baby couldn’t be killed and any player could go back for it there fore being a “foster mother”. Instead, we decided that if the mother dies that the baby would die as well. We also added binoculars to allow players a sneak peak at any tile on the board. We made the special event cards such as motorcycle, binoculars, and dog unable to be stolen by the thief.

Upon arriving at Tyler’s house we finalized the project. We created the rulebook, game tiles, event and resource cards, and more pawns.  Though we did not have such a high budget as some other games, we hand crafted every piece we could with the game (with exception to the magnetic game pieces.)

Tuesday, May 6th (8 pm Make-up class)

We started the artistic aesthetic of the game. For our board we deiced to use magnets for easy pick up. We also abolished the medical packs and replaced the evasion cards since medical packs were essentially useless. Evasion cards allowed players to avoid being attacked by a cannibal.

Tuesday, May 6th

In class we play tested our game with another team. What arose is that zombies didn’t have incentive to attack living players. This brought about zombie win condition. We received helpful tips from this group (even though there were some pointless comments about the smallest things.)

Friday, May 2nd

We met at Metro coffee house at 7 pm that night to do our official team test of the game with Gwen’s boyfriend coming to act as a none biased tester. First we changed the moving system to where you had to expend 1 food or water to move 1 space around the terrain. We realized though that this would make the game more difficult because it would restrict movement around the board and ended up punishing players for following a rule once they were out of water/food cards. Upon the second test we decided to add a new class, the thief, because we felt it would add a new obstacle to play by having a character that was encouraged to chase down other players. The way encouraged the thief to chase players was giving him the ability to steal cards from other players he was around.

We combined food and water to make nourishment cards. It will make things easier and to speed things up. Nourishment is not required to be expended for movement. Nourishment instead will add a movement bonus.

Thursday, May 1st

Travis brought his official test report to us during class. This is where a major overhaul of the mechanics happened. We added in random cannibal spawns into the tile deck, disabled pvp and came up with a balanced but simple battle decided with one 6-d. We had it so if a player defeated a cannibal that the difference between the numbers would be the amount of tiles you would move the cannibal away from you. We changed that last rule real quick because we realized without even playing with this mechanic that the cannibals would just build up on the terrain and it gave players no option to take them off or out of play. We made it though that if the player was defeated by the cannibal that they would not permanently die and no longer part of the game, but become a cannibal himself or herself and try to prevent the other players from winning the game.

Wednesday, April 30th

Meeting at the student center out of class, the group came up with basic mechanics for the game. We decided on the idea of having resource, medical, event, and weapon cards. Along with the character classes and special abilities. At the time we had a basic pvp system where players could steal the cards of the player that lost the battle. for the mother, we had it that the baby would also be lost in that case. The battle system was very primitive also, having it that the player who had the most weapon cards would win the battle. This mechanic was very unbalanced and over-powered the soldier class. This was found out later that night when Travis ran the first test of the game with non-group members. Being the soldier he was easily able to go around and rob all the other players with little effort. We also had it that the cannibals would start at the opposite end of the playing field from the players. We found in the first test that this limited the cannibal encounters to almost zero, as it was almost impossible for the cannibals to catch up with the players.

Tuesday, April 29th (Afternoon)

Later that day we adopted Gwen, who was absent from group assignment, and completed the 4-person team. We re-thought our aesthetic and mechanics and decided to go with a tile-based game that was to have the main aesthetic of selfishness with an underlying of pity. The game became centered around survival in a post-apocalyptic world where had to step over each other to win, encouraging the aesthetic of selfishness.

Tuesday, April 29th (Morning)

When the project was first assigned last Tuesday, Racqual, Travis, and Tyler were assigned to a group. They came up with multiple aesthetics for many games; one was about suspense with a game with randomly disappearing areas of a board. Another one was a game about the cold war that was supposed to have the aesthetic of suspicion and suspense. After developing the cold war game they felt like they had a decent but lacking game.