My group’s game idea is for matching pairs of people to have to communicate their secret codes with each other. There are 1-2 odd ones out that do not have a secret code, whose goal is to figure out some pair’s secret code and sabotage them. At the end of each round, the players will deliberate and vote on who they think their other half is.
- What is the most effective medium for players to communicate their codes?
- This is important because communicating the code is the meat of the game, it will determine how easy/ hard and how fun the process will be.
- We will make integration prototypes to understand how the overall design impacts the user experience. We will test with multiple mediums, such as drawing, verbal, mix etc.
- My guess is verbal will be most engaging since users can interact more heavily with each other/ make better observations
- How can we adjust the mechanics to work well with an odd and even number of players?
- This is important because the nature of our game is in pairs, but the game should be fun and achieve the same purpose no matter the evenness/ oddness of the number of players
- We will make implementation prototypes that involve rules accounting for 1 vs. 2 saboteurs and observe if the game still works as intended, and whether the players still feel equally challenged in each.
- My guess is that the game could be equally fun in both situations, as long as we define the rules in a way that maintains the challenge
- What kind of narrative can we interleave into the game?
- This is important because having some kind of metaphor/ premise can help engage the players better over multiple rounds of the game, and maintain a unified theme
- We will make role prototypes that demonstrate different themes/ narratives to players and see how they respond to each
- I think the players will prefer some type of mystery narrative since it helps build the suspense of the game.
- Should the game have to appeal to the player’s visual/ tactile senses? How?
- This is important because the medium of the game can significantly impact the player’s experience. In some cases, a tactile aspect could help greatly, such as a card game; in other cases, it is not exactly necessary, such as Mafia
- We will make look and feel prototypes to test out how the game would work with a physical/ visual aspect, such as cards or drawing papers, in contrast with a purely strategic/ verbal aspect.
- I suspect that for the purpose of this game, there isn’t necessarily a need to introduce a tactile aspect, and users may have more fun, or find it more accessible, to play without any materials
