Our P3 Game, ‘Weather or Not?!” is a game about creating weather patterns and using them to gain points while you are trying to reach your goal location. Weather systems was something I was always interested in but didn’t know that much about. Researching for this game actually helped me understand weather better as well, and that it is pretty complicated! There are a lot of factors that go into weather creation, and to create a game from it, we needed to simplify the system to create mechanics that are manageable. We focused on the mechanics of using cold and hot air masses to create fronts, which causes rain, thunderstorms, or even snow!
In our final version, we have players competing against each other, with the goal of getting to a certain location across the board. We wanted players to feel more invested in the gameplay, and strategically use the weather to their advantage. I liked the idea Cynthia suggested of the premise being that two nomadic tribes have to get to the other side of the land as the seasons change. I was happy to see that during our playtest at Thursday Game night, our play testers were using strategy and analyzing what each other was doing in order to maximize their points or bring their opponent down. They were planning their next moves based on what each other did in setting the airmasses down and that was satisfying to see.
Going forward, perhaps we could have a reference card on what you could do on your turn. It seemed that placement of the air masses or lake can be confusing for people to understand, so having instructions could be nice. Something I learned from this project was how broad the definition of a systems game could be. With different objects and properties, the interactions that the players do will affect other parts of the system. I first thought that placing air masses was a loop, but it is not as these interactions are done between players, not necessarily an increase in mastery for a skill. I can see that our game has an arc, in which players compete with each other to get to their goals and get the most points to win. Overall, I think this was a good learning experience in thinking about modeling a system in a way that people can interact with it!
