Our team is working on “The Shrimp Game,” which is a social deduction game similar to Duck Duck Goose. We plan to implement some physical cards to determine roles (similar to Avalon) and perhaps give advantages to each role. We also aim to have multiple categories of sea creature roles such that each sea creature role has a common goal to win against the others. (In writing this short exercise, I realized that most of my questions are answered with implementation prototypes, as they all require a certain amount of playtesting.) Here are some of the questions I want to answer with our prototype:
- How can we fairly balance each sea creature role? Most games are only fun when they’re balanced, and therefore I want to know how to balance our sea creature roles such that our game remains replayable and fun. This will require a physical implementation prototype as we would actually have to playtest our game in full to understand the full reach of each sea creature role in the context of the game. My prediction is that the sea creature roles will not be initially balanced because game balancing often requires many iterations of playtests to stabilize, as I’ve seen with League of Legends. As an initial balance methodology, I think we can identify a core aspect of the game to pair with each sea creature role, and create some small advantage and disadvantage for that role relating to that aspect (i.e. type of information you can know, what cards are more powerful in your possession, etcetera).
- What combination of physical pieces, such as cards, will we need to make our game run as smoothly as possible? The main reason we want cards is to maintain information as quickly as possible. One of the most complicated games I’ve ever played is Blood on the Clocktower with 14 people, and keeping track of the roles was honestly a game in itself. We will have to create a physical prototype, something in between a look-and-feel and an implementation prototype, so that we can actually playtest how our cards interact with discussion and the transmission and preservation of information. We could make these cards with the cardstock and markers provided in the prototype bucket. I think cards will help greatly for each player to remember information, and perhaps make the game more fair as it won’t be skewed toward those with better memory or prior knowledge of the game.
- How will our game incentivize certain sea creature roles to work together? (Is there a world where we can have “mutualist” relationships in a multilateral social deduction game?) One creative way we could differentiate this game from competitive social deduction games is by having enemy roles work together to mutually inch toward a victory. I think our prototype is a great opportunity to explore this idea and will play a role in developing the unique MDA and overall feel of the game, defining what can happen within its magic circle. This would require a playful role prototype in the first phase, where we as the game designers would imagine how sea creatures would interact with each other in the ocean, and create mutually beneficial roles based off of that. Then, we would create an implementation prototype to playtest if these role collaborations would help with the identity and fun of the game. I predict that this would be an interesting twist on more traditional social deduction games, as it would require a jeopardization of role information and can thus lead to a net harm or good for each role on a game-by-game basis.
- Will the aesthetic of the game allow players to socialize with each other in a meaningful way? One of the main reasons we chose a social deduction game is because we have had really good times with our friends playing this category of games. We want our game to be a means for people to socialize, so I want to see how we can optimize fun conversation between people. This would require a look-and-feel prototype, as we would want the game to feel as welcoming and social as possible, perhaps with cuter characters and card designs. It would also eventually require an implementation prototype, as we would have to physically prototype in order to playtest and see if players are actually willing to talk to each other in a fun and banter-y manner. Perhaps we could even include physical pieces that encourage conversation, such as an hourglass between rounds. My prediction is that the cute and welcoming nature of the game (with a shrimp-based mascot and theme) would create discussion prior to the game start, and the designs on the cards would be less serious and therefore make the players feel more comfortable and talk with each other.
