How can we tell if our rules are too complicated…what is our optimal length of time our users should spend on rules?
- Rules decide the fun of the game, they make the game unique and challenging but can also get frustrating if they are too complicated. Therefore, it is important to ensure that we have enough rules to keep the game exciting, but also not too many.
- I think we can create a short (1, 2, 3) rule sheet that we can read to our potential users. We can count how many times they have to re-read the rules and how many questions emerge from their interpretation. We can then ask them to re-summarize how the game is played and rate from 0-10 how confident they feel playing the game.
- I predict that questions will emerge and it will take a few reads to fully understand the game without playing. This advice will then hopefully be able to allow us to create a concise, highlighted rule sheet that players will be able to understand easily.
How can we implement a constant increase of engagement with the users?
- Since the purpose of our game is to develop connections with get-to-know you questions and challenges of our players, I think it is important to ensure that our goal is working. If our players quickly get bored and do not seem to enjoy these questions/challenges, then our game has failed.
- I think we can create a low fidelity prototype, writing our challenges/questions on paper. We can experiment these questions with potential users, and they can pile those that they find interesting/boring in two different piles. From there, we can get advice on any ideas that they think would be more interesting.
- I imagine this will be a pain point of our prototyping experience. Creating the perfect balance of challenge and vulnerability in our questions is key to our game.
What is the best player structure to motivate the game (one v one, two vs two, larger teams)?
- Our game is similar to the structure of beer pong, which is a 2 vs 2 game. However, I also imagined a game monitor as a 5th person who is in charge of decking the cards and asking questions. Discovering the optimal structure of our game is important, as we don’t want it to get boring or overwhelming with too little/many people.
- We can prototype this question by experimenting with 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3, the 1v1 players will have played all three games. At the end, we can then observe and conduct a survey with the original players to see how their experience changed with adding more people.
- I predict that our optimal size is 2v2. This is used in most drinking games and is a good size to optimize vulnerability and competition between the players.
