Week 2

Starting From Where We Left Off

We started off our group meeting, again going over what we decided the rules were from the last class. As we started going over the rules, all of the members of our team questioned most of the rules. As we started throwing new and old ideas into conversation, we all realized that some of the rules did not make sense or were not fair to some players. For example, we had one person each turn that would not get any points for that turn. We put that problem aside while we kept throwing ideas into the circle. When we came back to the idea, one of the members of the team, Justin had the idea that solved the problem and allowed everyone to have a chance to get points that turn. As our team kept contributing ideas and decided which ones worked and which ones didn't we decided to approach things in a different way. Our team decided to play the game and see how it goes. We took blank pieces of paper and ripped them up in a lot of pieces. We made simply cards out of the paper and started to simulate the game. After a couple rounds, we decided to add some more aspects to the game, to give a player the opportunity of strategy rather than it being simply based on luck. We added points to different cards, and added a whole aspect of building campuses up from the building cards that we win during gameplay. We also added more Scarlet Cards (Action Cards) that reflect more onto our rules. Last to make the card proposals for class, we decided to make the three different types of cards on photoshop so that we could present them in class. We also decided to type up the rules for our game as we decided in our last meeting. 

So far, our team has worked very well together. We have come up with some really great ideas, and are really excited to make this game. Not only is it just going to be our game that we made, but it also represents the university that we go to, making it more of an exciting project.

Week 1

Being a game designer is not as easy as I have thought originally. I have been playing different types of games such as Dead Space, Starcraft II, and some others card games so I thought it would be easier for me to extrapolate ideas. I, nevertheless, never realized how complicated the game mechanics and balancing could get while concerning players’ emotion and gameplay experience. Coming up with original ideas from scratch is especially a difficult task for a beginner like me. Designing a game requires a group of people to bounce back and forth with ideas, and a leader to guide and execute the plan. It is a collaborative work that everybody puts their efforts toward the same goal with time and patience.

Last week in class, our group came to agree to adopt a game originally designed by Joe Skupinsky, who is one of the authors of this blog. His game allowed incoming Rutgers Students to get to know Rutgers campuses better while establishing great social relationships with one another. Before we came to this conclusion, as a leader, I attentively listened to everybody's game concepts and provided feedbacks within our group. It was not an easy choice because everybody had very sophisticated game mechanics and ideas that may spark a whole new series of game concepts. One might feel left out if I his ideas were not adopted. As a result, we listed down all the pros and cons in each concept, eliminated unnecessary criteria and formalized what we were looking for. As a leader, it was really difficult to pick one among others because it will affect how we, as a group, are going to execute our plans and ideas. Eventually, we reached the conclusion that we wanted a faster-paced game with no downtime and serves an ice-breaker.

In search of inspirations and creativities, I have learned to become more observant and alacritous to my surroundings. It is a very important skill to observe attentively surroundings, for they might provide inspirations and ignited great minds of creativities. Many renowned game designers like American McGee, Sandy Petersen and Bill Roper got their ideas from other gameplay experience. If I have the chance to meet them, I would love to get to know more about their perspectives on game design.