Design Journal #2

"Play thrives in spontaneity, fueled by imagination and colored by uncertainty" (Calleja, p. 1). Spontaneity can create some of the most played games in this day, from board games to games that just require you and a few others. A simple game of tag can be warped and changed by the imagination of kids to make a whole new game, giving a spice in their life before they face the real world.

 This week, I gained an idea for a board game by remembering familiar games I played as a child during one of the lectures. It was a sudden revelation, enough for me to take notes and look online for any possibility that it may exist. I do not have everything worked out, but as time goes on, I will have more ideas.

On Thursday in class, two other people and I created a Human Battleship game. It was a bit more guided as we had a website given by the professor filled with folk games. Combining this sort of style with a popular board game let the creation of our game come to life, and it would turn out to be a lot of fun, especially as more rules and the randomness of the "ships"' placements made the experience more fun and more relatable to the joy that children get when playing without electronics.

Taking the basic elements of a game (actions, goals, rules, objects, playspace, and players) and trying to make one out of thin air seems hard, but when looking at other games, it can become a lot easier to make one if you base it off another game, but change it enough to fit your vision. Such as our Human Battleship game, we drew inspiration from the board game Battleship; we then took that and put it in a bigger format, changed the rules, minimized the objects, and established the players' roles. This allowed us to create an almost original game that could be enjoyed by many.