Here is a rundown of my efforts in contribution to this game:

March 19 – I first proposed the idea of using poker cards as the main form of play, placing them down on the table to form a unique kind of board and having the core gameplay involve flipping cards over and taking an effect/initiating combat/etc. based on the listed number. While we ended this day with multiple different ideas, the use of poker cards is something we latched onto moving forward.

March 21 – As we veered toward the direction of a detective cluefinding game, I proposed the idea of using the suit of the cards to determine the type of clue players are solving. So “club” cards, for example, would tell about the location. We continued brainstorming and I studied similar types of board games like Clue and Paranormal Detectives to help generate ideas.

March 26 – I designed half of our documentation sheets listing “location” options and “motive” options, and wrote a handful of event cards which players would use to ask and answer questions. I also stayed for the first playtest and took notes on our feedback, citing how players found the core gameplay very creative and interesting but felt the AI should create some greater kind of conflict.

March 28 – Based on our feedback, I spent a lot of time considering various ways the AI could be enhanced. We playtested the game within our team for most of the class period and each took notes on certain places where we felt the AI should hinder progress, such as after a guess is incorrect or after a question is asked/answered too directly. I proposed ideas of (under certain conditions) having the AI cross off a number of items from the documents based on a dice roll, meaning that players would no longer be able to guess those options. Designing this part was easily the most challenging part of the process, especially since we found it difficult to put limits on questions to stop people from just asking “which card do you have?” But I also proposed using a 3-second timer for drawings which at the very least helped balance the game and make it more fair.

April 2 – The biggest success of our game was definitely the core gameplay loop of asking and answering questions which made for a lot of funny and clever moments. However, the biggest weakness was still the AI feeling somewhat weak and the lack of obstacles is something I wanted to focus on. I proposed a last minute idea based on my efforts with the component exercise to have two poker cards drawn at the end of each round, or after an incorrect guess, and the lowest numbered card is how many words players were limited to with their questions in the next round. Overall, I’d say our game came together fairly nicely and everyone on our team contributed a lot to make this all work.

Component Exercise:

With this exercise, I aimed to give the poker cards a greater purpose both thematically and in gameplay. Since players only draw one card at the start, the remaining 48 cards go unused which makes them feel sort of pointless. With my new idea, the “killer” in our detective game is the Joker card. It rests face up in the center and fulfills the role of the AI.

Solution 1 is at the end of a round, or after an incorrect guess, players will draw two cards from the remainder of the poker deck and place them face up below the Joker. The AI then selects the lowest numbered card to be the limit on the word count for all questions in the following round. Solution 1B involves a case where a face card appears, in which case that card represents a false witness who draws an additional card and crosses that number off all document sheets for the rest of the game.

Solution 2 is similar to the first, but in the case of drawing a face card, the default is to instead draw from the Joker’s event deck which all have negative effects such as “answer falsely” or “only draw half of the answer.”

Solution 3 is to place five poker cards face down in the center, similar aesthetically to an actual game of poker, but then having a player select two random cards to flip over, in which case both of those cards are crossed off all document sheets for the rest of the game.

This was a really fun project, and gave some good insights on how to expand on various existing mechanics while still maintaining the core of what makes the original game unique.

On our first day, our group collaborated a bunch on determining the core components of “Chutes and Ladders” which we determined to be the traversal and the upward progression. I pitched some different ideas about player movement and using two dice as opposed to one, and we landed on an idea where one die could alternatively move a chute or a ladder.

We ran with that idea for day two. I unfortunately had to be absent but we threw various ideas into a Google Doc about special “double” rolls and I pitched the concept of item or bonus spaces, similar to games like Mario Party which would incentivize players to not simply take the nearest ladder, and would also provide a negative feedback loop to players who fell behind as they may land on a beneficial square.

On day three, we began playtesting and designed some questions, as well as shifting our focus from one-way chutes and ladders to two-way portals which opened up a lot of new possibilities for players. I worked with my team to focus on constraining the portals’ reach as well as settling on the finer details of our movement mechanics.

On day four, I stayed behind to oversee the “blind playtest” and took lots of notes about not only our rule sheet and its flaws at the time, but how players were interacting with our game and how they went about strategizing. Our vision for the game was for players to seek a balance between hindering their opponents and benefitting themselves which the players certainly found. All of the answers to our initial playtest questions can be found in the document attached below, but the notes I took during the blind playtest were essentially 1) that if portals are to be color-coded to the different player pieces, players should get some kind of extra benefit for using their colored portal, 2) that players enjoyed using the portals immediately when passing by it rather than simply if they land on it, and 3) that details like the pathway on the board and the meaning of 2x spaces should be specified. I asked them about the strategic aspect, and you can see in the “questions” document, all of the questions that have two answers to them are answers we received from that second playtest. We took into account their suggestions, and while we didn’t come around to adding bonuses for color-coded portals, we did really enjoy the newly suggested mechanic of portals activating anytime a player even brushes past it, and added things like “arrows” to the board to clarify the path.

On the final day, we cleaned up our rule sheet and got some great finishing feedback about different caveats in our rules which needed clarification. I quickly cleaned those up and we all left satisfied with the game we’d created.

Play Test Questions Rules

Attached above are the (admittedly jumbled) list of playtest questions, and the rule sheet. As far as the questions go, the “next time” section at the bottom proved a bit redundant as our initial questions were still largely relevant to the second playtest.

On day 1, I pitched the initial proposal for doing Metroid, and pitched the basis for structuring our analog game as a 3v1 dungeon crawler. I discussed some possible mechanics and alternate ideas with my group members and we ended up leaning towards a similar approach to “Betrayal” with its room building. I began designing our rule set at home based on those core concepts, and came in the next day with tons of ideas.

On day 2, I drew mock card designs on Procreate for the three main locations: Brinstar, Norfair, and Tourian. I also pitched the rule ideas to my group, making tweaks and changes based on their suggestions. We discussed good playtesting etiquette and devised some questions focused on player enjoyment and ease of understanding.

Our questions were roughly: At what points (if any) was the game reaching a complexity which broke enjoyment? Did the 3v1 system feel balanced or sway towards either side, and why? And did each team (Samus and the Pirates) feel like they had enough agency during play, or was any team feeling restricted or weak?

On day 3, I made major contributions to our rule set and designed 19 cards, including our character cards. During the playtest, I noted how players generally took one or two rounds to get into a groove. Some players felt the rules were too deep or too complex, while others appreciated the complexity and simply felt there was a learning curve at the beginning. We got great feedback to create a “legend” to denote certain special gimmicks like door types, hazard types, etc. We also initially gave each player their own separate decks, but in not being able to label the backs due to the integration of item rooms, we decided to have all players draw from one big deck for simplicity’s sake. One final thing is that some players felt combat was too weighted against Samus, so rather than giving both parties a d6 die, we gave Samus a d6 and enemies a d4. All in all, our players really enjoyed the experience and gave some great answers to our questions.

On day 4, it seems the playtests went much smoother, though there was some slight confusion about Pirates being able to place rooms *and* use an ability on the same turn. The misunderstanding about Pirate play left some players feeling a lack of agency, but we resolved that issue for our final playtest. Overall, our feedback was even more positive the second time around and I am proud of how well we could design a game which stays true to the original while having a unique spin.

Photo 1 showcases the character cards I created alongside the starting map and the item rooms. Photo 2 was taken just before our first playtest to show the basic gameplay system. Photo 3 was taken before our second playtest, showing off some improvements we made like including a “legend” and designated spaces for easy card drawing.

Pictured is a snapshot of a sample setup. Players work as a team to advance up the grid, battling or evading the enemies guarding the boss up top. Upon slaying the boss, the player team wins. The blue token also serves as a medbay to heal wounds, and the orange token is a shop to convert enemies into allies.

As far as my process goes, I went into this assignment wanting to make some cool character cards. My top priority was designing a system which promotes experimentation and unique playstyles based on the strengths and weaknesses of each character. The whole narrative structure is actually sourced from a TV series I’m solo-developing, so the biggest challenge there was converting the themes and personalities from that series into a micro card game. The “Scrapper” card, for example, is the game-y interpretation of my character Evelyn who is a pacifist, and who values others more than herself. To translate those ideas, I designed her stats to reward her for avoiding combat, especially having the lowest health of the 3 player characters, and her special ability serves to support her allies. This differs from the “Gambler” card, based on my character Finn who is much more reckless and self-serving, but can deal some big damage when taking charge.

I actually began with the game Inscryption as a template, especially in the positioning of player cards and enemy cards in a grid-like play area. The ability in that game to sacrifice your cards for currency to play higher-cost cards is something I also heavily considered, but of course being limited to 16 cards, I didn’t want any sort of sacrifice mechanic to leave the field dry and empty. Mostly, I wanted combat that feels sleek and simple but provides lots of freedom. In a similar fashion to other tabletop games, I decided players should have the option to move, attack, or use a special ability as the three main action types. But additionally, I felt that working in co-op forced some really cool strategizing. For example, a player can usurp a teammate’s square using their movement, but doing so pushes their teammate to another square which may be in the attack range of an enemy. So having a system where players must deliberate and make sacrifices for each other is something I really strived for, especially to emphasize the roleplay aspects.

I think the grid system also created a really good sense of tension and claustrophobia, since safe squares are few and far between, especially when trying to advance to the boss. The core gameplay is fairly simple, and my group all gave really positive feedback (especially about the depth and the artwork!) but I did find myself struggling to explain the rules in a simple manner. It certainly looks daunting when each card has unique abilities, and players are forced to think strategically in a game they’ve never played before, but after the first few rounds I was pleased to see everyone engaged and excited. I may have put too many layers into a game designed to last 5-10 minutes. That much I will admit. But the result is something I’m eager to continue playing with friends. It’s strangely kind of addictive to me.

So overall I’d say our game was a success. I’m glad I got to stay back and guide another group through the rules since I was actually excited to see how a full game would play out, and everyone had wholly positive feedback in the end.

It was a bit challenging that first class period not just getting acquainted and comfortable within these groups but also just figuring out a solid enough foundation to move forward. Bren had the great idea for a roulette spinner, and we all kinda vaguely landed on partnering that with a token system and some form of “abilities.” I ended up carving out a few hours that weekend just brainstorming different ways to add more depth and excitement to a game of tokens and chance spins, and ended up writing out a whole mock rule book which I then shared with everyone else for feedback. I even made good use of the little dot emojis to provide some visuals 🟠🟠🟢.

But I essentially honed in on those “gambling elements” we all talked about, while also trying to add some variety by making each token double-sided with a color on the back denoting a unique ability. My favorite of which is actually the red token, which when played acts like a hot potato where you must guess the color on the bottom of another player’s token, and failure makes you lose some tokens while success passes the hot potato onto them so now they have to guess.

The biggest challenge was most certainly the time crunch, but once we all came together for the second day, after having that weekend time to brainstorm, we landed on some pretty great ideas and the game turned out really fun. So much so that I’m actually considering playing it with my friends sometime.