Is player enjoyment improved by having challenge rounds, which increase competitiveness?
This is an important question to ask as it may be a core mechanism of our game, where we make it far more adversarial and competitive if challenge rounds are included. Our proposed game includes challenge rounds, and the winner of the round gets to have special “power-ups” that either disadvantage the other team or advantages their own team.
We will do some field research and playtesting to figure out if these challenge rounds actually improve player enjoyment and experience. It is a core part of our game we would like to include and believe it may improve the competitiveness and therefore enjoyment.
We believe the challenge rounds will be an integral part of our game and foresee it being a great inclusion to improve competitiveness
Are our cards too difficult to act out?
Our game functions off the fact that players can act out our phrases, and the inability to do so for multiple consecutive phrases probably means that the words we included are too difficult. We need to make sure that this game isn’t too hard and is very accessible for anyone!
We are planning to first write up a few categories and cards to playtest and figure out if people are skipping the prompts too much. If so, we will decrease the difficulty of the prompts being asked of players to perform and adjust accordingly. In the same vein, if the game is too easy to act out and players are guessing the phrase correctly too fast, we will make the phrases more difficult.
I believe our initial prototype of card prompts should be sufficiently difficult for parties and it will be accessible for our target audience.
Should we incorporate a plot or story into our game?
Games are oftentimes well-built for being driven by story and plot action. A backstory for our game might be a nice touch to give the game more character. However, in the same vein, the inclusion of a backstory might be unnecessary and can even serve to divert the focus of the main goals of the game. A story or backstory isn’t always necessary to create a compelling game and it’ll be good to figure that out!
We are planning on writing up a small plot and seeing how it fits into the structure of our game. Then, we’ll be sure to ask ourselves questions of if it’s necessary to include the backstory or not.
I believe that the game already functions effectively without a game and inclusion of a story may feel forced and unnecessary.
