Audrey Gracia Djohari / 0348120
Game Studies
Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylor’s University
Projects
INSTRUCTION
PROJECT 1
WEEK 2:
Team Meeples
Figure 1.0: Teammates
Meeting Minutes (7 Sep 2022)
- We're making Boardgame / Card Game
- Social Game
- Go to Meeples (board game cafe) together on Friday/Saturday.
- Each person proposes 1 game idea next week.
Boardgame Research
We went to a boardgame cafe in SS15 and we played several games in
hopes of finding inspiration. We played Coup, Spot it, etc. From the research, we realized that boardgame has many types but all of them have some things is commin: all of them have rules and goals.
Figure 1.1: Boardgame Research, 10.09.2022
WEEK 3:
Ideation & Brainstorming
This week, each person in our group presented 1 game idea.
Figure 2.0: Lulu's Game Idea, 14.09.2022
Group Website
Site link:
https://sites.google.com/view/meeple/home?authuser=0 (not yet finished)
WEEK 4:
1st Play Test
This week we improved Lulu's matching card game and also another new game
that I proposed. The new game is about cooking where all players must
gather ingredients in order to cook. Every food that they manage to cook
will produce money which will be the determinant of who the winner is. The
richest player at the end of the game wins. However, what's interesting
about this game is the process of gathering the ingredients. The players
can buy the ingredients from the rotating market, or they can bargain with
their opponents. There are also special cards, one allowing players to
"poison" their opponents' food. Another special card allows the player to
steal 1 ingredient.
Lulu's game was actually pretty fun and entertaining for me. It was a fast-paced game which players need to finish all their card fast as they can. But the card that each player put must have bigger rank and the same picture as the card that is put before. Unfortunately, Dr. Charles said Lulu's game still has much room for improvement and we didn't really have the narrative behind the game. I felt bad for Lulu because I know she had spent the whole night counting and creating the prototype. If we had more time we actually wanted to improve and printed Lulu's game as well because it was actually fun...
Other then Lulu's and my game recommendation. Shaocheng also proposed a game idea. His game was isnpired by monopoly. The description of the rules is in this picture.
Figure 3.0: Shaocheng's game
After the discussion we played Jolean's Spot It cards that she brought from home. It was refreshing indeed.
Figure 3.1: Play Test (My cooking game design), 21.09.2022
Figure 3.2: Playing our game with teammates & dr. Charles,
21.09.2022
Figure 3.3: Week 4 class
Notes from our 1st play test:
- (Lulu's Matching Game) The game does not really show anything about revolution because it's just a game of matching images.
- (Audrey's Cooking Game) Dr. Charles said player should be able to defend themselves from the poison card
- (Audrey's Cooking Game) Lulu suggested a new kind of card that allows players to gain extra action.
- (Audrey's Cooking Game) I suggested changing the poison card into a stale ingredient.
- (Audrey's Cooking Game) Originally the concept is by accumulating the coins to win, what if not coins, could be something like bread clip.
- Dr. Charles said to stick to the cooking game.
WEEK 5:
This week, I brought my improved cooking game prototype. I recalculated the small cards so there were the rare cards and the more common cards. We did another playtest and added more rules and details to the game.
Here are some of the errors we've discovered during the play test:
- Players who are not able to finish making a complete card will not be able to get more coins and they are stuck for the rest of the game
- We were also confused with the ingredient cards whether it should be fully replaced with a new set each round or just replace the ones that was already used
Figure 4.0: Week 5 class
2nd Game Trial
- Stop brainstorming & start prototyping
- What you experience when playing the game is DATA, analyze the play test & write it down.
- Let other people try our game
- Don't be afraid of failures
- The user is the center of the design process
- Keep it (the prototype) ugly
- Your design will never be final, but dr. Charles wanted us to make a good mockup
We've also discussed of changing the theme of the game. Here are some of the theme ideas that we've came up with:
- Science chemicals
- Make up
- Robotic
- Cars
- Buildings
- Clothes
- Jewelery and mining
- Inventions
Timeline
Figure 4.1: Progression Timeline
WEEK 6:
Figure 5.0: Week 6 class
We were so happy that we started to get the narrative of the game. We came up with the characters, some of the inventions, and the sabotage cards quite easily.
We have officially transitioned into independent mode as of week 7. As a result, we would need to schedule a consultation with Dr. Charles using Google Calendar.
WEEK 7:
This week I also started making the color palette and moodboard for the whole boardgame design. We wanted our game to be distinctive and vibrant. Evil Empire and Reff Devil are the typefaces we're using for this game.
Then, I started designing the first character: The Mad Professor. I did all of it using Adobe Illustrator. I can say that designing the characters was my favorite part of this whole process of game design hahaha.
Figure 6.0: Designing The Mad Professor
Figure 6.1-6.2: Color Palette, MoodBoard and Inspirations
At the end of the week, we recorded some of the exercises. You can see the exercises in my Exercises blog and our group website.
WEEK 8:
Week 8 is Independent Learning Week so I didn't progressed much but I did the second character which was The Brutal Mobster.
All of the things we designed were uploaded to our group's Drive folder.
Figure 7.0: Group Drive Folders
WEEK 9:
We had a consultation hour with Dr. Charles this week. And we showed him our progress with the design. Here is what he had to say about our progress.
- The graphic treatment is very good
- Try to get 20 feedbacks from the playtest.
- Do a playtest with other people outside your team.
- Ask the players to fill the feedback & playtest form.
- We planned to make the game approximate time 20 minutes
- It will be for people age 12+
At the end if the week, I finished the character design. We have 5 characters:
- The Mad Professor (evil and crazy professor)
- The Brutal Mobster (Jolean wanted one of the character to be sexy so I made a female mobster)
- The Cunning Darla (evil child prodigy)
- The Nefarious Mr. E (an anti-hero)
- The Silent Hacker (inspired by one of our classmates hehehe)
Figure 8.0: Character Design Outcome
WEEK 10 & 11:
Jolean and I came up with the list of evil inventions. There were 35 of them and we wrote their functions as well. I was inspired by Exploding Kitten card game, that's why we created something comical and entertaining. I think that would be interesting for the players.
My favorite is the Wifi Blocker (it's a device that blocks the whole world's wifi, can you imagine?), Jolean was the one who came of with it.
Figure 9.0: Evil Inventions List
I also created an AI file with the exact card sizes in centemeter so Shaocheng and the others can work on the accurate size.
Figure 9.1: Card Size in AI
WEEK 12 & 13:
I spent these 2 weeks designing the invention cards according to the list.
Figure10.0: Invention Card Design
WEEK 14:
This week, I edited the invention cards so they have 2 sides. One side shows the unfinished invention where players put the tool cards and the other side shows the finished inventions. So whenever the player managed to complete all the tool cards required they can flip the card and voila, the invention is completed.
Figure 11.0-11.1: Card Design (Double-Sided)
Then after I finished with the whole design, I calculated the amount of invention cards and the points of each card. Jeeeeeez, this part is the most frustrating moment ever. Because I needed to separate them according to their colors, and each card must have different points according to the tool cards (the small cards) required). I honestly have given up with the calculation after 2 hours of thinking. So I requested help from one of my friends that can kinda do math and he provided me with this list.
Figure 11.2: Card Calculation
Yep, only God, him and I that knows what this piece of paper means. But basically there are 4 types of invention cards:
- Purple (15-19 points) - 27 cards
- Green (21-25 points) - 27 cards
- Red (16-28 points) - 27 cards
- Blue (29-33 pints) - 24 cards
Next, it gets even more depressing. I had to arrange the cards so they were ready to be printed. I'm not gonna lie, it took me dayssss. So, here's the final file.
Figure 11.3: Arranging the cards (for double-sided printing)
Figure 11.4: Invention Cards (ready to be printed)
Printing Process
Figure 11.5-11.8: Printing
Figure 11.9: Playtest Form
WEEK 15:
Finally, in week 15, we managed to finish everything. We have printed our final prototype and it's ready to be played. It took us 2 days to print in 2 different printing shop.
We also finished the Game Document and embedded it to our group website. Other than that, we managed to gather enough playtest feedbacks and we've recorded it in our document.
Final Outcome
Figure 12.0-12.2: Photos of the Final Prototype
Figure 12.3-12.5: Photos of the Final Prototype
Figure 12.6-12.7: Videos of the Final Prototype
Figure 12.8: Video of the Final Prototype
Tutorial Video
Figure 12.9: Evil Inventions Tutorial Video
Game Document
Figure 12.10: Game Document
FEEDBACK
WEEK 5:
- Stop brainstorming & start prototyping
- What you experience when playing the game is DATA, analyze the play test & write it down.
- Let other people try our game
- Don't be afraid of failures
- The user is the center of the design process
- Keep it (the prototype) ugly
- Your design will never be final, but dr. Charles wanted us to make a good mockup
WEEK 9:
- The graphic treatment is very good
- Try to get 20 feedbacks from the playtest.
- Do a playtest with other people outside your team.
- Ask the players to fill the feedback & playtest form
WEEK 15:
Industry Feeback
- The characters on the round board is unnecessary
- What is the narrative of the round board? Why is it only 5 rounds?
- The font on the round board and invention cards are a bit difficult to read
- The demolish card and shield card should not be the same size as the tool cards, players will get confused and think it is only used in one part of the invention card instead of discarding the entire invention card
- Should add different special abilities on each character that relates to the game so players can roleplay as villains easier
- Overall good design of the game, just need to add a little bit more
REFLECTION
I enjoyed this while process so much!! I have the best team and a cool lecturer and I'm so happy we managed to create a cool game together. I learned so many things throughout the process, not only teamwork but also the professional process and the thinking process of a game. I thank all of my classmates and also Dr. Charles that gave us feedbacks. I also thank my other friends and the math guy for calculating the cards for me. I love this module so much and I'm very happy having Jolean, Shaocheng, Kim and Lulu as my teammates, you guys are awesome!! I had so much fun designing and brainstorming, and I really love our boardgame result!
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