The premise of our team’s idea is a witch hunt story for an analog game (will most likely incorporate cards and/or a board). One of the most important prototypes we need to test with is for our story cards.
One guiding question for this is: How detailed should the character story cards be?
- This is incredibly important because the story cards will determine the complexity of the game and also how much freedom users have to make the game their own. If the cards are too broad, then the players lack guidance, but if the cards are too detailed, then it might be too easy for the players to figure out who is the witch.
- To answer this question, we will create a role prototype to investigate the functionality of different cards and how they might play out in a game setting.
- My guess is that the character story cards for optimal play should include the role title/brief role description, a 1-2 sentence snippet of the story, and a secret that cannot be revealed.
Another guiding question as we develop prototypes is: How do players advance in the game?
- This is important to answer because it determines the format of the game and what elements we can include. A card game might function more like Werewolf, while a board game might function more like a who dunnit murder mystery.
- We will create an implementation prototype that tests if a board game format, board game + cards format, or just card game works best for the flow of the game.
- My guess is that a board game+ cards prototype will work best, because it allows us to incorporate more elements to make the game dynamic and fun.
A third guiding question for our prototype development phase is a bit more technical. We have an idea that each player will have a character piece, and at the end of each round when someone is “burned” at the pyre, then that player’s piece will be attached to some system. If the system lights up red, that means that player was the witch. A good question here is: How should we engineer the witch reveal system?
- This is important to answer because it adds to the aesthetics of our game and the anticipation that players feel at the end of each round.
- We’ll create an implementation prototype that might utilize materials like a Raspberry Pi, LED lights, and some wires and maybe magnets.
- While I do not have much engineering knowledge or background, some of my team members do, and they were the ones that brought up the use of those specific materials so I think that the general mechanics of this system will work. We might need to do some more fine tuning so that the system consistently works.
