9.22 - iteration after iteration

After our playtests last week, some obvious issues were addressed, like the physical size of the game (board, pieces, etc.) and rules concerning special events and other nitty gritty things like that. At this point, the rules and goals of our game were pretty much established, so it made moving forward a lot easier. In Chapter 8, Macklin and Sharp affirm this principle:

“The more clearly a team can establish its goals for the game, the more members can trust one another to autonomously work toward their success.”

 I was personally responsible for the construction and reconstruction of the game board. One interesting thing that came up is making sure to design with accessibility in mind, even at the beginning stages. During the first iteration, I added colored tile squares as a background to the game board to create a grid to standardize movement in the game. During the first playtest, one of the playtesters asked our group to assist him when needed during the game because he was colorblind, so he had difficulties making distinctions between some of the colors on the board. I decided then to make the game board black and white and 4 times as big. When we playtested again on Tuesday, these modifications proved beneficial to gameplay. In fact, our playtesters enjoyed the game so much that they even spoke of continuing to develop the game outside of class. Chapter 5 highlights the cyclical nature of iterative design. This continual cycle “steers a game’s design in all sorts of directions,” and when you add external stimuli like playtesters who have great feedback, a really well-rounded game can begin to take formation.

In Thursday’s class, we returned to regular lecture where we learned about the history of playing cards and all the many adaptations and considerations that leave us with the playing cards we all use today. As Nathan Altice states simply, “The history of cards is a history of rectangles.” Early playing cards were much taller than they were wide. Some were mirrored, while some weren't, and they were all hand-painted until printing became a thing. With the introduction of printing, standardizations between sets could be established, which has led to many different types of playing cards, like a set of Sushi Go cards.

Altice, N. (2014, November 3). THE PLAYING CARD PLATFORM. Analog Game Studies. https://analoggamestudies.org/2014/11/the-playing-card-platform/ 

Macklin, C., & Sharp, J. (n.d.). Chapter 5. The Iterative Game Design Process. In Games, design and play: A detailed approach to Iterative Game Design. essay, Addison-Wesley. 

Macklin, C., & Sharp, J. (n.d.). Chapter 8. Collaboration and Teamwork. In Games, design and play: A detailed approach to Iterative Game Design. essay, Addison-Wesley.