Play testing - end of the Semester

This semester in Critical Analysis of Games, we had about 12 or 13 games out of a class of 26. Some folks worked alone because of their schedules or because they were the only person interested in a topic. Here is a link to all the projects for this class: projects. You can see more pictures here on Flickr.

There were games about LOLcats, YouTube videos, space pirates, Dante's Inferno, Dr. Horrible's musical blog, greek mythology, dating in the 50s, retro space adventuring, trans-Canadian highway system, children's fairy tales, and bounty hunting. We had board games, trivia games, card games, and combinations. The play test session was hectic. We rotated games in and out as people finished a round. It would be better to let them play a round, have a few minutes to make notes, and then repeat. For that we need space and people - lots of people - since most of the games need 4 players.


We invited some staff and other professors to come play. They gave the students good feedback. It was a way for other people in the school to see what kinds of things students in the new game design major will do. And it's important for students to get feedback from someone other than me (or their peers). Especially if we want to think about making commercially viable games - we need to understand different markets

Having our playtest time during final exams week makes it tough to get students. Next year we're going to do the big play test the last week of classes. That will give the students more time to revise and do their write up too. This year we had candidates in doing demo classes so we were a little short of time.

Building Prototypes for Analog Games

Image via Wikipedia

Boardgame News has a good post this week about bhilding prototypes of boardgames. It doesn't go into game mechanics or creating ideas. Instead it looks at the importance of having lots of bits and pieces around to work with - cards, money, markers, dice. The author talks about using existing cards (playing cards, Magic the Gathering cards) and pasting new game stuff on the card front - the cards all have uniform card backs. He keeps around old games that he doesn't want to play anymore and uses the money, cards, small wooden pieces. I guess you could even use the board - just cover it with a new graphic. He even has a home laminator.

It's a timely article because the students in my critical analysis of games class (2nd semester of the freshman year of our game design major) are finishing up creating games with the Icehouyse game system pyramids. After spring break they start work on creating a board game. This article suggests stuff I need to collect for this semester and the future. I saw tons of gorgeous paper at AC Moore. They even have die cutters with premade dies that I need to look at - we could make cool specialty/themed shapes with it.


URL: http://www.boardgamenews.com/index.php/boardgamenews/comments/dale_yu_everything_you_need_to_know_about_prototypes_but_were_afraid_to_ask/

See an earlier post about our playtesting the pyramid games. I will post about playtesting the board games at the end of the semester and have some more ideas about what we should be colecting.

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Trying to Interest People in New BoardGames

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Just read a post on BoardGameNews from a guy who tried to get a couple of his friends to play modern board games and they refused regularly. - http://www.boardgamenews.com/index.php/boardgamenews/comments/tom_rosen_joe_and_bob/

I've noticed some of these same qualities in my college students. Specifically - they don't want to read rules to learn new games. They see games like Colossal Arena and Race for the Galaxy are too complex, have too many pieces, take too long to set up. And some of them do take a while to learn or to set up - but the games seem worth the effort with good game play and different ways to win.

Not sure what to do about it - any suggestions?

Board/Card Games - some we got, more I want

Image via WikipediaI bought 5 new card games for the games classes - different game play mechanisms, some interesting themes, some 2 player and some 3-5 player, some by well-known designers
We got
Pink Godzilla Dev Kit
Frog Juice
Slamwich
MMM...Brains
and
Monkeys on the Moon

And after reading some game play reports from the big board game geek conference in Texas here are a few more games I want to buy. Amazon doesn't carry them and funagain games doesn't have a persistent shopping cart so I'm going to put the info here till I"m ready to buy some more games

Eselsrennen - you race donkeys
Wasabi - a tile layiing game wher eyou're trying to build sushi
Cities - a tile laying game, can be played in about 20 minutes, builds on ideas (and meeples) in Carcasonne
Coloretto (tho the new game by the same designer Boss Kito is supposedly not good at all)
Code 777 - a dice game
Gulo Gulo - a kid's game about removing eggs froma bowl

Meeples in Motion

Meeples are the playing pieces from the Carcassone board game. They're little wooden people.

Here are some pictures from our game day - including our attempt at an arty shot of a meeple being placed on the board.

good post about importance of game designers

Image via WikipediaClick here to read post written by Dr. Lewis Pulsipher on his board game blog. He had his students create games by giving them a vinyl write-on/wipe-off chess board and some pieces. One group randomly scattered pieces to start the game.

he pointed out that the designer should take the time to come up with some interesting starting conditions, interesting pieces placement instead of leaving it all up to the player.

Made a lot of sense and it's a part of the design process that we talk about but his example drives home how the designer has to carry thru on all the decisions.