Dare to Bluff – Final Deliverable

Created By: Caleb Liu, Nick Hafer, Rishi Agarwal

Artist’s statement (~200 words of your intention for the game):

A problem we’ve seen with many current social games is that they inadvertently push boundaries with probing questions or they simply facilitate conversation without real engagement or competition. Our game, “Dare to Bluff” addresses these challenges by balancing personal disclosure with the option to bluff, thus allowing players to control their comfort level while sharing. Players are invited to answer playful and intriguing questions, such as revealing a celebrity crush or recounting a time they told a lie to escape a situation. However, the twist lies in the choice to either share a true response or concoct a bluff. This introduces a layer of strategy as players must decide whether to challenge a response, guessing if it’s truth or a bluff. Victory goes to those who can either convincingly lie or truthfully answer in a way that seeds doubt, making others suspect a bluff, with the ultimate goal being to accumulate all the cards. “Dare to Bluff” isn’t just about revealing secrets; it’s about storytelling, psychology, and strategic thinking, all wrapped in a fun and engaging game that keeps everyone guessing and laughing.

We imagined this game being for ages 18+, given the spicy types of questions we designed, but one can easily adapt this for younger or much older ages! 

Concept Map 

Initial decisions about formal elements and values of your game

1. Rules
   1. Players must slap the pile based on set conditions: A repeat (1, 1), sandwich (1, 2, 1), or sequence of numbers occurs among the cards without wrap-arounds (1, 2, 3, or 3, 2, 1 but not 5, 1, 2).
   2. Players must answer a question after slapping to gain cards: The first player to successfully slap answers a question card from the question deck, deciding whether to tell the truth or bluff.
   3. Bluff Period: Other players may challenge an answer by calling “bluff.” If a bluff is incorrectly called, the challenger must give a set number of cards from their hand to the original truth-teller. Only players with at least three number cards in their hands can call bluff.
   4. Bluff Consequences: Successfully bluffing allows the player to keep the current pile and receive a bonus card from each player; getting caught in a bluff results in losing cards from their hand.
2. Procedures
   1. Card Distribution: Deal number cards face down evenly among all players. Any leftover cards are set aside as “overflow” or distributed as agreed by the players.
   2. Gameplay: Players take turns in a clockwise direction, placing the top card from their hand face up into the center. Players watch for slap conditions during each turn.
   3. Slap Procedure: When a slap condition is met, the first player to slap the pile draws a question card, decides to answer truthfully or to bluff, and then presents their answer. Other players can then challenge the bluff.
   4. Win Condition: The game continues until one player collects all the cards or a predetermined condition such as a time limit is reached.
3. Players
   1. Number of Players: 3-6 players.
   2. Age of Players: 18+ for this iteration of the game given some spicier questions, but can easily be adapted for much younger or much older players.
   3. Skills Required: Quick reflexes for slapping, strategic thinking and memory/knowledge of other players for bluffing or challenging bluffs.
   4. Player Interaction: Players occasionally slap each other’s hands and answer questions that encourage storytelling, bluffing, and the psychological aspect of guessing other players’ honesty.
4. Resources
   1. Two decks are used: one for number cards that players will slap and one for question cards that are picked up after a slap condition is met. Each question card can be answered with a bluff or a truth.
5. Objectives
   1. Primary Objective: To collect all the cards by either successfully bluffing or by challenging others’ bluffs effectively.
   2. Secondary Objectives: Tell strategic stories, be vulnerable, read people and get to know them.
6. Boundaries
   1. Physical Boundaries: Game is played within a designated area where the decks and the card piles are accessible to all players. This is probably easiest with all players sitting around a table, but could also be played on the ground or somewhere else.
   2. Time Boundaries: Game flow is dictated by turns and quick responses; optional time limits can be imposed to constrain game duration.
7. Conflict
   1. Main Conflict: Arises from the need to bluff convincingly or to detect others’ bluffs.
   2. Instant Conflict: Created by the competition to slap the pile first, initiating interactions and challenges.
   3. Losing Conflict: Players win by collecting all the cards, but if players lose all the cards, they can slap back in to have the option to answer a question and get more cards again. This keeps everyone interested in playing the game involved and with the opportunity to win.
8. Outcome
   1. Winning Condition: The game ends when a player has collected all the cards.
   2. Alternative Endings: The game can also conclude after a set duration, with the player holding the most cards declared the winner.

 

Testing and Iteration History

Iteration 1 (Nick + Rishi): “Name^4” or “F^3 (Find your Fake Friends)”

• Initial Brainstorming and Crazy 8s: 

• No playtest
• Like Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza but players write down their names and say them in order (get to know you game)
• Questions/concerns we had for the teaching team:
  • Format/design/materials: what kinds of cards should we use? Should we use markers/pens/pencils, what feels the best?
  • How do we know this game is good enough and is it achieving the objectives? How can we evaluate that since it’s just the two of us in the group right now? Are there frameworks we can use to think about this or should we just playtest this?
  • Can we say this is really a new game or does it just seem like a mod from Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza? How can we be better judges of that?
• New mechanics which we had added to allow more storytelling in addition to just knowing names:
  • Category cards: change names to things you like / dislike – for example, favorite dish, favorite city to travel, etc.
  • Action cards: Do an action mentioned in the action card before slapping – for example, beating your chest like a gorilla. Wrong action or last person to slap loses the round
  • Power cards: changes the flow of the game, for example skip the next person, reverse the direction, etc.
• What worked?
  • Category cards were a great addition which allowed you to know more about a specific player without making the players too vulnerable. This helps strangers in getting to know each other without revealing too much information.
  • Action cards would help in breaking the monotonicity of the game
• What did not work? 
  • The game seemed to lack some spice to it. It seemed too child-like.

 

Iteration 2 (Caleb joins our group): “Slap and Tell” or “Dare to slap” or “Bull Slap”

• First playtest in class
• Pictures of the first prototype:

• Questions to answer:
  • Do slap, bluff, and questions answering work well together?
  • What doesn’t work?
    • Do people bluff?
      • Yes, they bluff a lot.
    • Do people share true stories?
      • Not in this iteration. It could be due to the format of the questions though.
    • Do people feel interested in listening to others’ stories?
      • Not as much as we would like to, they seem more interested in getting cards to win the game. This could also be due to the format of the questions not revolving around open ended stories as much though.
    • Do people slap? What’s their strategy?
      • First person slaps, but after that the strategy becomes to be the last player to slap. Breaks the game, spoils the fun. We noticed people would play rock paper scissors to see who got to slap last.
    • One player was dominating the game and playing to win by getting all the cards. As a result, only that player shared about themself.
  • How can we make the points system better?
  • Are people interested in answering these kinds of spicy questions? How can we phrase the questions better?
• What changed from iteration 1 to 2?
  • Mechanics like slapping and getting to know people remain
  • New mechanics:
    • penalize for delayed slapping by having to share info about yourself
    • ability to bluff
  • Like a mix of BullSh*t, Egyptian Rat Slap, and Hot Seat
  • Players slap like in ERS, can lie like in BS, and must answer questions like in Hot Seat. The goal is to get all the cards.
  • First person to slap gets the cards and the last person to slap has to answer. If the first person guesses the truth or bluff (T/B) correctly against the last person’s answer, the first person keeps the cards. if the first person guesses incorrectly during T/B then the cards go to the person who answered the question (slapped last)
• People wanted to answer the questions to have the chance to get more cards. This meant people weren’t slapping after the first slap and resulted in playing rock paper scissors to see who got to answer the question.
• Also we needed to add a disclaimer for how spicy some of the questions were so people didn’t get uncomfortable at first, and to set expectations for the game as a whole

 

Iteration 3: “Dare to Bluff” 1.0

• Second playtest in class
• Questions to answer: 
  • What should the slap order be?
  • What happens if someone slaps out of order?
• What didn’t work?
  • A slow player was always having to share. How to add randomness so that even with a slow player, everyone gets a turn to be vulnerable.
  • Truth / bluff cards are confusing – rather just do it in the mind
  • The incentive to bluff is only to avoid tough questions – can we increase it further to make the game more fun?
  • Have more rewards – ability to ask a specific player to answer a question if you bluffed successfully previously, or skip a question or change a question, etc.
• If caught bluffing, you must answer the question truthfully
• If you call someone out for bluffing incorrectly, you must answer the question truthfully
• Need to fix slap order and points system
• Need to make nicer cards and a make an overall theme or design system for the game

 

Iteration 4: “Dare to Bluff” 2.0

• Third playtest in class
• Questions to answer:
  • How can we give people an incentive to bluff?
• Fixes:
  • First person to slap has the chance to answer the question, if they don’t want to, priority to answer goes through whoever slapped next (2nd, 3rd, etc.)
  • Added a question deck, so the number cards are in your hand and the questions are in a separate deck that you draw when you need them
  • Number cards are the point placeholders, each worth one point
  • Designed the cards as printables with a consistent dark, “glitchy” fonted brand theme
  • Anyone can call the bluff of the person answering the question
• Need to make the questions more story-based instead of binary “yes/no” answers or number based questions

 

Iteration 5: Final “Dare to Bluff”

• Feedback from previous playtest:
  • There was only one bluff in the entirety of the play test. We wanted much more than that.
  • Every single person said the favorite part of the game was the storytelling aspect.
  • We left out some key rules such as win condition, slapping back in, penalty for missed slap.
• Fixes:
  • Add incentive to bluff: if you bluff successfully and nobody catches you, everyone gives you one number card
  • Re-wrote all of the questions to encourage people to tell stories rather than answering binary questions.
  • Added the win condition in the rules: to obtain all of the number cards.
  • Added accidental slap penalty: burn a card
  • Added a slap back in rule. If a player loses all their cards, they can still slap back in to get piles.
• Things to still ideate upon:
  • Ability to pass a question to another player
  • Ability to change a question
  • Modifiers – to modify a question and get more points, etc.

LINKS (but we will have to upload these mechanics of magic)

Rulebook: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OKYjkRGad-vYIFa_heyGl0IAjc86HhCv/view?usp=drive_link

Print n Play Cards: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oOOkhAuQUA_bveayt6Rmht6fdhCQ_cmV/view?usp=drive_link

Video of Playtest: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pqay0TibPbWYZVGVdoIm38C0F8jLKbqX/view?usp=sharing