What do Prototypes Prototype? – Derek Hwang

My team is currently thinking about creating an Ownership/Deck Building game based on winning a Presidency. To help with this, I have the following questions I would like to answer using prototypes:

A mechanic we are considering is whether or not to have territories with equal or unequal vote caps (maximum allotted number of votes that players have to compete for).

How will players react to an unequal amount of votes? Will players stick to nearby territories or move to further territories (with potentially more votes)?

1. 1. This is an important question to answer as it would motivate whether or not we include a territory movement mechanic. We are pretty sure that we will have players gain votes by using policy cards, but we need to figure out if policy cards can be used on any territory, nearby territories, or some other subset.
   2. We can likely build a simple paper-based prototype where players need to accumulate scores based on a map with unequal numbers. We can observe what strategies players use to accumulate their scores.
   3. Since the intention is to have a finite number of total votes, my guess would be that players would likely try to move to places where there are the most amount of votes available to be gotten. 

Another mechanic could be the use of random event cards, similar to what Mario Party has.

How would random event cards (that could add / reduce the number of votes, reshuffle policy cards, etc.) affect how players play in both the first and second half of the game?

1. 1. 1. This is an important question to answer as it would help with the balance of our game. Something that I personally do not like is when games have “down-time” or when it becomes obvious what the outcome would be. However, this could cause players to feel “cheated” out of a win, so this should be tested, especially if the effects are powerful.
      2. To test this, we could likely play another game (perhaps Mafia) and halfway into the game, the moderator suddenly reveals one special role (including mafia) as a special event. From here, we can observe how the rest of the players react to and respond to such a special event.
      3. My guess is that players would react differently based on their performance in the game. If they are in the lead, then it would be very annoying if their lead was suddenly lost. On the other hand, a player trailing behind might get a lucky break. I think that we need to see if adding such random events would help or hurt the fun of the game.

The social aspect of our game is negotiation to get votes and/or policy cards.

Would players engage in equal negotiation with each other or would they only negotiate a winning deal?  How many players would negotiate with each other? How long should negotiations take?

1. 1. This is an important to answer as we would need to know how players would engage in negotiations with each other (if any). These questions about the negotiation mechanic are important to answer as negotiation is meant to be a big part of the game (especially since you shouldn’t be able to win without engaging in some negotiation).
   2. A way we would test this is by playing a modified version of Old Maid. We could implement a rule where when everyone has gone at least once, then at the end of the round, there could be a negotiation phase where players could trade cards with each other to try and empty their hand as much as possible before the next cycle.
   3. I think that players would try to negotiate, but deals would probably take a while and only among small groups of people. I also think that people may try to trade multiple times to put themselves into the best position possible. To that end, it might be important to put a limit on the number of times you can trade.