Blog 3/30

the most important thing i learned today was that it pays to get your work done. i especially was thinking about this yesterday while me and cole were working on our film. i really did not want to have to do all the work on Thursday. so i worked as hard as i could today. now all we have to do on Thursday is make a voice over and edit the film. this can really apply to anything you can think of in school and in your day to day life. if you spread your work evenly throughout your available to time. that way you are not pressured to get it all done the last day.

3/29

Today Logan and I wrote the script for our video. We are going to film tomorrow, to be able to present it later on. We finished the board by coloring it, and we edited the rules to make sure that everything is included. We had to play the game in many different ways too see all the different outcomes and ways to win to add rules. I think our game is very good to have been made this fast, and the video will explain it all. I also liked that we all made different board games, giving it variety, which is nice.

HGD Journal 7

Today, Sage and I made final edits to our game to test. We tested our game with it's new changes and it went pretty well. We had our kings health set at 5, which isn't a lot, but our game lasted over an hour long. We filmed the entire game to edit tomorrow for our video. We need to do voiceovers and edit our video and then we are done. I like our game now more than I did at the beginning when it wasn't finalized. I've really enjoyed this A-term and want to see what our final video looks like.

HGD #8

Today Ilan and I started to add color to our game, we spent most of the morning doing that, adding color to each biome. After completing the coloring and detailing to our board we began writing our script for our introduction in the short film we are making, and completed it on time luckily so tomorrow when we start filming we should be able to finish the intro, then start gameplay filming and from there we should be able to wrap up the day and the rest of the A term.

Blog 3/29

the most important thing i learned today was to take feedback from my  play testers. At first whenever they would give me advise i would not really take it seriously. doing that was preventing the growth of my game. for Example when i played with Joseph he suggested that there be less of a certain type of troop, as i thought about the change i realizes it could make the game more balanced. i think the same thing can apply to most things in our everyday life. for instance, if someone was to confront you about something you might be angry but as time passes you might realize they only want whats best for you.

HGD blog

Today we played my game and saw the flaws it had and talked about how to fix them. We found a couple diffrent ways to make my game battle and more efficient. We first found out that the way the cards worked was very inefficient and confusing to use in the game in general. So now I'm going to make info cards for each unit. The second issue we found was the HP card making which took a long time because you had to go and add the health points up while sorting through these cards that have them on them. I'm going to fix this by giving cards that already have this information on them. Lastly we found that the rolling in the beginning takes a minute, so I was thinking about diffrent ways to implement better ways to do this. Over all we had fun exploiting a the flaws in the rules of my game and finding out how to fix them.

HGD Journal 6

Today I play tested my game twice. I played once with Sage to test out our new changes to balance out the cards. Then my second game was with Dr. Quillin who really helped me think about more ideas. The main idea was judging rollover damage and how to apply it. And based on how we apply the rollover damage, how much health should the King have. The idea that Sage and I agreed upon was what Dr. Quillin suggested, where two cards that are paired will be affecte by rollover damage, or where the last card on the table will be killed and the left damage from the attack will hit the King. We haven't come up with a set amount of health for the King yet.

HGD #7

Today a group of us got to play Josephs game, this game relied heavily on luck, lying, and trust. Even though the game had flaws within the mechanics it still was very fun to play and I happily won the game with 26 points and I did  not die sadly for the rest they did die over once for the most part. I liked how you could trick people and constantly lie and manipulate other players to do your bidding like in my case I gained the trust of cole for the majority of the game so I had him protect me and me protect him until finally I betrayed him towards the end of the game because his score was getting too close to mine so I killed him. I think overall Josephs game is awesome and all I think he needs it do is balance some of the characters.

3/28

Today was very interesting. We play tested the game Joseph made which involved lots of trust, or lying. I thought it was a lot of fun, it still needed some fixing to do for the rules, but the main idea was great. This afternoon the plan is too maybe play test another game, and afterwards begin to finish up our own game. I would like to color in all of the biomes we have, fix the rules and make sure they are all clear, and have the rules for every situation that could happen. I learned today another perspective of games, which is that trust and betrayal are huge in board games, almost every game has some sort of trust element. I am also really happy that we are getting to play test everyone else's games to get to see what they are coming up with, and it could even spark ideas to add on to our games.

HGD blog #6

The most important thing I learned today is people's opinions of Ilan and I's game, I think from the overall impression got from the people that played it was, that it was a really fun game and that everyone liked it. It was one the more popular finished games which made me happy to see also liked how the game has relatively high replay value so people want to go back play it again because each game is different from the last game. I think Ilan and I need to add color to our board so it doesn't look so dull but in the way of mechanics and the overall game I think is well done, but of course not everyone played and nothing that needed to be changed was ever added to my attention, so today went well for us.

Blog Post 3/28

Today we play tested a lot of different games that ranged from card based to a game based on building the board and then fighting on it. needless to say what i learned today was the importance of just having fun. if you spend too much time just trying to win it can make the experience exhausting. for example when i played logan and Ilans game at first i was trying really hard but when i played again i had some fun with it and did the most outrageous things. in john's game i did the same thing i just did the most ridiculous things. When i did this in johns game it actually helped him realize a hole in the rules of his game. I'm not saying that you shouldn't try and win, but when you are play testing the games sometimes it can really pay off.

HGD Journal 5

Today we playtested our games to ensure that we were not missing any important elements. We find that a couple of the cards we had in the game we either way over powered or under powered. What we took from this is that we need to go in and fix some of the characters health, damage and cost. Once we do this we will play test again to see if our game is better balanced. We were thinking that if we wanted to add more playability to our game we could in the future add different decks. Maybe a magical deck, a Roman Empire deck, a prehistoric game, we haven't thought about it yet. Tomorrow we will make these changes to the game and play test again to see if we made it more balanced

Elias 3/27

So despite how much I hated my previous version of "Anarchy," I do enjoy my new version, "Wyvern's End/Bane." Following the idea of multiplayer vs 1 player, this is a minimalistic materials game, using die as HP counters, damage counters, heal counters, and much more. The game can be 2-6 players, each player controlling a character with unique roles, such as a healer, a priest, or an alchemist. 1 player could control all 5 roles while another plays the dragon, or the role cards could be divided between the players. Every role MUST be used or the dragon will have a HUGE advantage. With playtesting, garret and I found quite a few issues, but when I played with Cole, I let him win, which told me that either the dragon was OP or the others were underpowered. I enjoy this because the minimal materials make the game able to be played almost anywhere. I am much more satisfied with this product. I could, in theory, add character tokens for extra flair.

3/27 blog

Today was a very important day to process the game. It was similar to Friday for what we did, but today we were able to play with the edits from last week and continue to progress. We almost all play tested everyone's games, and so far they are looking good. I think today was one of the most important days because we are in the stages where the game is there, and it is developed enough to play, but it is not to its maximum potential. I feel confident about our game as today we fixed the issues we had, and feel confident about going forward. The thing that was most important that I learned today was that there is never to much play testing.

Blog for 3/27

The most important thing i learned from friday was the importance of play testing, as well as what you can get out of play testing. This may seem obvious but let me explain. When i first learned that we were play testing i thought that cole and i could do the same thing on our own, but that was not the case. when me and cole were testing our game alone all we noticed were very small design choices that needed to be changed. however, when elias play tested we learned that a major component of our game was completely broken. this will help us rework our game into something we can be proud of. in the end i think we all know that our games were not going to be perfect and sometimes it's hard to criticize your own work, this is why play testing is so important.

HGD Blog #5

I think the most important thing I learned was how to refine a good product into an even better product by playing it with others to critique and say what they would add, I think it was a very educational experience to help us better or game whether they were minor or major. Although the minor did out weigh the major, the major stuck out like sore thumbs an example would forgetting to add a crucial piece to the game which we had forgotten, we also improved on many of things in our game and so far we are quite satisfied nonetheless to say we have created a quite interesting playable game, and I'm proud of what we have accomplished so far.

Friday blog

Today was a very important day in the course. We completed our board games and play tested them. I honestly thought that the game Logan and I created was flawless, but the moment we started playing it I started writing everything we wanted to change. At the end of the game I had written about 20 things to do, which was very helpful to make our game even better.  The most important thing I learned was that to make your game better you have to play it first. Afterwards we fixed everything we had said, and played again, and it really did make a difference. It is not very pretty, but I think the next step for us will be to make it look nice.

Blog for 3/23

Today, I once again played Smallworld. However, this time, we played with five players, as opposed to the previous game, which only included 3 players. This actually massively changed the dynamic of the game. For me, the most noticeable change was that alliances now became much more feasible, as their could be more than one alliance at time, and the higher player count meant that a more complex web of alliances and betrayals could be woven than with just 3 players. As well, the board was much more contested, as the larger amount of players meant that there were more people to fight over a more limited space. This forced players into more wars with each other than the smaller game did, which made the game feel much more like a competitive experience. As well, this tied back into the aspect of alliances, as in the previous game, there was less incentive to make alliances as players din't directly fight each other as much. However, with the increased conflict that came with 5 players, making alliances was necessary in order to keep from being quickly crushed by invading players.

Blog 4

Today I learned the strategic side of trust in board games. You either trust or you don't, and it depends on the game and who whether you should trust or not. My strategy was too play a few rounds, see how it went, if there was Anyon I could trust, and I did. I made an alliance and got second place, but it is very important to know that they trust you too as that will make it much easier. Trust and loyalty become almost like advantages and disadvantages if used properly. I think that today I used trust and alliances quite well, and too always study the opponent before you leap to make them your Allie. If I were not to have used it, I probably would have done much worse.

HGD Blog #4

The most important thing I learned today is to not trust anyone in strategic board games because in the end they all try and take you out even when you make an alliance with them and only do helpful things for them, I learned the hard way and now I won't be so gullible and forgiving, next time I will crush all my enemies even the ones that claim to be my allies. I wonder during many of the wars and conflicts throughout history if rulers and kingdoms had to go through similar treachery in actual real, did they have to be constantly vigilant to see through trickery of other kings that attempted to manipulate them and were they able to catch it fast enough to be able to strike through would be trickster and catch them off guard with a direct attack bringing them down. That would be an interesting topic to discuss tomorrow during seminar.

3/23 - HGD Blog

Today was the day to crack down and really get to work on our games. The morning started off as usual, with a seminar over the previous night's reading, followed by some gameplay.
Today, John, Elias, Dr. Q, and I played a game called Trailer Park Boys, which while based in its humorous themes, was actually a well designed game that offers a lot of useful experience and information to our task of creating a game of our own. The game's goal is to collect the most plastic yard flamingos, a goal that is accomplished by sabotaging the trailer parks of the other managers(players) whilst building up your own. Through different characters with varying stats and modifiers, as well as many different amenities and obstacles that must be tackled, each player has a (more than)sufficiently difficult time gathering enough flamingos for the game to end. Through its witty humor, and underlying sound structure, the game was a huge success, and knowledge of its unique mechanics will surely help us in our game design.
In the afternoon, it was time to really make some progress on our first drafts. I spent nearly the entire time drawing out a 32x40 grid on what will soon be my board, and couldn't do much more than begin to color-coat each side before the day was out, though it certainly feels good to have this most tedious process behind me.
The first draft needs to be done by tomorrow, so tonight will consist of drawing, and making quite a few pieces so the game will be playable(even if not balanced or complete or fun). The good news is that I have a pretty detailed idea of what it will look like when done, and exactly what I need to do to get there, so though it may take a while, it should be an efficient process.
I'm very excited to see what my peers come up with for their games tomorrow, and can't wait to get playtesting!

HGD Journal 4

Today, Sage and I finished printing and making our rough draft cards. We printed them in 2 different colors, orange and white. This was to signify the difference in decks so we wouldn't get them mixed up. We had our first play test, although when we play tested we didn't have all of our cards cut up and in our decks so it was an incomplete play test. I won the first game we played and Sage won the second game. We wanted to test out what we had so far, it is a pretty fun game in my opinion. We still have to add the rest of the cards and work somethings out, but it seems concrete right now. There are heavy chance and strategy aspects to the game. The chance aspect is that you draw your cards randomly from the deck, so you can have a really bad deck and not be able to do anything about it. The strategy aspect is that you have to know when to play the right card and whether to attack a card or not.

Alliances Blog Post #4

Today i learned a lot about alliances, the good and the bad. Alliances are a very great part of a lot of board games, particularly in games like Smallworld where everyone is against everyone. Alliances in these types of games allow you to overpower other people playing the game as well as get closer to the end goal of the game. but what happens when you get close to the end? do you stick with your teammates and hope you win? or do you betray them and take the advantage. as i learned today it really depends. i was in an alliance with logan and Joseph and i had three options do i attack cole, someone not in my alliance and get less points? attack Joseph and get the most possible points? or do i attack logan and get a fare amount of points? i ended up betraying Logan because i wanted points but did not want to betray Joseph, who was a better ally. this decision was not the best, i should have attacked Joseph. either way i would not have won but its interesting to think about.

That one time I beat Dr. Q

Trailer park wars. A hilarious PG13 game about waging war on others to eliminate the competition for best trailer park. The premise is simple: use objects and people with positive and negative effects on yourself and your enemies to increase your supply of pink flamingos and decrease their supply. The main mechanics i saw were the different types of cards (anemities, tenants, natural disasters, etc.) and how you could use them. Like lots of games, the luck is in the draw and the skill is the placement (this is talking about the cards). However, vendettas exist in this, such as when you mess with someone's plans, they will mess with you next turn. I won this game with lots of luck, but on his final turn, instead of placing bad things on mine, he placed good things on his to further increase his points next turn, but I took the remaining finite amount of points and took victory. I had won.

Blog Post for 3/22

Today I learned more about the relationship between elements of luck and elements of strategy while playing Smallworld. Smallworld, while not an entirely skill-based game, seemed to have far fewer elements of luck than many of the previous games we had played. There were only really two points where elements of chance came into play. The first was in the selection of races/powers available to be picked by the players. While the races/powers were incredibly important in the game, the elements of luck were minimized by the fact that rather than players each drawing their races/powers, a sort of pot (shared among all the players in the game) of five sets of races/powers were drawn, and then each player had to strategically choose the race they wanted, meaning that race/power selection had substantial skill elements to it. The second instance of luck was in the dice rolls necessary to take territories if you had less than the amount of troops required to take them. However, I only used the dice rolls 3 or 4 times, and it seemed entirely possible to go through the entire game without rolling the dice once. As well, each dice roll only determined your ability to take one territory in that specific turn. While this was certainly important, there was no point in our game where the result of a dice roll lead to anything nearing game-changing. I honestly liked the level of luck present in small world as opposed to some of the other games we had been playing. While the small amount of luck worked enough to make the game more exciting and more unpredictable, as well as adding replay value, the large amount of strategy meant that players lost or won based on competence, rather than luck, which, I think, is how a competitive game should feel.

Farmers do stuff

For the game I played about building cities and stuff that started with a C, I took plenty of chances, the main one being people who lie down and do nothing. When the game ended, I went from being dead last with 52 points to a ludicrous 78 points in The C-game. This game involves building cities by finding city cards and attaching them to already existing city cards. The larger the city, the more points upon finishing. Placing roads without prematurely ending them also gives you points, but other players will try to stop you by ending them quickly. There are a multitude of strategies, but I got lucky after placing some well placed farmers. After them being on the board with cities where you are unseperated by roads/rivers/cities, you get 3 points for every complete city at the end of the game. I found that this game takes skill to place cards and save your Meeples, but also takes luck to draw the needed cards.

HGD Journal 3

Today I played a game called Carcassonne with Sage and Elias. It is a map building game where you draw pieces of the map and connect them to other pieces. You can only connect the pieces together if they fit in the right spot. An example of this would be that you cannot put a road next to a pice that doesn't have a road. In this game there is a point system, you get points by placing small figurines in places to make them either a Monk, Knight, Thief or a Farmer. Their class depends on where you put them. If you put them laying down in a field they are a farmer, if you put them inside a castle if they are a knight, if you put them in a monastery they are a monk, and if you put them on a road they are a thief.  All of them have separate ways of getting points. The Knight gets points if the castle is completed, the Monk gets points if the monastery is completely surrounded by other tiles, the thief gets points if the road is complete, and the farmer gets 3 points for every completed castle it has in its field at the end of the game. The goal of the game is to have the most points by the time you run out of tiles to place.

Blog Post #3

As I was looking at the games each of us were creating I realized almost all of us were making games based on combat or some sort of war. I think the reason for this is that most people think that games based on war are fun, more fun than another type of game. However, yesterday Dr Quilin brought something to our attention, that there is not as much of a demand for war games because the market is very popular. At first i was looking to create a game that wasn't based on a war or combat but i quickly changed my mind because i could not think of an idea. This would explain why games like Carcassonne are so good, its because they are very original. This made me really appreciate these original ideas that game designers had. i think that as time goes on we as a population are straying away from games based on combat and that is likely because of over saturation.

Blog 3

Today we mainly learned about game mechanics and how they work. Game mechanics are kind of like a base to the game, and how the game actually works, without the me mechanics it would not work as well. Today I got to play a game called small world, which is probably now my favorite game, and it is very interesting because it has a gambling involved without the player noticing. You have to decide how many creatures you want too send out to attack the others. I felt that not only strategy and chance were involved with this game but also gambling, which I would add to one of the game mechanics. It really helped to play a game like this because our minds were so wrapped around strategy and luck and making sure that we have both, but we did not realize that it makes it so different to have another side to the game. I don't think it is the only game like that, but it is the only one that I know of, so for my game we are using ideas from the game to help us make our game.

HGD Blog post #3

The most important thing I lean learned today was an Idea from a game I played with Ilan and Joseph called "Small World"this is a competitive game based off of races and powers, and the point of the game is to take over the lands with your races and try to get as much gold as possible and the player with the most gold wins at the end of the game, in my case in the game I happened to have the most gold and subsequently won the game. I like this Idea about using some sort of currency to win the game, I also like how you can take over the board and your declined race can still make you gold despite not being able to move or attack, but can be taken over by other players. I also like the use of powers in the game and will incorporate these things in Ilan and my game. We tend to make the game similar, but different adding our touch to the game with a different setting leaning more medieval rather then fantasy.

Blog post 2

Today I played a game that was based on a map building mechanic. The two features it used most were luck and strategy. The luck came in when you had to draw a tile from the deck you didn't know what piece you would get so it was all based on luck. The strategy came in when you had to place the tiles in strategic places in order to complete the city's roads and castles. Then you have to place your pieces on the tiles that you lay down so you can get the most points. This game has so much replay value as well because of random map building aspects of the game too. The was diffrent and fun because of these elements.

Blog Post #2

An important thing I learned today was not to spend too much time thinking about making your game physically. If you do this you would spend all of your time making a game that might not be flushed out all the way. instead you should spend your time thinking out all of the game mechanics. in order to do this i had to sit and just think for a while. you could also try bouncing your ideas off someone. since i am working in a group with Cole on our game it made it easy for us to compare multiple ideas and find the one that best suits your game. through my own research i learned that when you are play testing a game it does not need to be beautiful. it certainly helps but in the end if your game is not playable you wont get by on looks alone.

Blog Post for 3/21

Today I learned more about complexity in games by playing Dead of Winter. Dead of Winter was much more complex than other games we had played, and so as a result felt like a substantially different experience from those games. The complex mechanics of the game meant that there was a lot the player had to keep in mind, and a lot of different outcomes for each situation the player was put in. I felt that this was a positive, as having so many different elements made the game more engaging by allowing the player to adopt a wider range of strategies and generally do more actions than in less complex games. However, the complexity also had a few negatives. For one, the game took a long time to set up and to learn. It took us around half an hour just to set up the board, and learning the game took even longer. The rulebook was several pages long, even though a large amount of information was conveyed on the cards themselves rather than in the rulebook. The game was not only complex mechanically but also thematically. The game placed a large emphasis on story, having a short narration at the beginning of the game and so-called "crossroads" cards, played at the beginning of each player's turn, that helped to flesh out the story. However, I personally disliked these story elements, especially the crossroads cards, which slowed the game down substantially as the rather large paragraph on each card had to be read aloud before the player could take their turn.

HGD Journal 2

Today, Sage and I teamed up to make a card based strategy game. We decided we wanted to make the different characters and items we thought would fit in the game before we started on anything else. We also decided how many of each card would be a good amount to keep the game interesting. We thought how we could make the game more difficult than it would be right now, so we made changes to our idea. We have not made the rule book yet, but we have made the characteristics of each card. Our idea is that there will be a simple rule book, and all of the cards will have a description of their characters telling them their abilities. The name of the game is "Battle of Colmar" we decided to name it this because it is a medieval city and our game is based in medieval times. We will keep you updated on more ideas we come up with.

3/21 Post

     Upon starting the day, I had my sights set on playing Catan. However, I found Dead Of Winter very interesting. The roleplay, co-op and common objectives of Pandemic combined with the personal objectives and PvP aspects create a well made game. What I found was that the story element and the crossroads cards were very interesting and unique. I enjoyed how there was independent objectives and a larger objective, which forces the players to work together to complete the game and survive. The foodstocks were an interesting mechanic, but the crises were what made the game REALLY difficult, especially if it conflicted with your secret goal. For example, if you needed 3 food by the time the main objective is finished, but a crisis needing food came about, your progress on your secret goal would be hindered, but the main goal would be assisted. All of these elements work together smoothly to create a fun game.

The time I was killed twice

Today I learned about the strategy mainly involved in board games. We played "Dead of Winter" which is a cooperative strategic game. I chose to not play the traditional way and betray the other players, which is not recommended. I also noticed that the game was quite complex and long. Which made it much more difficult for me to get out of my situation. I learned that it is very important that if you are going to make a sly move, to do it without people noticing. I am also glad I did what I did because I got to see a part of the game that we probably would not have seen if I didn't do what I did.

HGD Blog #2

The most Important thing I learned today about Tabletop games, history, or myself.


Today while playing a board game with fellow students called "Dead of Winter" we all learned that an extremely extensively story can really slow down the gameplay and causes it to last way longer then it needs to be which makes it honestly sort of boring, not that I don't appreciate a board game with a story but its not a video game so the story is less significant in a board game (I love RPG video games with deep stories) and a story that is that detailed for a board game is bizarre and makes little sense to me, I found myself dozing off during game because of how slow and boring it was. I've learned today that board games with too long of stories aren't really the best kind of game for me at the very least.

3/20 blog

 Today I played a game called Pandemic. The game was based on luck, chance and strategy. The chance part cames in when the player has to draw two cards. The players don't know what they're  about to draw and how it will affect the game. Luck comes in when you have to hope that the you get the cards you want in order to stop the diease. Luck also plays a huge part when the epidemic cards are drawn as well. The strategy comes in when you have to use your four moves in order to get the most accomplished in that one turn. It makes you stop and think so their are multiple good moves you can make, but you have to choose the best. These three components made the game worthwhile and playable multiple times.

The most important thing I learned

I learned that in a board game a very important part to making one is, to not over complicate the game, and too make sure you have a good balance of strategy and luck.  They both take a big part in board games, depending on the game sometimes you can have more of one. The reason for needing this is that the game will be much more interesting and people will stay intrigued longer. It is difficult to make a successful game with both strategy and luck that people like, but the good thing is that if you are successful, you will probably be very very successful. I am working with Logan on a game that we will create, and my priority will be too make sure that there is that balance so that the game is more enjoyable.

Blog Post 3/20/17

Today I learned how to properly play Pandemic. I hadn't played Pandemic for a while, so I didn't remember all the rules. I had forgotten about things like outbreaks, both their existence as a game mechanic and how they worked. However, there were a few other rules I don't think I ever really learned. Most of them were defeat conditions, such as the rule that when the player draw pile has been exhausted, the players lose the game. This is an interesting mechanic, as it puts a limit on how many turns the players can take before losing. I honestly didn't really like this mechanic. It felt unnecessary, as players were already motivated to perform actions in as few turns as possible by the threat of the disease spreading, which happens at the end of every turn. As well, in my experience playing Pandemic, very rarely did we reach the end of the deck before either winning or losing by some other condition; removing this wouldn't seem to massively impact the game's difficulty by making it too easy. This also limits the options players have, meaning that players can't adopt long-term strategies, since there is no long term.

HGD Blog #1

What was the most important thing I learned about Tabletop gaming, history, or myself?


One thing that I found really interesting was learning about the 30 years peace, and how the Athenians made one of the first panhellenic (Free Greek State) in Italy. The city was named Thurri, and it was comprised of Athenian, Spartans, and other free greek people. Because of the mixing of the cultures and different people had spawned a disagreement between the Athenian colonists and the Peloponnesian colonists over the founders over the city. Athenians claimed that they should have the founding rights because they had more settlers from Athens, while the Peloponnesian side argued that they should be the founders because they added more numbers to the population even when they came from all parts of Peloponnese. The dispute was settled without Athenian intervention and the Delphi determined that the city belonged to the sun god Apollo.

3/20 Blog Post

          Pandemic was a very fun game to play, well made with both luck and strategy. the most well made part, in my opinion, was the viruses. They were just cards, but they made up the main antagonist of the game. The fact that players had to work together made the game much more interesting. The role play was a key element to it, and i enjoyed, but was also irritated by, the fact that players had to work together. The luck was the card drawing and the fact that you didn't know where it was going to hit next. The strategy that i liked was how to play with not just the cards you were given, but the cards your entire team has, as well as the unique roles each person had. overall, this game is a good example of strategy vs luck and how to combine them.

Blog Post #1

Today I learned that when creating a game there is no simple way of going about it. No matter how simple of an idea I had it would become so much more complex. For instance Ilan and I created a game based on island warfare, its started out very simple but eventually it got way too complicated and we scraped the idea. This really made me appreciate how much work goes into created simple games that we all love. A way we learned to help with this is to start simple and work from there. its much easier to have an idea and expand upon it than it is to trim your idea. you also need to think about the audience of your game. For example if i want to create a game that is very realistic and would take many hours to finish, I might not mind having a forty page rule book but if I am creating a game for eight year old children i really need to keep in mind how complex I am making the game.

HGD Journal 1

Today I played the game "Pandemic", it was a very addictive game. The reason why I found this game so addictive was because of the different ways you can do things. For instance, my group played 2 games, the first game we did not know what we were doing and failed very fast. The second round we did better because we knew the basic rules and strategy, so we did better, but we still did not win. I think if we played again we could win because we now know more advanced strategies and ways to do things. Another reason why I found this game so addictive was because I simply love the way they incorporated luck and strategy into the game. After playing this game I realized that I wanted to make a game that incorporated both luck and strategy. The ways luck was in the game was that you drew cards not knowing what you were going to get, these cards were either beneficial or very terrible. Strategy was used in the game by having to cooperate with the other players and using your characters special skills to help cure and irradiate the diseases, which was the goal of the game.

Introduction

Welcome Historical Game Designers!

Daily blogs are due by 8:30 pm.  

Assignments are always the same

• Prompt:  The most important thing I learned today about tabletop games, history, or myself.

Good blogs

• go into depth on one primary event or idea,
• have a majority of logical rather than chronological transitions between sentences,
• and contain at least seven substantive and non-repetitive sentences.