Our game takes a beloved and popular game, RPS (Rock Paper Scissors), and takes it to a new extreme by adding various game mechanics to make it more fun, strategic and social.
Is turn based more fit than simultaneous turn/real time for maintaining a balanced round (fair, fun and not too long)?
In order to play a round of our game(/any social game really), we have to decide how these different mechanics would effect the narrative of our game. Is it too easy? is it too long? too chaotic? fun? A prototype that would allow for rapid testing of the different types without needing to get into the nitty gritty details of the game would be the most ideal in order to get a general feel of what’s working and what’s not.
Does our game give enough incentives for people to be more social and engaged?
This is especially important if we end up going with a traditional turn based approach since one player can go at a time while everyone else waits. Our prototype aims to eliminate this side effect by introducing a mechanic for “attacking” other players/knocking their points off. Our hope is that our prototype will be able to answer questions like: will we need to add more mechanisms to incentives people to engage? Maybe. Will we need to tweak how attacks work in the game (i.e., adding less consequences for attacking a player)? Probably.
What’s the most optimal number of points/point system?
Our game revolves around collecting sets of cards and so there needs to be a way to determine the optimal goal post based on the number of players and the number of available cards. Too little and the game is super short, too many and the game is too long. I believe that a prototype that would allow players to get a glimpse of the full experience of playing the game would be the most helpful in answering this questions due to the number of moving parts involved.
