- Should the prompts be given to players? Or should players be expected to come up with their own prompts from scratch? This is an important question to answer because it will be a core mechanic of our game, but we aren’t 100% sure on which option would be more fun for players. Having to generate prompts on one’s own could be stressful to come up with, but being given prompts by the game could be too restrictive. I believe making a role prototype with premade prompts/images on pieces of paper could test this question – I think that in the end we’ll see that playing the game this way could add a level of structure that makes the game more enjoyable than if it was just completely freeform.
- If the prompts are pre-written, should there be categories of prompts (like song titles, movie titles, etc.)? This is an important question to answer because if we find that the answer is yes, we’ll need some sort of spinner or category picker. It’s also another example of not knowing yet if we should be adding more layers of structure to our game, or if doing so is unnecessarily restricting our game. To test this, we can make a role prototype by color-coding our prompts with markers to categorize them. I think we may find that these categories lead to prompts that are too easy to guess, so this idea may end up being scrapped.
- Should guesses be written down on pieces of paper or said verbally? This is an important question to answer because our game is similar to Charades or Pictionary which both typically involve players shouting out their guesses verbally. However, since some of the prompts might be quite complex/have many parts to them, there may be room for partial credit and therefore having written guesses could make the scoring a lot easier. I believe making a role prototype of the game in which players have a piece of paper to write guesses on before revealing and then a prototype of the game in which players say their guesses out loud as soon as they think of them will allow us to test this question. I believe that although verbal guessing is commonplace in similar games, our game would benefit from having the guesses written down and all revealed at once.
