Devlog #7

This week, we started designing card games based on the theme of travel. My group decided to make a game about taking photos of sights and tourist spots, but you have limited film and have no idea how many points that the sight can give you.

On Tuesday, when we brainstormed, we decided to play test our game with the simple mechanics. One person places down the "destination card", we decide if we take a photo, and then a point card was drawn, 1-10. This is a type of playtest known as internal playtests by the book. We were merely looking at how the game worked by testing the idea itself. We determined that it was good, and decided to add in cards that either help you or ruin another player's chances.  While we weren't playtesting another group, we began to come up with ideas on how to spice up the game, such as the modifying cards.

On Thursday was more playtesting but with some cards that were designed for the game itself. After catching up on what we talked about, we began to playtest again. "Playtesting is the most critical part of the iterative game design process because it is the time when you gain deeper insight into the ideas explored during conceptualization" (Ch. 11, Macklin, Sharp). We all originally thought our first concept was good. However, the more we playtested on Thursday, the more ides we had. We eventually led down to an idea where we play with suits, such as in regular playing cards. It really spiced up the game since there was a point bonus if we matched the film suits to the destination suits.

After looking at the card game Bartok, which is like Uno, but for regular playing cards. Reading the description, it posed an important question for any game designer, not just about this game. "Is the game of the appropriate difficulty for the intended audience? Is it too difficult, too easy, or just right?" (Bartok Description). After reading this question after our two classes of the week, it made me think; was our film shedding game too easy? It is simple game, with the only complication being the amount of type of cards you have within the game (point value cards, film cards, destination cards, and modifier cards). I realized soon after that if we didn't add the suits idea, our game would be too simple and possibly too boring too quick for playtesters and any potential audiences to enjoy it. It could generate a short lived enjoyment, but possibly not enough for the game to be brought out of the closet.

"The designer must frame decision points in a way that is conductive to generating or maintaining flow for the player" (10 Decision Making, Hiwiller). Despite the easy flow of our game, the only reason it was an easy flow was the simple rules. While adding the suits made the decision of placing down a film card longer for players, it only interrupted the flow a tiny bit as players will now have to critically think if they should place down a film card rather than place one and hope for a high point roll. In my opinion, good games are ones that make you think about your next move, either with chess levels of thought (5+ steps ahead) or Uno (1 or 2 steps ahead).