Critical Play: Game Competitor

For the Girls is an adult party game, themed with bright, clean, neon graphics, promising fellowship fun. They create this type of fun by incorporating elements of chance when selecting action cards, fostering social interplay with partner dares and “most likely to” questions, and focusing prompts and actions well-suited to a group party context. While this game is not a “drinking game” itself, the actions promoted in the game (like having a team member select a random person from your contact list to call) are well aligned with a drinking or party setting, which seems to be the aim of the game developers based on the visual design of the brightly-colored, social-focused game. For the Girls differentiates itself from other social party games by focusing on a female demographic. While the game could be played by anyone, they hone in on a female audience to exemplify a clear game objective of bonding and laughing with a small-sized group of girls at an event like a bachelorette party or sleepover to create an engaged sub-audience for their game that would be more motivated to buy it over other party games. This technique implores our P1 team to consider how we might narrow our game audience through marketing and communication, perhaps framing our game dramatically as a party icebreaker, to go after a more specific, motivated audience. 

 

Another wonderful element of fun in For the Girls is that the game boundaries transcend the physical game mechanics themselves (ie. the cards and color spinner) and encompass the entire social circle and room that the players are playing in. Because of the safe-level of social embarrassment each card encourages, even onlookers who are not actively game players get joy and social fulfillment from watching the game! Many of the cards rely on supplies the players have on hand (like phones and social media and drink supplies at the party) to augment the game experience. 

 

To control for abuse in the game, all of the card prompts are relatively benign, and all players have the option to skip their turn if they do not want to complete the card they draw (for a penalty). 

 

One interesting physical game mechanic worth noting and modding in our P1 game is the use of a colored dice or colored spinner for the player to choose their next card. This is an engaging, colorful, and visual mechanic to exercise probability in a group party setting. It allows for group anticipation which adds to fellowship. 



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