The game that we decided to play was the online version of Truth or Drink. We did this because it shares some elements with the game that we are currently prototyping. Namely, it is a drinking game that requires one to answer personal questions or face a drinking penalty. It is very low fidelity; it requires the website to access the questions and something to drink when one decided to pass. We did a quick run through of the game, with water in place of liquor, and gathered data for our comparative analysis.
Firstly, we were interested in mimicking the fellowship that the game offers to players. The game is designed to bring two people together, making it a very intimate experience. We wish to replicate this on a slightly larger scale, with groups of people being brought together instead of just a pair. The game achieves this with very straightforward game mechanics. The players flip cards at random and determine if they are comfortable with truthfully answering the question they picked. We intend to adopt this approach with a minor tweak, that players will get to choose to the intensity of the question from a stack of three tiered decks. Doing so, we think, will encourage people to answer more truthfully since they have more control over their fate.
Secondly, we also wish to recreate the sense of excitement that comes from being a game where discovery is a central kind of fun offered to the players. There are four themes that the game has (normal, party, dirty, and intimate), which leaves room for a wide variety of interesting responses. Since the appeal of the game lies mostly in its potential for conversation, there is not much to be said about the graphic decision choices of the creators. It is very bare-bones, with differently colored clickable buttons to navigate between different modes and questions That is not to say the game isn’t effective at encouraging discovery though. If anything, placing the focus on the text is arguably more effective at achieving this task. We will draw from this idea and keep our design very minimalistic as well.
