CAGD 170

My name is Travis Griffith and  this next game is developed by group 2 as we have not yet named ourselves. We are the proud creators of sportsball a new and exciting deckbuilding game centered around building the ultimate dream team to crush your opponent. Our target audience is a wide range of causal card players ranging from 13-103 this game is well suited for strategists. Our testers include a narrow demographic as we are selecting only from California State University Chico, they include college students ranging in ages from eighteen to twenty-five including male female and intersex participants from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds as well as a wide range of cultures. This game has few similarities too it however it is inspired by the classic deckbuilding game dominion. This development process was the most difficult thus far. During our first week of testing my family suffered the loss of a father which lead me to be absent for a week. After being carried by my teammate Taliah Law I returned to find that our previous game had been scrapped at the behest of our lab instructor. So, we began from scratch and created sportsball an exciting deck building game with flavor texts lighting it as an amalgamation of many sports. During my week of absences my partner graciously did not ask me to assist her which technically means no work was late, even though she had to a large portion of it. Time had been a major factor of developing this game, in future iterative processes, I think more effort should be put into the initial pitch ideas, to where the idea that the team goes after is a successful one. Our first playtest of sportsball went smoothly regardless of personal woes. Our rule sheet, like most rule sheets, needed some tweaks however the game was playable, there was a medium level of challenge. Balancing in card games is incredibly important and as more options are implemented more time is needed to properly balance games to make the gameplay as fun and as smooth as possible. One potential mechanic that may need work is the scoring aspect as our gameplay is relatively standard a possible addition of rounds or ways to play may be in order. Something I have noticed through these processes is that the amount of time for games to be iterated seems to be relatively short. I think that more meetings may be to balance games faster and work out relevant kinks. Furthermore, good ideas seem to be few and far between, while our development process was basically choosing a game out of a hat it does seem relevant that many developers should practice working around someone else’s parameters as they move forward into the industry. However, our first playtest was a success our testers were able to comprehend the rule sheet and were able to play the game to its fullest. We had created combos that enabled players to move even further on the board which was seemed to be fun at the very least. In closing game developing seems to be a high turn around major where people haphazardly create games and work fervently in order to make those very same games balanced. It is my hope that within this class I gained understanding on how to understand the iterative processes that makes game development a useful skill in an ever-growing industry. In truth I am a psychology major, so this blog will remain inactive after a few months, but I have enjoyed my time learning in this course and learning how to create fun experiences for players.

My name is Travis Griffith I am in group 13 or as we call ourselves; Iconic. Together we created the turn-based card game, Alien Attack. Alien Attack is a spaced themed turn based card game focused on combat where players compete against eachother in a one on one combat. Geared towards, people in their twenties this game is meant to be a quick battle involving strategy and luck.

            There have been two major iterations of Alien Attack, the first, was a cooperative battle game where players fought against much stronger monsters and worked together to win. This game worked relatively well, where players would draw certain challenges out of the deck and play turn by turn to fight the creature. However, for our first playtest our scope was too big, we had powerup cards and special abilities which quickly overwhelmed our players, it seemed like far too much work to even get through our rule sheet. One playtesting group was unable to begin the game within the allotted time. This could be due to the large number of rules and procedures that were available. However, a secondary group read through the rules in a short amount of time and quickly played a few rounds without issue. It is possible this group was more familiar with turn-based card games. One of our final groups gave the suggestion of a player verses player mode would be more rewarding as they had hoped to win against their peer. Finally, some of our cards used in the game were difficult to read due to their poor craftsmanship. Without a proper legend to understand the symbols on the cards the players may have well been reading hieroglyphics The project manager ultimately made the choice to follow that feedback.

 Then a new iteration of Alien Attack was created. First, our scope was reduced so power up cards and special abilities were removed as well as multiple player options. From there new more understandable cards were created, with well defined symbols in clear neat iconography. Once this stage of production was complete the second playtest was had. The same group had play tested our game a second time with these new rules and had some difficulty in beginning the game, however with some guidance they were able to complete a few rounds. Another group picked up the game almost instantly and displayed a few balancing problems within actual gameplay.

 Within the group everyone completed their tasks as it was assigned to them. As expected, the project manager ended up having more responsibilities than myself. I found that communication was good throughout the group and documents went back and forth with little issue. It seemed as though I wish I could have done more to assist my group, however no task was left incomplete by myself or the project manager. As far as the development process I do not think I would change anything personally. It seems as though things ran rather smoothly. I will say that certain deadlines seemed to be restrictive where increased time or resources would be valuable to the actual production value of the game. The ten minuet time limit on the game also reduces the types of games that can be created. I would venture to guess that in the future I would not change anything about how the game was created, even though I would change the timeline. As expected, the group Iconic performed at full capacity with few errors and created a fully functional game that I believe can be iterated into several successful, fun versions of itself with tremendous success. 

My name is Travis Griffith I am in group three of section three in CAGD 170. My groups game like many in this class is a modification of the game solitaire, this mod was created by the group member Alex. Our target audience are card counting enthusiasts, habitual organizers and those who enjoy a challenging single player experience in short, the Achiever type. The game Plays as a variation of solitaire with a twist, instead of 4 cells where only aces can be placed then the following card of the same suit in ascending order, there are 8 cells the addition four cells can work from kings in declining order as long as they are of the same suit.

One of the main problems with the game is simply to understand. Solitaire is a game that has been played many hours and I imagine will outlast many games. The goal of all solitaire games is to sort cards, when this mod was being developed we questioned if we should stray from the fundamental idea or add obstacles to hinder or bonuses to help. Brilliantly Alex found a way to add both, the creation of new cells does give an advantage of having more ways to sort out cards. However, when you play enough solitaire you realize that the kings being on the board are extremely important. A delicate balance is placed upon the player, if you sort too many face cards it will be harder to place lower cards upon the board. When put into action the game plays a lot like standard solitaire. Most play testers found the rules to be confusing at first. As the distinction of how cards can be placed in entirely new cells is a difficult task to explain well. That burden fell upon me, I believe I did a good job however improvements can be made, as it took roughly two minutes to understand these new rules. Aside from my own stumbling block I believe my group performed adequately, we found diplomatic ways to divide work and no work was turned in late. With this in mind I believe it would be valuable for me to look at myself more critically in the future, because if I believe that if I believe that there were no problems in the group, I could be that problem.

Game play

Observing a person playing game is not a foreign concept, streamers make a living of it on twitch, and I have watched others play a fair amount of single player games in my life. However, watching the dedicated play-testers in the lab test out our game, I was not pleased. It does not seem like this game is fun. Players went through similar stages of playing the game, reading the rules, re-reading the modifications and often times re-reading them again. Tentatively they began playing, setting up the board took time and many players were not experienced at setting up solitaire, or they believed they would accidentally set it up incorrectly. I hoped that the nervous energy surrounding their calculated moves would give way to invigorating and excited game play as they raced against their own mind to compete the cipher that is organizing. Alas, that did not happen they played the game, stoic and thoughtful. For a moment, I considered the possibility that the game of solitaire was simply boring. However, it is a poor craftsman who blames their tools, in this same way I would be a poor developer who blames their game. With this in mind I believe that development for this game was not a success, the game way functional, the game was moderately challenging, as solitaire is, but it failed to have the enticing quality of a game that captures the hearts and minds of it's player.