For P1, my team and I are wanting to iterate and expand upon the game ‘bananagrams’ by adding unique mechanics and changing some of the overarching rulesets. For this post, I will be focusing on the implications of certain mechanics that we’re considering adding.
How does changing the ‘play-till-out-of-tiles’ format to a ‘play-till-time-runs-out’ format affect the social aspect of the game?
Bananagrams isn’t a purely social game but there are still interactions between players. One thing we want to focus on in our version is increasing these interactions and turning into a game that you could safely classify as a social mediation game. This is an important question to answer because if it turns out that the timing mechanic actually encourages less social interaction then that will have been a step backwards. The prototype for this will be fairly simple; after we implement the bulk of the other mechanics that we’re sure about we’ll try playing the game with the time mechanic and without the time mechanic. I think it will be obvious which version feels more social. I have a feeling that the time mechanic will encourage that more social feeling that we’re after because it inherently makes the game feel more frantic which increases the energy in the room. There may even be a continuum we find that would be even better e.g. “This round play for 5 minutes” or “This round play until all tiles are gone.”
How successful would requiring teams be at fostering a more social dynamic?
The goal of this game is to be a social mediation game and therefore we want to encourage as much social interaction as possible, especially considering that bananagrams isn’t a typical game you’d think of in this category. One idea we were playing with is having the game be inherently team-based instead of everyone for themselves. This is an important question to answer because we want the game to feel social but we also don’t want it to feel like the socializing is being forced. Like with the previous question, the prototype for this would just involve playing rounds with teams, without teams, and with asymmetrical teams. (This might be another idea altogether but it might foster more socializing with the drawback that the player base is more limited.) I have a feeling that requiring teams would be successful at creating that more social tone we’re after but I worry about the repercussions. Mainly, that it might make it harder to recruit a group to play or that it would just feel like “bananagrams with teams” which isn’t original enough.
How many gameplay options or variations should we give the players?
This is an incredibly important question to ask as it directly relates to a player’s first experience with the game which will likely be the most lasting one and determine whether or not they will pick up the game again. I imagine there should be some first set of rules that we have people do when they play (what those are is a different question entirely) but my question is how many variations we should have that are included with the game? Video games tend to have lots of variations via the settings and just the nature of the medium, but I don’t think the same can be said with board games. I guess this just comes down to what we want our game to be. I think the best thing to do in order to prototype it would be to do what the guy did in the video. That is present the same game in three different ways and ask them which they’d prefer playing. Personally, I think having a core set of rules and then having as many variations as we want would be best for providing depth while not also being too overwhelming for new player.s
