[Joined class late, have been instructed to watch the video and answer what I took away from the video.]
Early prototyping is extremely important, because trying everything you can think of will allow you to design a game that has taken care of edge cases, accessibility concerns, and what core elements contribute to the fun of the game. A prototype is usually interactive, and has checkpoints throughout the game that playtesters will be able to help us answer. Questions such as: what is the minimum amount of players needed to play the game? How are teams going to be split up? How does the game start? have a variety of answers which will best be answered by a subset of the intended audience. When building a prototype, focus on the simplest and cheapest way to build the part of the game you need feedback on. Prototypes are appropriate to build anytime you have a question to answer.
As we prototype our games, we might run into aspects of the game that are very popular with playtesters or aspects that they find particularly enjoyable! It’s helpful to keep in mind: How do we incorporate more of these particularly fun elements throughout the game, so that it isn’t concentrated in just one part of the game? Asking for specific input from playtesters is valuable, but ensuring that we can survey a wide variety of playtesters is equally as important. What’s fun to one player might be dreadful to another.
[Answered questions based on experience on developing this game so far.]
My team and I have developed a game called Trust & Dare, which is a fishbowl style game in which players are split into teams to complete dares that restrict one of the five senses: taste, smell, touch, feel, hearing. The intention behind the game is to facilitate an environment in which players can learn to trust their partners over the course of the game.
How are teams assigned and how does the game start?
- It’s important to answer how teams are assigned because a core aspect of the game is learning to trust whoever you let guide you through the dares when one of your senses is impaired. Without clear designation of teams, the game can become very confusing, as many cards start with… “go up to your partner…” or “let your partner…”
- To help answer this question, I think it’ll be helpful to draft dares and go back to modify them to be very clear about how many people need to be involved to score a point.
- My guess is that people will be confused about who to pair up with at first, but I think it would be interesting for players to stick to the same partner(s) throughout the entire game. Because the game is designed to build trust between players, it wouldn’t make sense to switch up partners every few dares. As the dares progress, the more comfortable players will be with one another. Another concern I have is that there may be an odd number of people, in which splitting up into pairs isn’t feasible. In this case, there would most likely be a few groups of three, in which both partners can help the partner whose sense has been impaired, or they can take turns for each dare.
What if someone doesn’t want to do a dare?
- Games that force you to do things that you don’t want to do aren’t very fun games! It’s important to assess how our game can be catered to a variety of audiences.
- Group playtesting will be the best way to target dares that are more popular vs. less popular. From this assessment, it’ll be helpful to come up with more dares that are similar or on a similar level of comfortability to the dares that most players enjoyed.
- I fear that for those who are more introverted, some dares may make them feel uncomfortable, especially in large settings or in settings where the other players are merely acquaintances. To combat this, I think it’d be a great idea to adapt the game into different levels (drawing inspiration from We’re Not Really Strangers). The first level could be focused on the 2-3 players getting to know each other, the second level could be focused on doing mild dares, and the third level could be focused on doing more extreme dares. This way, we can build up to the dares that require a bit of warming up.
When does the game end / how do players win?
- Time pressure makes a game more intense and enjoyable. There are many dares that players can attempt, but after a while, if there is no clear way to win, the game could get old pretty quickly.
- I think it’d be a great idea to reflect on how similar games decide a winner — games such as Truth or Dare, Never Have I Ever, and more. I also think group playtesting would be beneficial here. Whether players win after having successfully completed 10 dares, or whether there is a time limit on the game itself, fielding feedback and opinions from the playtesters themselves will be an important resource to answer this question.
- I predict that the sweet spot will be around 7-10 dares successfully completed in order to win. This will give each player about 4-5 dares each, which I find to be a number that demonstrates the lighthearted and goofy nature of the game but also leaves them wanting to play for longer.
