Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Riddles and Puzzles

Today in class we had to prepare an original riddle and some interesting puzzles.

This is my riddle:
Often unseen, yet you know I am there.
Light when along but heavy in layers.


Give up?
Here's a hint: I thought of it while ex foliating!
Answer: Cells! (Gross, right?)

As for my puzzle, I found two!
Both can be seen on this website HERE!
My first puzzle was the one on the top, with the donkey.
My second puzzle was further down, the one that resembles a tic tac toe board.
Can you figure them out?

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Things I would fix

If I were to fix my game's rules (a third time), there are a few things I would like to do.

-Although the element of control has been added to my game, it now lacks an element of surprise (safe for the surprise of having your opponent try to take over your square). I think I would like to reintroduce some kind of "t-zone" surprise element like I had in my original rule re-make. However I believe that would take me some time to figure out...
-Aesthetically I received some feedback indicating my existing board did not play nicely with my second re-make of the rules. If I were to redo this game I would (nicely) add a 6th column and now worry about colouring in the rows. Also, I would try designing something nicer for the player cards.
-Some more feedback I received was how fast my game was. Although it was looked at in a positive light by the playtesters, I feel I would like to add some elements to prologue the game playing experience. Perhaps making the game up to 4 players, making the board larger and adding more playing cards would create a longer and more interesting game.

I feel I would have a lot to think about in order to make these changes possible and to make a smooth game playing experience.

Survey Results

Survey #1:

General Info
Age: 21
Sex: Male

The Game Experience
What was your first impression of the game based on design?
Game design was decent.
What was your expectations for the game? Were you surprised? Disappointed?
Second time playing was better than the first. No real expectations.
Were the rules straight forward?
Yes, easy to follow. Quite simple.
What was your goal for the game?
Win.
What was your strategy to achieve your goal?
Place cards in order to win, if it stopped my opponent, that works.
Did you feel your strategy helped?
Yes. I won.
Was the game play too slow? Too fast?
Fast enough.
Did you find the game boring?
Not really, good pace.
Was the game play tedious?
No.
Would you play this game again?
Yes, wasn't boring, wasn't too long.
What was your favourite part of the game?
Liked the Battling/getting spaces back mechanic.
What was your least favourite part of them game?
First time there was not enough spaces. Second time no complaints.
Do you have any additional comments?
Second game was better, made more sense.

Survey #2

General Info
Age: 24
Sex: Female

The Game Experience
What was your first impression of the game based on design?
Nice colours, wondered why each row/column was colour coded.
What was your expectations for the game? Were you surprised? Disappointed?
Surprised when the colour coded rows were not put to use the second round.
Were the rules straight forward?
Yes, pretty easy to understand.
What was your goal for the game?
Stop (other player) from winning.
What was your strategy to achieve your goal?
Try to block where (other player) may connect 4 cards.
Did you feel your strategy helped?
Not really, I lost.
Was the game play too slow? Too fast?
Yeah, it was a little too fast.
Did you find the game boring?
No time to get bored, it was pretty fast paced.
Was the game play tedious?
Again, no time for tediousness.
Would you play this game again?
Sure.
What was your favourite part of the game?
The colourful board!
What was your least favourite part of them game?
Losing.
Do you have any additional comments?
Board was colourful, maybe player pieces should have been more colourful?

What I learned from Survey:
-According to my results men play more aggressively than women. The male playtester's goal was to win whereas the female's goal was defense. The two sexes had different goals.
-Players seemed to understand how to play. The coloured game board implied how the original re-make of the rules would work, however, this did not apply for my second try.
-Players said they had no qualm with playing multiple times. Although I think they were just being nice, haha. They likely would play again if need be, but not likely on their own accord.
-Players did not experience boredom, confusion or frustration. Part of which, as I understand, is because the gameplay was so quick.
-The male seemed indifferent towards the look of the game, but the female seemed quite pleased with the colours!

Playtest 2.2

So today I re-playtested my tic tac toe game with one male and one female player.

Unfortunately I had to playtest the game twice, changing my rules once more in order to accommodate issues I didn't foresee.

Originally my rules were changed to the following:
- 2 Players
- A 5 x 5 grid board is used where each row is numbered 1-5 and so are the columns
- Players are given a deck of X cards or O cards- among these decks are "Wild Cards"
- Wild cards are to be played like a normal X or O card
- Any wild card on the board may be considered either an X or O card, it is to be used by either the X player or the O player in order to complete a line up of their cards
- X plays first- players roll D6 to determine who plays as X- highest roll wins
-Players roll d6- 1 or 5 means player may place their card anywhere on the board where an odd column and odd row intersect (except the specially coloured t-zone- row 3 and column 3)
- 2, 4 or 6 means players may place their card anywhere on the board where an even column and even row intersect
- Roll of 3 means players may place their card anywhere in the special t-zone which is anywhere in the 3rd row or 3rd column
- If a player wants, they may challenge their opponent to try and steal their square (if they roll the appropriate number). Both players must roll d6- if attacker rolls higher they steal the square, if attackee rolls higher they successfully defend their square and may keep it
-Winner is the first person who can get 4 cards in a row

Unfortunately this did not play out as I had anticipated at all!
I did not really consider how limited the players would be when they could only place their cards in areas where odd or even rows/columns intersected. This allowed for only 8 potential spots where cards could be put (excluding the special t-zone in the third row/column) and 8 squares that could not be used at all during gameplay.

So after discovering this quite quickly I (crappily) rejigged my playing board and my rules and asked the playtesters to give my game another shot.

Rules 2.2 came out as so:
- 2 Players
- A 6 x 5 grid board is used where each column is numbered 1-6
- Players are given a deck of X cards or O cards- among these decks are "Wild Cards"
- Wild cards are to be played like a normal X or O card
- Any wild card on the board may be considered either an X or O card, it is to be used by either the X player or the O player in order to complete a line up of their cards
- X plays first- players roll D6 to determine who plays as X- highest roll wins
-Players roll d6- Whatever number is rolled players may place their card on any square under the corresponding column ex// Player rolls 3, they may place their card on any square under the 3rd column
- If a player wants they may challenge their opponent to try and steal their square (if they roll the appropriate number). Both players must roll d6- if attacker rolls higher they steal the square, if attackee rolls higher they successfully defend their square and may keep it
-Winner is the first person who can get 4 cards in a row

This rushed rule/board change made the game play more smooth but unfortunately I could not find a way to save my special "t zone" mechanic. Because I did not use the columns AND rows, I could see no way to keep my "roll a 3" a special move.

Even though the playtesters were patient and kind about the rule change, I am quite disappointed with how the process went.
I wish I could have foreseen the error with my original rules.
Now that I have seen the error, I find it hard to believe I even missed it in the first place!