Week 5 - Play Testing

This week we conducted a play test of our revised games from last week. Having new testers provided us with a fresh perspective on our game so that we could work out the last of the game's kinks. Our play test goals included figuring out what aspects of our game to test and asking players ample questions about those aspects. We were looking to find out which features players enjoyed most about the game and which features they did not enjoy or felt needed change. There were several new features of our game we were looking to test this week. We wanted to see how drafting the budget cards would affect game play. We were also curious about whether the new point system we created for the budget cards and changing the rules about how a player wins the game would change perspective on the game and it's replay ability overall. We wanted to know if the players felt the action cards helped or hindered his or her chances at obtaining budget cards. Lastly, one of the most important things we wanted be sure each card was equally powerful during game play. Many important points arose as the two play tests went on. We noticed that the players were having a difficult time obtaining budget cards; they were either a couple of dollars away from the exact price or way under. The players suggested lowering the budgets even more or creating even-numbered budgets that were easier to obtain. To fix this issue, we decided on creating budget cards with price ranges instead, so that as long as players had items that added up to a number within a particular budget card range, they could obtain that budget. The players also mentioned the trouble they were having "buying" items with uneven prices, such as seventeen dollars or forty-two dollars because of their lack of one dollar bills. To fix this issue, we doubled the amount of dollar bill cash cards in comparison to the rest of the cash cards we had in the cash card pile to evenly distribute the power of every cash card amount. We also realized that our change of drafting the budget cards and creating a point system to win the game definitely worked better in terms of the games likability. It created more chances and different ways to win the game, improving the game's replay ability like we had hoped. We also clarified and updated the games set of rules to make sure the players were not confused about how to play game. After conducting two play tests and hearing all the positives and negatives of our game, were hoping these changes resolve all the kinks and create an exciting and fun gaming experience for every player this week!

Week 4

This week we brought in our first prototype of the game, and as expected, we ran into more than just a few issues with it. From technical difficulties in finding matching fonts to problems in the mechanics and rules of the game, we encountered problems in almost every problem of our game. Luckily, we did not allow for there to be room for any groupthink, as we had breath along with depth, and overcame most of our issues rather quickly.
After test-playing the game and taking our Professor's input into consideration we came up with a better idea of how we wanted the game to be played. We took out any action cards that may create a negative playing experience for a player, and only left ones that would only allow a positive game playing experience in order to make the game as enjoyable as possible for every player. For example, we originally had an action card where you could switch your cash cards with any player, so one player could give 2 cash cards to a player and take their 6 cash cards forcing them to spend multiple turns rebuilding their cash card collection before having the ability to buy an item. To resolve that problem, we made it so you can only switch what you have, so you can give 4 cards in exchange for a different 4 cards from that players hand.
Another problem we ran into was that the draft of items was growing too large. Originally, if you could not buy the items in the draft, you could choose a card from the top of the pile in one last attempt to buy an item, and if you could not afford it, it would go into the draft. But we did not want to have a giant draft of items, so we resolved it by putting the randomly drawn card at the bottom of the item pile instead of the draft.
The game was taking too long with budget cards that had such high values, so we decided to make lower valued budget cards. With lowered valued budget cards you have the ability to make the game a little bit more complex because you can play it so the first person with 3 completed budgets wins, or if you want to make it easier the first to complete one budget can win. When you start playing with more than one budget, the items that make up completed budgets are untouchable, so other players cannot take an item from you to make that budget uncompleted.

In class this week we reviewed the formal and informal/dramatic elements of game design. Professor Parks used the analogy that the formal elements are the engine of car, what keeps it going, where as the informal elements are just the shell of the vehicle. This analogy stuck in my head and was a great analogy to understand the concept. We began to discuss about the readings which we read prior to class, which dealt with the two interactions you experience in a game. Direct interaction and indirect interaction are vital for a game designer to keep in mind while designing their game. When we broke off into our group discussions, our group dove right into trying to focus on challenges our game has.

With every game we had some early flaws that were easily fixed in our group discussions. Some of our problems were that we needed to make value to the lower amounts such as $1 cards and $5 cards, so our game will not rely heavily on who has the highest cards. We also incorporated action cards. These action cards will allow players to change budget cards, cut in line, "get robbed," discounts, etc. This factor really helped improve our game. We briefly began discussing our dilemmas before our time had expired in our group discussions. I am sure we will pickup where we left in our next class discussion, and it looks like we are on the right track!