CAGD 170 - Intro to Game Development

U-Boat

Hello, I am Mo and I am now in Group 6 in CAGD 170 and this is a blogpost about the development of our custom board game U-Boat. For this project we did not have any restrictions for the game and we could essentially do whatever game we wanted to do with another partner. Our game is called U-Boat and the premise of the game is that there is a submarine and a destroyer. The Destroyer's goal is to find, attack, and kill the submarine while defending its convoys. The Submarine's job is to find 3 out of the 5 convoys and destroy them without getting killed by the Destroyer. We had a good start with our brainstorming sessions and such as we already had a prototype/skeleton of how the game looks like. We decided to playtest the prototype to see how the game plays out and how certain things can be changed or what, if any, new stuff should be added. We found out that the game was very fun and the prototype was already in a good state, it just needed a little tweaking. Little tweaks such as figuring out ability reworks or cost of ability. 

We then got started on our rule sheet. One important aspect we realized as we were writing our rule sheet was creating maps. Leland took it upon himself to create the maps for the game. We discussed how the maps should play out and how they differ from one another. We decided that each map should be unique and have its own thing about it. We made three maps, one was an open world type of map, one was very tight with little move to hide and camp, and one where the middle was a busy area while the outside is relatively free. This created a unique bundling of maps and games that players can engage in because each map can foster a different game. We also took into account different playstyles and accounting for them. We wanted to make sure that each playstyle can be beneficial and not useless in this game. We feel like we did achieve that goal as in our own playtest and in class playtests, there were many styles that were apparent and suited the game in their own right.

One aspect of our game development that kind of went wrong at first was our initial rule sheet. Our rule sheet at first was very plain and not explaining a lot as we wanted to keep it concise. We realized with our in class playtest that this backfired as players got confused on what needs to happen in game. We then reconvened and realized that we need to explain a lot of our game in the rule sheet, but we didn't want to make it like an encyclopedia. So we met up and went over some parts of the rule sheet we can improve and how to improve them. This led to our best and final rule sheet which explained a little more about the role of each player as well as the rules and the abilities that each player has. This made the game more easier to understand when we had our second playtest in which the team knew what they needed to do a little better and what the rules were and such.

Magic Jump

Hello again, I am Mo and I am apart of Group 4 in CAGD 170 and this is a blogpost about the development of our custom board game Magic Jump. We were given the restrictions of making a racing game with the requirements of it containing magic and being made for elementary school kids. This meant that we couldn't go too crazy on wordage and complications but we couldn't go so basic that it is a baby game. We had to strike that balance. We met on Fridays to discuss and work on our game and these sessions went well. A lot of great ideas were discussed and thought up in these meetings. I definitely had to be reminded that this was elementary kids because I was having many ideas that would be too complex for elementary kids.

We had our first draft of our ideas, procedure, and rules that we wanted to add into this game. This was our basis and we had already come up with a solid early frame work that would guide us in developing the game later on.

After we had these ideas down, we started to work on and brainstorm elements that would be going on in the game, the most notable being item and event cards. We had to brainstorm things that would happen in the game. We also had to remember to tie this in with our theme of using magic. We realized that having these items themselves are basically magic so we didn't need to go too magical.

A lot our meetings were productive as we got a lot of our ideas and features implemented early. They were something that we wanted very early on and they worked great and flowed well with our initial game. We had a good framework on how we wanted our game to play out and what we wanted our game to eventually shape into.

A big problem that arose was when we had our first in class playtest. We realized a lot of issues were in the overpowered nature in a lot of the abilities. Our board wasn't big enough to sustain a lot of our abilities and we realized that two D6 would be too fast. You could realistically win the game right away with no barrier. So after the play session we came together and fixed a lot of our problems and fixed our game board. We also changed a big component which was our 2 D6 rule to only one D6 dice.

Modified Solitaire - Version 1

Hello I am Mo and I am apart of Group 3 in CAGD 170 and this is a blogpost about the development of our version of Solitaire. My group partners did not know how to play solitaire so while they were learning the ways of the game, I was thinking of different ways to change the game as I already knew the ins and outs of the game. We came together on a Friday to discuss the changes we can make to the game. We threw a lot of ideas at the wall but we wanted the core of Solitaire to remain in our modified version.

Test

After the rule making, we met up and did a playtest of our game in the library. This was extremely helpful as it was eye opening and informative on what the gameplay is like and how much we need to refine or fix. This helped us immensely and allowed us to see what we need to fix and it helped us realize that we need to redefine some of the text we put on the rule sheet.

The Idea

The idea that we came up with for our change would be basically going backwards. The usual game of solitaire entails going from Ace to the King. However, our game goes backwards as we start with Ace but then go from King to 2. This entailed that the core of Solitaire was there but there was a small change that had pretty big impact on playing. We then made the rule sheet and made our own "Rule Sheet" for fun.

In the image below, we figured out another aspect it helped us with was figuring out another mechanic/change to the game. With regular solitaire, a king can go on an empty spot. So while playing we realized we needed to add that same aspect to the Queen and the Jack. This way, this allows for more avenues a player can go down to get a win in the modified solitaire.