Our current idea for Project 1 is a card game that focuses on social deception and judging. Specifically, we are hoping to do a mod of Apples to Apples/Cards Against Humanity where players build up a dog (i.e. by dressing them up) and have to compete with others to make it best fit a prompt in order to gain points. Part of the game would possibly involve players being able to steal cards from each other.
Questions:
1. What type of prompts should be used in the prompt cards to best maintain players’ attention and keep the game interesting?
This question is important to answer because having players judge the dogs that each player creates and make a decision about which best fits a prompt is a key feature of how people in the game interact socially. If the prompts are boring or too “normal,” then players will likely lose interest in the game very quickly. For example, sometimes I find Apples to Apples boring because the prompts can often be uninteresting or unfunny to me. So, it is important for us to find the sweet spot for the humor (or other emotion) that we want to be associated with our cards with the goal of our prompts keeping people engaged and on their toes. To prototype this, we might test a couple of different sets of prompt cards that each have a different type of humor or theme. Based on when test players respond the most enthusiastically, we can determine the types of prompts we may want to work with. I predict that players will be most driven by humor in the prompts which may come from talking about very unhinged, action-driven scenarios (e.g. which dog is most likely to steal a car to drive to Mcdonald’s)
2. What is the best way for players to get the clothing items that they can use to dress up their dogs?
This question is important to answer because it will add a dynamic to the game based on what we decide. Some contenders for what to do are having the users draw their accessories onto their dogs or draw cards to get the accessories. If we choose the card choice, then this introduces a social deception dynamic (because we want users to be able to trade cards or steal cards somehow). However if we have users just draw their accessories, then this will lean the game more toward personal expression. To test this, we could create two small versions of the game, one where players draw their accessories and one where they pull cards to get their accessories and observe how engagement differs between the 2 versions. I predict that players will like needing to draw cards better because it adds an additional layer of complexity and interaction to the game.
3. Should we intentionally add in a mechanic that forces the social deception dynamic?
The question is important because if we choose to include the social deception dynamic into our game (which I am personally leaning toward), then we want to make sure that players feel like it is natural to want to play around with this aspect of the game. We want to make sure that the social deception feels really smoothly integrated into the flow of the game. To test this, we might make a version of the game with social deception included and just see how users interact. If it seems like people are not really using the social deception like we aimed for, we may add in new mechanics that better encourage it and then test play again and repeat this process until we feel good about this aspect of the game. I predict that we will have to add at least one mechanic that will pressure players to want to deceive each other and steal or trade accessory cards based on this social deception.
