(Written based off of our initial version of the game)
Our game ‘Weather or not’ is a game where players can create different weather fronts, score points based off of fulfilling different goals and maybe even rain on somebody else’s parade. You play as weather gods, who control air masses and create weather wherever you please. Our team values a competitive experience, appreciation of weather systems, power of creating weather patterns, and the concern for good weather for the town you are protecting. From our brainstorming, we knew that weather was an interesting system that we wanted to share with people! Once we started researching though, we realized that weather is complicated, factoring in moisture, heat, wind patterns, landmarks, and bodies of water. To create a game that could be competitive, we wanted a more manageable system that works with precipitation fronts.
I could see our game incorporating a loop and an arc. The loop gameplay is gathering air masses and landmarks, thinking about what patterns you want to make, and strategically placing them on the board. This helps players learn how to creating weather patterns from it to fulfill goals and updates their mental model. The arc of the gameplay, to think about sharing key ideas, could be related to the goal of the game which is to accumulate the most points. As weather gods, the more goals you complete, the more points you earn and the stronger you become. This updates the player’s mental model and allows them to strategize where to place the air mass next in order to score or block opposing players.
