Does the win condition feel satisfying? Does the game need a win condition at all or can it be a zero-sum game?
This question is important because the win condition, or outcome, is a critical formal element that needs to be addressed when making a game. This could be answered with a simple paper prototype, like writing out a few rounds of the game on post-it notes and playing the game until the “win condition” is met. My guess is that we probably need a stronger win condition or outcome, which actually probably comes from having a stronger or more defined premise.
Are the instructions enough to incentivize players to actually engage in improv/act?
This is an important question to answer because it is the whole point of our game. We want it to be an improv game, but we also don’t want to limit to an audience of players experienced in improv, so we need to make sure our game incentivizes improv in a more general audience. We can use a similar paper prototype as above, with the addition of a physical sheet of instructions (instead of us reading or explaining the instructions to playtesters). My guess is that the instructions we have right now are probably not enough of a push for a non-improv audience, which again I think might be connected to our premise (it’s hard to do improv for improv’s sake, easier when there is a premise).
Do the adjective/noun pairs work reliably?
This is an important question because it tests the rules and procedures of our game. A simple paper prototype with the cards filled in will work for this. My guess is that these mechanics would actually work, we let each players have 3 adjectives and 3 nouns in their hand, so my intuition is that there would probably be some fun combination between those 6 cards.
Is landscape or portrait orientation of the cards more conducive to the type of game we want to make?
This is an important question because it sets the tone of the game and how players interact with the cards. Vertical cards do well because they can all be held in the same hand with the corners visible. With cards that only contain text, it might feel more awkward to hold them like playing cards when there is nothing in the corners. In that sense, it could be beneficial to communicate to the player that these cards aren’t really meant to be held by making them horizontal. To answer this, we could use 2 different prototypes of higher fidelity than the ones above (mainly including cards of the final size and text font). I would guess that vertical would still probably be preferred out of pure muscle memory.
Is the game accessible to various populations? Does the chosen color pallet work for print to play and would it lose value when printed in black and white?
This question is important because it addresses the accessibility of our game. For this, we would need a high-fidelity prototype and a black and white version of our print to play game. I would guess that the color palette would work well in the high-fidelity prototype, but I am not sure about the B&W print to play (we might need to adjust the contrast for the print to play version separately).
