CAGD 170

Brian and Kyle's Most Excellent Adventure

Group 4

Artwork created for the initial ideas of the game...Brian on the left and Kyle on the right; similar drawings were used for the playtests, drawn on stand-up index cards

Characters made for the playtest

After working in the lab all night on their upcoming game, best friends Brian and Kyle woke up one morning to find that all of their friends had gone missing; they had been kidnapped by the monsters that they created in their game! Therefore, they must work together and travel through the levels of their own game, defeat all the monsters, and save their friends. College level students have never experienced an adventure game like this: a wild co-op brimming with meme-filled moments and the non-stop shenanigans based off of real life Brian Farrell and Kyle Partlow.

A meeting of Juan and me trying to figure
out balancing of the game.

During the process of the game making, task completion was one of the easiest that I had to do all year. A lot of the work for the game was done in class and the majority of it was done together. From Day 1, we got the ball rolling and Day 2 we started to make maps, decide what would work and decide what wouldn't work. While Juan was able to make a lot of the mechanics for the game and talk me through balancing everything out, I was able to make a lot of the concept art and develop things like the rule sheets and organize it all into one cohesive document. Playtesting was where things got a little bit rocky. The first few playtests were way too long, then the characters weren't powerful enough, then the monsters weren't powerful enough, then the monsters were too powerful, then people broke the game, and yada yada yada. It took many meetings outside of class to figure out just how we could balance the game and make it easier for the players to feel like they had a sense of control when playing. When looking at the feedback forms from the playtests, we never really had any (for lack of a better term) negative comments, but they gave us little things that we needed to fix in order to make the game better.

A set-up of the playtest

In order to create solutions for all the "broken mechanics" that we were finding, as mentioned before,

we met up a lot outside of class time. In these meetings, we not only playtested the game, but we had some

of the people that were with try to test the game too. It was with these additional playtests, thinking things through

and talking to other people in the department, that were able to make, not a perfect game, but a better one.

We created a better balance between the character and monster power/health, we cut down the amount of levels

to only having two of them as well as making the game single-player to help with time constraint, we added

new things for the players such as power-ups and finally we were able to make the game a little more

dynamic by adding a "combo attack" that the players would work together to achieve (that was a whole

adventure in itself of learning how to balance that).

Moving forward with this process, there are always somethings that we need to keep in mind when thinking

about the players and how they play the game. Having more playtests is always a positive thing, as that allowed us

to better understand what we could do in order to fix the "broken mechanics" of the game. Additionally,

it was nice to be able to consult with more experienced members of our major, as that gave us new ideas of

how we could not only fix the things that needed fixing, but to make the game better as a whole. One other thing

that I would do to make the game more successful next time is to also figure out how to make a more consise

rule sheet as there was a lot that needed to be digested when reading the rule sheet. It is not that the rule sheet

had way too much added information that was not needed, it was just that it was a lot to read. It made sense

when you read it in context and you played the game with full attention, but for small fifteen minute playtesting

time, it was not optimal for such an in-depth rule sheet. Perhaps an even better solution is to simplify the game

and make it into an MVP (minimum viable product) in order to not only shorten the playtime of the players, but

also to just make the entirety of the game a little more simple.

Group 3 - Preferably Appropriate

Game Background... In the battle for nuclear non-proliferation, there are two sides: those who are trying to distribute and keep nuclear weapons and those who are trying to rid of these weapons. Sanction Frustration is a new kind of fast-paced PVP game for college students that will really put their grace under pressure skills to the test. With one player acting as the UN agent and the other acting as the arms distributor, it is up to the players to solve a series of mazes and determine what will be the fate of the nuclear weapons...

In the making of this game, I would like to think that there were a few complications that made the process a little difficult:

• The theme of nuclear non-proliferation was very broad, but also very narrow, thus, developing a game around it made for a complex situation.
• The first game idea that we had kind of stuck and trying to make it work required a lot of extra resources and thinking. The game itself was good, but it would have probably succeeded with more time, but was too large of a project to take on in this time frame.
• We needed to scale down the idea.
• Once we got stuck on this idea, we were in a little bit of a slump and did not know exactly what to do...

On the topic of this "stuck" idea, it was not a bad game. When we first playtested it, we received generally good feedback. Though the game was pretty long, the majority of the people that played enjoyed it, giving it a solid three out of four for overall experience. The biggest issue that we had with the game was balance. How could we make a game that had two separate, but coexisting features, simple enough to understand, but still have it work with all the features that the game has to offer?

Eventually, we got a new course of action. Using some of the same concepts from the first iteration, a new game was born. Though the core mechanic had changed drastically, the new idea had an easier concept to grasp while still being a fun and enjoyable game. From this, we found:

• Players do not generally like to think too much when playing a game. Though the thinking can still submerse you into the game play, something simple and easy to grasp will catch the players' attention faster.
• Having one idea for both players allows for more competitive drive. We were able to capture the concept of competitive nature in our first iteration, but the second time that we did it, we were able to advance that level of competitive spirit.

Moving forward with further game development, I think we learned some important lessons of what to do and what not to do for next time...

• First of all, when brainstorming ideas for a game, just throw everything out there. There are no wrong answers and something that could seem dumb could turn out to be something really amazing.
• Secondly, do not get caught on a specific idea. Just because the idea worked out, does not mean that it worked out well. Sometimes it is easier just to scrap something and start again than it is to make temporary solutions to possibly permanent problems.

Group 15 - The Qorner Qrew

Game Background... Picture this...on vacation, you have discovered a cave full of riches on an open ocean excursion, but you come to find that this cave will only remain standing for three days before it is torn down and the land used for real estate. Anxious to explore, you also find that another vacationer has spotted the same location and is eyeing all the treasures that you have spotted first! Thirty to forty-one year olds have never seen an RPG like Underwater Explorer, for you must explore quickly and carefully...you never know what else could be lurking in this cave...

During the making of this game, I would like to say that the main problems occurred when trying to develop the initial concept for the game:

• We did not understand the meaning of an RPG, thus research had to be conducted.
• We did not fully understand the concept of "player decisions" (and how they effect an RPG).
• We had to figure out how to implement these ideas into a game with the theme that we were given.

Once we had these items on lock, we were able to create the idea of "to explore or not to explore" which then led to the development of the cards that were implemented in the game.

Playtesting was then another story. Our initial playtest was actually not in class as we had thought that we might benefit from using the strategies "you can never have too many playtests" and "playtest early, playtest often". The first playtest we had the very bare bones of the game: game board, game pieces, and cards that either allowed you to move on or not.

First Iteration of the Game Board

The original rule was that if you chose to explore and it did not work in your favor, you would lose everything that you had and have to start over again. From this first playtest, we were able to benefit from the following information:

• It was frustrating for the players to have to lose everything and start again.
• The rules were a little bit difficult to understand.
• The game did not seem competitive enough.
• (Most importantly) The players liked the game!

Though we had that general concept down, there was still this idea of continuing to implement the "role play" aspect of it.

Our second playtest yielded much better results than the first time as the players seemed to understand the concept of the game more. It was here when we had decided to finally implement this more of a RPG theme. After about two hours of writing on index cards, iteration two of the game cards developed that would be able to impact the flow and the emotional ties that the players had with the game:

Second Iteration of Game Cards

The third playtest was when we were really able to get ideas of what to do to improve the game. When we tried to make the game a little more complex, it turns out maybe it was a little too complex. Though the players still enjoyed the experience, it was hard to have to stand back and watch how they played the game. It was not about us anymore, it was how the players were going to interpret the game. One of the biggest obstacles we had was making the rule sheet of the game concise enough to tell the players how to play without giving them a novel but also thorough enough so that they would not get confused. We found that consulting more experienced game makers to get some insight on how to make that balance in drafting the rule sheet was the most helpful tool we had.

Going forward, I think that the development process of a game is much simpler when you're not granted a specific topic. Though it gave you a push to go forward and expedited the process of coming up with an initial idea, it gave you boundaries that were necessary to follow. Unfortunately, it is unrealistic to believe you will be the lead game designer every time, thus, here are some tips that we will consider in developing our next game...

• Conduct research relevant to the topic of the game
• Conduct (more) research relevant to the target audience of the game
• Consult experienced game makers to get their insight based on the things they have seen