P3 was a game of unexpected consequences in many ways, but certainly in that the project itself was full of unexpected consequences. When starting P3, I had absolutely no idea how to even approach making a systems game with the purpose of making a systems game. Of course, my P2 (linked here! please play!) contained and represented certain systems — the system of heirarchy within the Catholic Church, the process of the papal conclave and the procedure of picking the next Pope, and a (albeit heavily abstracted) relationship system that took into account how players interacted with each character. Although these systems were present in my P2, they weren’t at the forefront of my mind during development, as I was hyperfocused on creating empathy within the player for the different characters in the narrative.
For P3, since we were expected to consider and abstract a system explicitly from the start, my team and I took a completely different approach at development. In stark contrast with P2, which I was able to start writing for the day I chose my concept, it actually took quite a while for my team to actually have a playable game, as is likely apparent from our writeup. Although our team came up with the system we wanted to abstract at our first team meeting (modelling the spread of the ILOVEYOU virus), it took another week (and then some) to develop a game with a successful set of mechanics and dynamics that engendered the aesthetics of the system.
Before designing P3, I definitely underestimated the effort it takes to create a cohesive, fun, and (most importantly) functional systems game. There were so many instances I can remember of our team sitting down and just thinking out loud for hours on end, working through dozens upon dozens of approaches to turning the system into actual gameplay. The system worked perfectly in all of our minds — we could envision perfectly how gameplay would work in a perfect world — but the moment we started putting pen on paper (or marker on whiteboard, rather) to formalize our ideas, we’d start poking holes in the mechanics, or realizing that a mechanic took away from our values at play, or noticing we created a dynamic that misrepresented our system by abstracting away too much, or….
I felt the cogs in my brain turn on this project in a very different way than previous projects, and this was definitely a good thing. As we work on P4 (my old P2), I am considering reworking elements that I’ve identified as systems from a systems-forward perspective. In this way, I hope to create a more engaging and believable arc with gaining votes during the conclave, improving relationships, and unlocking prayer sessions!
