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Artist Statement 

Our game ‘Not On My Block!’ represents the system of gentrification in a city neighborhood. Specifically focusing on displacement, the gameplay models the process of residents and businesses getting displaced from their neighborhoods due to the development of luxury housing and luxury stores. 

Our goal is to immerse players in the inner workings and impact of gentrification through our core mechanics and emergent gameplay. The target audience of our game is adults. Our game could be appreciated especially by those living in an urban environment. They would be able to understand the significance of the game’s actions when playing as a luxury developer or a resident, especially since gentrification is a system that could impact them or their peers. 

To model real-life displacement, the Developer has to physically push Apartments off the board (the neighborhood) and replace the block with Luxury Housing. We also created Stores that the Developer could gentrify and replace with Luxury Stores, which displaces Apartments around it.

Once a Developer starts gentrifying, it becomes easier for them to do so (adding Luxury Housing hinders the movement of residents and adding Luxury Stores gives the Developer more spawn points), which reflects real positive feedback loops. The Developer also has certain advantages over the Resident(s), such as having more moves across all their Agents and being able to catch Resident Reps in Risk Zones and on Temporarily Protected Apartments to send them back to Start, which reflects Developers in real life having more power and influence. 

In the 4-player version, while individual Residents have far fewer moves than the Developer, collectively they actually have more moves than the Developer (balancing the game). The Residents need to cooperate to have a shot at beating the Developer with their more limited resources (i.e. having fewer moves), but they also must balance these collective interests with their own interests (the Resident winner is the one with the most Apartments left on the board). This is reflective of how real community organization would operate. Players enjoyed this tension between strategies and found it realistic.

However, we did abstract away parts of the system to facilitate gameplay: we have no monetary system, do not get into the specifics of how collective action for Permanent Protection works, don’t provide specific identities (racial, gender, occupation, etc) to Residents, simplify the landscape of neighborhoods to fit onto a gameboard, and represent gradual neighborhood changes with buildings but not finer quality of amenity changes.

Overview

Your neighborhood has been home to a vibrant, diverse community for decades. There’s the local bodega with the fat cat, the yearly Fourth of July block party, and the waves and smiles of neighbors as they pass by: this is what makes the neighborhood what it is. However, a new Developer is in town, and they have other plans for this neighborhood—plans that threaten the community that makes this neighborhood so unique.

The refined ‘‘Not On My Block’ is a 30-minute game (previously 2 hours in P3) for 2 or 4 adult players that models gentrification in a city neighborhood. In this game, players will take on the roles of Resident(s) and a Developer to determine the fate of this little neighborhood, and whether or not gentrification will change the lives of its people. 

The objective of the Developer is to physically push the Resident Apartments off the board, placing Luxury Housing and Luxury Stores as you  go. As the Developer, you want to stop the Resident(s) from meddling with your very profitable plans – otherwise your investments go up in flames. 

As a Resident(s), you want to permanently protect Resident Apartments—otherwise the Developer will win. In the 4-player version, however, there can only be one winner: whoever protects the most of their Apartments. You need to strategize how to work together with the other Residents to protect the neighborhood, but also protect your own Apartments. 

This game is perfect for players who love strategy board games, especially those who want to experience a real-world system like gentrification. 

Concept Maps

Gentrification Concept Map

Updated Not On My Block Concept Map

We’ve attached a concept map for our game and a concept map of gentrification as a system. The main changes we made to the Not On My Block concept map was adding in the 2 player option, the Developer’s ability to kick out a Resident Rep from a Temporarily Protected Apartment, and specifying how Permanent Protection works. From the gameplay interactions, you can see how our game illustrates the system of gentrification.

In real life, gentrification happens when developers build amenities such as luxury housing, new stores, and parks, which increase the cost of living. This causes current residents to be pushed out of the neighborhood as they are priced out, which is modeled by our game through apartments literally getting pushed off the board. As the cost of living increases, the neighborhood is seen as more desirable, causing more developers to come in, reinforcing the cycle. In our game, we model this through our developer loop, where it is easier for a developer to win after placing down more and more luxury housing / stores. 

On the resident end, in the gentrification concept map, you can see that residents can fight back against development and either stop developers from coming in or prevent the cost of living from going up. In our game, we model this through the permanently protected loop, where if resident(s) coordinate across all the different colors / players, they can prevent apartments from getting pushed (though we don’t get into specific action details).

Game Bits

4 Player Version

• 11×11 board representing a neighborhood; each square is a ‘block’
• 4 x Identity Cards: 3 Residents + 1 Developer
• 4 x Individual Rule Cards
• 3 x Red Resident Reps
• 3 x Yellow Resident Reps
• 3 x Blue Resident Reps
• 6 x Developer Agents
• 3 x Red Apartment Buildings
• 3 x Yellow Apartment Buildings
• 3  x Blue Apartment Buildings
• 40 x Luxury Housing Developments
• 2 x Luxury Stores
• 3 x D6 Die (Optional) 
• 1 X D12 Die (Optional)

2 Player Version

• 11×11 board representing a neighborhood; each square is a ‘block’
• 2 x Identity Cards: 1 Resident + 1 Developer
• 2 x Individual Rule Cards
• 3 x Red Resident Reps
• 3 x Yellow Resident Reps
• 3 x Blue Resident Reps
• 6 x Developer Agents
• 6 x Red Apartment Buildings
• 6 x Yellow Apartment Buildings
• 6 x Blue Apartment Buildings
• 40 x Luxury Housing Developments
• 2 x Luxury Stores
• 3 x D6 Die (Optional) 
• 1 X D12 Die (Optional)

Rules

Not On My Block_ Rules

History Versions of Game

Version 1: Internal Playtests

Not On My Block was the game that we worked on for P3. Our main goals for P4 were to improve fidelity, game balance, and rule clarity / onboarding. A secondary goal we had was to add more story to the game. 

One of the key issues with the P3 game was the length of the game – it took around 2 hours to play. This made it difficult for players to replay and try new strategies. To address this, we reduced the size of the board from 15×15 to 11×11, reduced the number of Apartments per Resident from 6 to 3, and changed the win threshold from 8/18 Apartments permanently protected / pushed out to 5/9. 

We conducted 3 internal playtests in class on December 1st to re-balance this shortened game. Because we were not able to get 4 players, one of us was the Developer and the other one took on the roles of all 3 Residents. 

Internal Playtest 1 and 2

[1] In the first internal playtest, Angela was the Resident and Evelyn was the Developer. The Developer had 9 moves (diagonal included), while the Resident had 4 moves per color. This game only took 20 minutes, which meant we successfully shortened it. However, the Developer swept and won quickly (Developer pushed out 5 Apartments while the Resident only protected 2).

[2] In the second internal playtest, Angela was the Resident and Evelyn was the Developer. In this version, the Developer had 8 moves with no diagonal allowed and 6 agents. The Resident had 4 moves, same as before. In this version, the Resident won (5 Apartments protected), while the Developer lost (4 Apartments pushed off). We felt it was pretty balanced, and that both parties had a good chance of winning. 

Internal Playtest 3

[3] Finally, we switched roles and Angela was the Developer while Evelyn was the Resident. We used the same rules as last time. The Resident won this time (5 Apartments protected), while the Developer lost (3 pushed out). However, in this version, the Resident used the rule where if 2 Residents of different colors each place a Rep on any Community Center, and any Resident has 1 Rep on an Apartment of their own color, then Permanent Protection can be triggered (Angela forgot about this rule when she was a Resident). This did make Permanent Protection easier for the Resident, so we decided to change the rule to balance more towards the Developer.

After this playtest, our first rule change was to make it so that if 2 Residents of different colors each place a Rep on the same Community Center, and one of those Residents on the center has 1 Rep on an Apartment of their own color, only then can Permanent Protection be triggered for one Apartment. 

Version 2: Playtests 1 and 2

After balancing the numbers internally, we went to Monday OH to playtest our game with Butch. However, because no one else was at OH (sad), Angela and Butch ended up playing 2 games with 2 players. Butch already had familiarity and played the game before, so we did not go over rules / onboarding (besides Angela clarifying what we changed). 

Playtest 1 (2-player version)

In Playtest 1, Butch was the Resident and Angela was the Developer. Butch deliberately placed his Apartments on the top half of the board, close to the Stores and in a row.  This caused the Developer to head to the Store and convert it to a Luxury Store right away [8:49]. Then, the Developer used the Luxury Store respawn to push out 3 Apartments rapidly [12:23]. The rest of the game went easily in the Developer’s favor because of the bad Apartment placement, so the Developer won this playtest. 

Making the board smaller received positive feedback. Butch noted that making the board smaller but keeping the risk zones the same size actually made the game more dynamic since it forces players to engage with the risk zones more [2:56]. 

Butch also noted that the 2 player version involves different strategies than the 4 player version, so people who are familiar with the 4 player version will need to think differently [6:00].

Playtest 2 (2-player version)

In Playtest 2, we kept the same roles. Butch made sure to carefully think about where he put his apartment this time to win. One of the strategies that the Resident deployed was to put two sacrificial Apartments on the top half of the board to waste Developer resources and bet on securing the bottom half Apartments [36:00, 36:28]. The Resident also used a strategy to place a bunch of his Reps right outside the risk zone to send them directly to the Community Center, directly bypassing the Risk Zone [11:13].

In this game, the Resident effectively won even though he did not permanently protect all the Apartments because after a certain point, the temporary protection essentially acted as permanent protection [33:42]. The Developer could not do anything to that Apartment anymore. This game showed that the game was not balanced,  as it favored the Resident, especially when the Resident occupies the bottom half of the board and the temporary protection was so powerful. Although the game felt close, we definitely needed to rebalance, though the numbers used seemed reasonable / not the problem.  

One important detail about this playtest is that Angela forgot about the rule where Residents could spawn back on Stores. Butch said that it may be a good idea to add it back in, as it incentivizes Residents to put their Apartments on the top half of the board [1:10], preventing this situation from happening as often. 

The main solution we thought of to address the problem of temporary protection [37:33] and our second rule change was to make it so that when a Developer lands on a Temporarily Protected Apartment, they can send one of the Resident Reps back to Start. Afterwards, the Developer Agent must also return to Start or a Luxury Store. 

Some other important takeaways from this playtest was that Butch felt like the game was fun (yay!) and noted that the 2 player version felt more like chess and required thinking a few steps ahead [39:30]. Another positive of the game being shorter was that players get to see the consequences of their choices faster, which encourages people to replay it [43:45]. He also noted that we should clearly denote to players that their starting position matters a lot in our rules and to consider distances to certain blocks carefully [43:13] (better rules / onboarding). 

After these playtests, we decided to rebrand Not On My Block as a 2 or 4 player game, given how the 2 player version held up multiple times in playtest, was fun, and had pretty much the same rules. 

Version 3: Playtests 3, 4, and 5 

Fidelity Changes 

Photos of our process

In between the office hour playtests and our final in-class playtest, we went to the GSE Makery to make our game bits high fidelity for Version 3. Thank you to the staff at the Makery for teaching us how to use the laser cutter and giving us ample sticker paper and cardstock paper🙏. Our main fidelity changes were:

• Laser cut wood board: We replaced our cardstock-printed board with a laser cut wood board. We used sticker paper to print out the colored squares and stuck every piece individually onto the board. 
• Laser cut wood tiles: We replaced the Luxury Housing and Luxury Store cardstock tiles with wood tiles. We used the sticker paper again to attach the design. 
• Reprinted new content on cardstock: We reprinted the updated identity cards, rulebook, and rule cards on nice, cardstock paper. 
• 3D printed tokens: We kept the 3D printed Apartments and Developer Agents / Resident Reps from P3.

We brought in our high-fidelity board for our final in-class playtests. 

We also made changes to our rulebook from the original P3 rulebook. The key changes we made were [1] adding 2 player version rules and embedding them into the main rule book,  [2] updating the recommended board setup for the smaller board, [3] adding in the new temporary protection rule, and [4] adding in more visuals to explain the permanent protection mechanism (situations that are eligible vs not eligible for permanent protection).

Additionally, per the lecture on information design, to save our player’s working memories and to simplify learning for new players, we kept and updated the individual rule cards and identity cards to reflect our changes. For the 2 player version, we made sure to create new one-person Resident assets such as an Identity Card and Individual Rule Card. 

During our playtests, we made sure to use the principles from the ”Playtesting formally” reading. We did our best to not explain, take detailed notes/timestamps of when important moments occurred, and shut up. This was very important for determining whether or not our rules and onboarding were clear. If the players were completely confused or got a rule incorrect, we would step in and assist them, but otherwise stayed silent. We also encouraged the players to talk out loud, especially when reading the rules.

Playtest 3 (4-player version)

Our third playtest was with 4 players: 2 CS377G students, Christina (our CS377G Lecturer) and Louis (a full-time game designer). All players were familiar with similar system games, two players had already played previous iterations of our 15 x 15 game in P3, and one player worked on creating the game with us for P3. 

Louis, who previously played the game, commented  “I love it… I think it’s brilliant that it’s smaller than last time… it’s so much better that it’s shorter because you get the same feeling from 30 minutes instead of 2 hours. That was a brilliant change.” Christina also mentioned how the game mechanics reflect real life communities: “I feel like you don’t have a choice if you don’t work together. And I think a lot of the rules support that idea that as a community you have to work together  [51:34]. Throughout the game Resident players were collaborative from early on in the game [20:26]. It was also evident that as the game progressed, players were carefully strategizing: “Now we all have at least one apartment protected so we can’t get eliminated” [32:06]; “We have three houses. I think we could do it [Permanent Protection] this round… you can go here and protect that house” [34:40]. 

However, there was still some confusion around the rules, especially for more complex mechanisms. Notable points of confusion included:

• Whether one Rep could be on a Community Center and another Rep on a different Community Center to trigger Permanent Protection [14:04]
• Whether temporary protection fulfills the requirements for the win condition, when actually permanent protection only does [35:07]
• What happens if a Temporarily Protected Apartment is in a Risk Zone [18:39] 
• What blocks players can move through and land on [32:16]

Lastly, one player gave feedback on how he thinks the Stores and Luxury Stores could be of more use. Based on this feedback, we added back the rule where after getting sent back by the Developer, Residents can respawn on Stores (not Luxury Stores though), instead of always going back to Start. 

Although the game for this playtest was not as balanced as previous and more recent playtests, this was likely due to the fact that the Developer did not leverage other actions or strategies other than the main action of pushing apartments (e.g. The Developer did not upgrade the store, catch any Resident Reps on Risk Zones, or revoke Temporary Protection etc). 

Playtest 4 (4-player version)

Our fourth playtest was with 4 players who were all CS377G students who were  familiar with system games. Notably, one of the players worked on the P3 version of the game. 

In this playtest, we saw that the players, especially the Residents (two of them had never played the game before) were confused by the rules at the beginning. Unlike the previous playtest, the Residents also chose to place their Apartments by themselves instead of following the provided guide. During the first few turns, they hesitated before placing pieces down, were mostly silent/did not discuss strategies, and did not seem to be building towards an objective. 

The Developer had been the Developer in a prior iteration of the game, so he was less confused, but still needed clarification. Specifically, he asked questions about [1] how protecting Apartments work for the Residents [16:46] and [2] if he could send back 1 Resident on an Apartment in a non-risk zone [17:36].

Notable points of confusion for the Residents included: 

• How crossing over Luxury Apartments worked [12:13]
• The goal of the game (“The goal is we don’t want our Apartments to get pushed out right?”, when the real goal is to Permanently Protect)  [12:30]
• Resident didn’t know that she could split moves across her different Reps [18:00
• What happens when a Developer lands on their Reps [18:51]
• They did not know that for Permanent Protection, you need 2 reps on the same Community Center [22:17]
• One resident got Temporary Protection and Permanent Protection mixed up (he thought that you need 2 reps on the Apartment for Permanent Protection when you only need 1) [23:21]
• For Temporary Protection,  whether or not the Reps have to be the same color [31:43]
• After play ended, one of the Residents remarked that she still didn’t fully understand the Luxury Stores since it didn’t end up in play / she didn’t get it from the rules [53:22]

After a few rounds though, the Residents started to cooperate and strategize out loud, and with the help of our P3 teammate clarifying rules and objectives, to finally start permanently protecting Apartments [14:38] [19:25] [38:47]. They were saying many things along the lines of  “You can enter here and next turn I’ll go here and we can get Permanent Protection” [19:25]. Through the timestamps, you can see the Residents getting more and more invested, such as in this clip [45:00]. 

Although the Developer was ahead in the beginning and pushed out many Apartments earlier in the game, the Residents were able to cooperate and help each other (e.g. help save Julia’s one yellow Apartment so she wouldn’t get eliminated [38:38] and Tianze placing his Reps in good positions to go either direction to help his teammates [32:15]). 

Once the players started to really understand the mechanics and goals, they enjoyed the game [33:48] (“Oh, she’s dead!”), [52:24], and they told us at the end that they had fun  [53:11]. 

The result of the game was very close, with the Residents protecting 5 Apartments and the Developer pushing out 4 Apartments, and they spent the endgame fighting for control of one Apartment [48:46]. The players felt like the game was balanced and that both sides were engaged the whole time to win. The Developer remarked that “I think that the balance of this version is really really good” [48:49] and that it was a “really good game” [53:45] and a Resident remarked “This is very balanced and has a lot of strategies, nice game” [52:30]. 

A resident also noted that “I think at the beginning the location of our houses really matter, but I was not sure of the strategy at the time” [52:49], echoing what Butch had said in an earlier playtest. 

Playtest 5 (2-player version)

Our fifth playtest was with 2 players, who were previous CS377G students who came to playtest the games. They were both unfamiliar with the game. 

Overall, we ran into the same issue with the rules and onboarding where both of them were confused and needed clarifications. They also frequently forgot certain rules after reading them. At the end, they mentioned the rulebook felt overwhelming [43:11].  Some important, specific aspects that confused them were: 

• The Developer was confused by some of the Developer rules because some of them related to Resident actions (e.g. why is catching someone near the Community Center useful? They don’t know what Permanent Protection is yet) that they had no context on yet [8:50]
• Both parties said it would be nice to provide reasoning for why certain rules would be helpful to use [9:35] – “I think it would be helpful if I get a conception of what a Risk Zone means and what does this mean to me?”
• The Developer wanted to know if the act of turning a Store into a Luxury Store counts as one of his eight moves [20:58]
• The Resident was confused on how crossing over luxury housing worked. She asked if she needed to spend 2 moves to leave the Luxury Housing (you spent 2 moves to land on it, 1 move to leave it) [37:00]

There were many more small incidents of confusion, which are in the appendix at the bottom. We made sure to address those incidents in our rulebook, but for brevity, we did not list them here. 

One positive note was that they were able to understand how to push Apartments as the Developer without intervention after reading the rules [5:10], showing that the visuals did help. Similarly, they were able to figure out how Permanent Protection operated with the help of our visuals [14:14]. 

However, once they understood how to play, similar to before, they expressed that the game was “really fun” [43:06]  with elegant gameplay. The Developer specifically mentioned that it was fun and there were many hidden strategies (emergent gameplay) [46:18].

Although they did not have time to play the whole game, they felt like it was balanced [44:46]. The Resident mentioned that at first, she thought the Developer was definitely going to win, but after playing she thinks it is balanced because she had a plan to win and permanently protect her Apartments. 

Takeaways 

Our main takeaways across all 3 playtests conducted was that we achieved our goal of game balance for the 2 player and 4 player version, as shown by the specific feedback and results analyzed prior. Additionally, we received many positive comments about fidelity and how great our game looked with the board / tokens / 3D printed Apartments / meeples from our classmates and visitors throughout class. Another big win was that people had a lot of fun playing our game and felt like it was dynamic with lots of strategy. 

Our main issue was confusion over the rules and onboarding people onto the game. Once players understood the rules, they had a great time, so clearly we needed to make it easier for them to get to this point. For example, in Playtest 5, one player noted that we should start the rules with “a basic premise of the game” first [43:31].

Rulebook Changes

After the final in-class playtest, we focused on making the rules and onboarding of the game clearer. Some of the key things we did were to: 

• Moved Win Condition upfront so players first understand the overarching goal of the game before diving into the complexities of the mechanism (actions, restrictions, and strategy). 
• Explained the importance of strategic Apartments placement on board for a balanced and engaging game. 
• Move key actions (Push for Developer and Permanently Protect for Residents) upfront. Make it clear that “Pushing” as the key action for the Developer and “Permanent Protection” as the key action for Residents(s) since these are the key mechanics that make the game progress. All other actions were moved to “Additional Actions.”
• Made the Developer Restrictions more clear with “Cannot land on…”, “Cannot push…”,  and “Cannot push Apartment into…”  to answer common questions.
• Added eligible and ineligible examples with clear visuals for Permanent and Temporary
• Added a FAQ section per the reading Writing Precise Rules

You can find the full list of rulebook changes we made in the Appendix below. 

Fidelity Changes 

Additionally, we made packaging for our game. From the lecture on packaging that Butch gave, we [1] placed icons for the number of players, age range, and play time on all sides of the packaging [2] added cover art, the title of the game, and a short tagline on the front of the box “Save your neighborhoods from gentrification!” [3] added multiple paragraphs of story and photos of all the game pieces to the back of the box, and [4] added details such as social media, website, and a barcode. 

We attached a video of our final packaging below. We used sticker paper to print our packaging and attach it into a white box. We also got little plastic bags (that real game bits would come in) from the Lathrop Makery to separate all of our game pieces. At this point, we’re best friends with the Lathrop paper cutter and printer.  

More packaging photos (taken on a Fujifilm camera)

Top of packaging

Bottom of packaging

Sides of packaging 

Version 4: Playtest 6 

Finally, we needed to verify that the rulebook changes we made actually improved the onboarding experience. From the reading on “Writing Precise Rules”, we knew that we needed to get our final version playtested straight from the rulebook, specifically from people who have never seen the game before. We conducted a short playtest where we had players read the rules and play for 5 minutes. 

Our sixth playtest was with two CS co-term students who had never played our game before and were not familiar with system games. The main purpose of this playtest was to test our updated Rule Book to see whether it improves onboarding and rule clarity for new players. 

Overall, both players understood all key actions from the updated Rule Book, and we successfully resolved major points of confusion from the previous Playtest 5. For example, it was clear from the start that in the 2-player version, the Resident has to spread their moves across the three color Resident Reps and “they can’t stack all of them on one color” [5:24]. Players also quickly understood revoking temporary protection [6:45-7:02] and restrictions regarding movement through luxury developments [7:15]. Although it took the players some time to remember all rules and there were around 2-3 moments where we had to intervene as moderators, the players were able to refer to their Individual Rule Cards (mini cheat sheet) and the FAQ on the Rule Book which resolved points of confusion [28:30] [34:42] [36:12].

As the game progressed, it was evident that both players were carefully strategizing and became increasingly competitive [33:39] [34:20] [35:30] [49:23]. Towards the end of the game, one player commented, “This is a good game. I’m enjoying it more than I thought it would” [57:50] and “This game is lowkey balanced” [58:30]. The other player commented, “this is a thinking game”  [59:25], “Overall very solid game… I like thinking games. My brain felt massaged” [1:11:18] and “There’s some nontrivial game theory. This is an interesting game” [1:12:09]. At one point, Angela asked if the players wanted to continue playing (since we only needed to test how well players understood our updated Rules in the first half of the game) and both players indicated they wanted to play it to the end, despite not having to [48:26] (notable: this was conducted right before finals week). In short, the game was relatively balanced (players could have leveraged more strategies but this was understandable given they were first-time players) and both players said the game was very engaging. Also, in the car to MJ Sushi after the playtest, both players (avid Poker players) were discussing optimal strategies for our game and if they could solve it with AI, showing a lasting impact on them!

Still, there were still some points of confusion we addressed in our Rule Book. For example, 

• Players were confused about whether the Resident needs to move Color Reps in a specific/same order [15:20]
• Players were confused about an edge case — if an Apartment is on a Risk Zone, can you push it and send a Resident Rep home? [19:25]
• Developer was confused by what 2-block radius pushing entails from Luxury Store development [42:58]

All other points of confusion were mainly due to players forgetting certain rules or edge cases which were resolved by looking at the Individual Rule Cards, Rule Book, or FAQ section.

Story

One of our secondary goals was to improve the story. We have story in 2 places in our game. 

First, we have a story blurb at the beginning of our rule book, which describes the neighborhood and the introduction of a Developer who wants to gentrify the neighborhood at the resident’s expense. We thought about adding more story throughout the rulebook, but we did not because we did not want it to come at the expense of rule clarity. Our main feedback throughout P4 was that the onboarding / rules were not clear. Adding more story could’ve confused players by adding new terminology and text to parse. In the reading on “Writing Precise Rules”, one of the principles was to use real words and use no intermediary terminology, so we wanted to follow that advice. For instance, it would’ve been confusing to refer to Luxury Stores as Equinoxes or Erewhons, even if it serves the story. 

Second, we wrote a different story blurb on the back of the box  to give more detail about the world in Not On My Block. We gave additional context about the life of the residents and the motivation of the Developer. 

Story on the back of the box

Overall, we added enough story to enrich the game, but we made sure to do it in moderation to not overcomplicate the game’s language and rules. 

Appendix

Full List of Rulebook Confusion From Playtest 5

• Resident wanted to know if she should be strategical and read the rest of the rules before placing her Apartments – we should clarify needing to read everything first [2:44]
• The Resident wanted to know if she had to pay attention during the Developer rules – we should clarify that she does need to to make informed decisions [4:10]
• This wasn’t stated, but they had to flip pages around a lot so we should probably add page numbers [6:25]
• The Developer wanted to know if when they activate a Luxury Store, whether or not chaining would apply to those Apartments getting pushed in a 2 block radius, which is kind of an edge case but we should acknowledge [8:05]
• The Developer was confused by some of the Developer rules because some of them related to Resident actions (e.g. why is catching someone near the Community Center useful? They don’t know what Permanent Protection is yet) that they had no context on yet [8:50]
• It would be nice to provide reasoning for why certain rules would be helpful to use [9:35] – “I think it would be helpful if I get a conception of what a Risk Zone means and what does this mean to me?”
• The Resident was confused why it matters what order to move the colors in – it is more so to help her mentally keep track of how many moves, but we should clarify this [11:38]
• In the 2 player rules, we still said that the last person who places the Rep gets to decide which Apartment gets permanently protected, even though this is not relevant for 2 players [13:22]
• In some of the visuals, the Reps were depicted next to the block even though it was supposed to represent them being on that block, which confused the Developer since there are parts of this game that also care about adjacency. [14:22]
• After reading all the rules, both sides were confused exactly how to start and how to move from Start (“Do we just put all the meeples in the center?”) [15:48]
• The Developer thought he had 8 moves per meeple,  not 8 moves across all meeples [17:10]
• Both sides forgot how temporary protection works (“Is this protected now because it has a Resident Rep on it?) [19:11]
• The Resident understood how Permanent Protection works, but thought that the Reps on the Apartment go home when it is actually the Reps on the Community Center [19:56]
• They both were confused on where the Resident Rep goes if the house they are on is pushed [20:29]
• The Developer wanted to know if the act of turning a Store into a Luxury Store counts as one of his eight moves [20:58]
• The Developer got confused what Collusion is because we left it in his individual rule card even though it is not a rule in the 2 player game [24:57]
• The Developer used his power to send a Rep home on a Temporarily Protected Apartment, but he forgot to go back too (until reminded) [30:05]
• Resident forgot she couldn’t have more than 2 Reps on the Community Center [31:49]
• The Developer forgot that he could not push Apartments any direction he wants, only the way he came from [34:09]
• They both forgot that it takes extra moves for the Resident to cross Luxury Housing [34:33]
• The Resident asked if she needed to use all her moves (she does not need to) [36:45]
• They asked for the Resident if you need spend 2 moves to leave the Luxury Housing (you spent 2 moves to land on it, 1 move to leave it) [37:00]

Post Final In-Class Playtest All Rulebook Changes

Set Up:

• Added a short “Guide for Rule Reading” section in beginning of Rule Book to give a high level overview of the key mechanisms in the game (pushing vs protecting Apartments) and to recommend players all read both the Developer and Residents Rules to understand these mechanisms. 
• Emphasized the importance of placing Apartments for the balance of the game. 
• Made it clear where Residents may place Apartments by including visual examples of valid and invalid placements. For example, we showed that Residents can place Apartments on empty blocks and Risk Zones—they may not place them on any other blocks. Also, there cannot be more than one Apartment in a block at a time. 
• In all Rule book visuals, moved Agent and Rep tokens closer to or directly on a block since one player thought the Agent and Rep tokens were hovering over or surrounding a block.

Win Condition:

• Moved Win Condition upfront so players first understand the overarching goal of the game before diving into the complexities of the mechanism (actions, restrictions, and strategy). 
• Added two new visuals for the Win Condition: one for a scenario in which the Developer wins and the other for a scenario in which the Resident(s) win (and the Red Resident wins in the 4-player version). 
• Explained the importance of strategic Apartments placement on board for a balanced and engaging game. 

Actions and Restrictions:

• Added a note mentioning that actions do not cost any moves. A player may make moves and choose an action.
• Moved Resident Rules before Developer Rules since Resident Rules explain more complex mechanisms such as Permanent Protection, which is later mentioned in Developer Rules
• Move key actions (Push for Developer and Permanently Protect for Residents) upfront. Make it clear that “Pushing” as the key action for the Developer and “Permanent Protection” as the key action for Residents(s) since these are the key mechanics that make the game progress. All other actions were moved to “Additional Actions.”
• Broke down the visuals for the Pushing Apartments mechanism where we changed it from 2 visuals to 4 so we should each part step by step (Agent moves one block, lands on Apartment, pushes Apartment in that direction, and replaces original block with Luxury Housing). 
• Moved Additional Actions right after Key Actions and before Restrictions to improve flow
• Made the Developer Restrictions more clear with “Cannot land on…”, “Cannot push…”,  and “Cannot push Apartment into…”  to answer common questions.
• Added eligible and ineligible examples with clear visuals for Permanent and Temporary Apartment Protection
• Refine action wording to be intuitive and consistent based on the reading Writing Precise Rules’ advice to use real words and avoid intermediary terminology. For example, we changed “Betray the Neighborhood” to “Collusion” since it didn’t really make sense for the Developer to use “betray the neighborhood” and collusion was closer in meaning to the actual action. We also named the action for sending a Rep back home on a temporarily protected house as “Revoke Temporary Protection.”

FAQ: 

• Added a FAQ section per the reading Writing Precise Rules