This week I planned to continue attempting to prototype my board game. I shifted my concept idea and ideated before tying to prototype anything. With additional research, I gained a better direction on how to proceed.

Secondary Research

Second Chance

http://www.notehkrauss.com/

Second Chance is about confronting your own death, in order to live life more fully. I lead the design of this 2-hour experience, along with Scott Shigeoka (former Design & Social Impact Lead at IDEO). We brought more than 400 participants through what we created, and had press featured in the SF Chronicle, Timeout, KALW, and Variety Magazine. As one of the headlining events of the Re-Imagine Festival, we were awarded an Honourable Mention from Fast Company as a 2019 World Changing Idea

Magic Maze Gameplay

https://www.ultraboardgames.com/magic-maze/game-rules.php

Magic Maze is a collaborative game I’ve played with friends in the past. Its collaboration aspect is very effective and I’m want to be able to emulate that type of gameplay. I’m inspired by the collaboration aspect of the game and how there are different levels of difficulty.

The Game Design Reader

This book is about game design and gained a few quick insights on what makes gameplay work.

Honey Bee Tree Game

http://www.boardgamecapital.com/honey-bee-tree-rules.htm

Honey Bee Game is a board game with a physical component where players fill a plastic hive w toy bees. This type of gameplay gives a physical/visual indication of how the game is progressing.

Paper Prototype 1

This is the first prototype I created after last week’s ideation. However, it was extremely difficult to prototype without mechanics I want to implement. For my next iteration I am going to ideate mechanics and actions before prototyping.

Notes & Ideas

For my next round of paper prototypes I ideated on what mechanics and elements I want to incorporate into my game. By doing so, I gained a better idea of how I want players to interact and what pieces I might need to make that happen.

I’m looking into the metaphor of grief as tending a garden. It’s something people actively put an effort towards but it also takes a lot of patience and time.

Garden metaphor - Garden of Grief (?)

Team goal
- Understand grief through the active effort of accepting grief and moving past denial
- Idea 1
  - Team wins when they reach the end and the garden is at least 5/10 tended
  - Team loses if garden is less than 5/10 tended
- Idea 2
  - Team “wins” when garden is growing (enough water, good fertilizer)
  - Team loses if garden dies (too rushed, not enough water, too many weeds, destroyed)
  - No true winning state, more of a progression to a fuller garden
    - Play until board tiles are used up
Metaphor ideas
- Tend garden
- Prioritize and plan where plants to grow
- Fertilizer
- Watering: not enough or too much
- Soil: good or bad foundation
- Weather
- Temperature
- External factors: animals, other plants
- Fencing your garden
- Weeds
- Time and patience to let plants grow

Physical Board

Emulate happy and sad waves of emotions
Emotion board tiles
- Positive (sunny, light breeze, warm)
  - Smooth, curved path
  - 1 sad moment (more indicative of grief because emotions are mixed)
  - Can obtain
    - Fertilizer (represents active effort)
      - Collect fertilizer action (use when needed or wanted)
      - Can grow plant by 2 units instead of 1 for 1 round
      - Can’t use every round
    - Water (represents patience and time)
      - Collect water (represents tending garden)
      - Need enough water to water plant each round
      - Might overwater plant
    - Soil (represents perspective shift)
      - Collect soil action (have to use)
      - Replace foundation of plant but possibility that plant might fall
      - Fallen pieces are not put back
- Negative (raining, windy, cold)
  - Jagged, sharp path
  - 1 happy moment (more indicative of grief because emotions are mixed)
  - Could get hurt by
    - Flood of Sadness
      - Water level rises
      - Garden might get overwatered
    - Thorns of Anger
      - Add thorns to garden
      - Might make garden more unstable and other pieces could fall off
    - Social Stampede
      - Inviting animals to play, but garden (aka emotions) wasn’t ready and it becomes overwhelming
    - Weeds of Regret
      - Weeds/Regret is overshadowing other thoughts
      - Take off 2 pieces of your garden
- Neutral (partly cloudy)
  - Straight path

Paper Prototype 2

For my 2nd paper prototype I wanted to keep the modularity of the different board tiles. But using different types of lines, it would show a different type of feeling. I tried different ideas for labeling different spaces but it would be most effective if the spaces prompted players to draw a card.

Considerations & Questions

Am I trying to include too many details/aspects to this game?
Would it be more effective with less concepts involved?
Dice vs. spinner?
- Spinner would more effective to have less or more numbers than 6
- Dice is more compact but needs space to throw
How to include more collaboration between players?
Color will be an effective way to showcase feelings and emotions but difficult to implement in early stages of game development
How many cards?

Reflection

This week I learned how hard it is to build a board game. There are a lot of considerations and mechanics to think about. But I’m glad I had the chance to prototype and think through what I want to include in the game. There are still a lot of details I need to work through but I think I have a good direction.

Next steps

I will continue to research and prototype until have a clear view of how I want the game to work and how players will interact with each other. I need to be mindful on what the end goal will be for this type of a board game.

Senior Thesis

Game Paper Prototype (10/28-11/3)