Lesson 6 - Paper Prototype (Experiential Learning Cycle)

Today we created a paper prototype of our game which is the 4th step of 'The Experiential Learning Cycle' diagram which you can see on lesson 4 of my post (Active Experimentation). Although we broke down our game in categories(essential elements) by the games theory which we read, testing our game proved to show that this is also an important step since we found several flaws in our game which couldn't have been done without testing or very thorough planning which still could be wrong such as removing some features like discarding a card and the amount of card in the deck.

The first time we played the paper prototype we found out that the score to win the game was too low (220) so we went to step 2 of the diagram which is reflective observation and analysed our game; what went wrong, what did go to plan and the only thing we detected going wrong was the amount of points to win. Before playing the prototype for the second time we knew that the points had to be increased so we were about to double the initial points we decided but thought that might be too much so we analysed how many points can be earned in total and found out that 440 points was way too much because the maximum points that could be earned was 280 so we decided to go with 260 points to win the game.

After testing the game for the second time (step 4 - active experimentation) we analysed our game again and decided the game was too easy but due to the large amount of cards in the deck, this made getting the combination to win simple so we drastically reduced the amount of card in the deck and decided to remove the feature of discarding cards since it seemed like a useless feature; the feature reduced the amount of trading so people just kept throwing them away and picking up a new card in the deck to get the certain card to place in the gallery.

Step 1 is accomodated with the the play test of the game since you now have a concrete experience of it. Step 3 of the experiential learning is fixing the flaws by adding or removing features of the game so in the group's case we removed the feature of withdrawing cards.

Before playing the prototype we should have reviewed our game with the theory applied on step 3 so that everyone in the team and other people playing understood the rules and choices that could be made in the game and allow us to pick up on things missed out since everyone wasn't sure about how the point system worked such as getting a bonus point when you have 3 cards by the same artist in the genre. this feature should have been explained in step 3 under rules which was not there.

To conclude I feel that the experiential learning diagram looping is important because as said above we found flaws in the active experimentation and reviewing the theory applied to our game; nothing is perfect so constantly reflecting is an important step to designing.

Lesson 5 - Step 3 (Abstract Conceptualisation)

Today we went back into groups and reviewed our game concept with the theory to make sure we have met the essential elements for a game so we reapplied the theory of games design to our game design and explained it to the missing member of the team last week which was helpful since reviewing the theory with our game and explaining our game with the theory showed that we knew what we were doing and that we were confident that we have met the specification to making a game.

These elements are objectives, procedures and rules. Below you can see this being applied to our game.

Objective:

Place the collected cards into the gallery to score enough points to win the game.

Procedures:

Start turn

Player can do one of the following:

• Pick up Art card(only if player has less than 8 card)
• Pick up chance card
• Trade with players
• Play chance card
• Put Art in Gallery

Add points if gained

Next player

Rules:

Cards (art):

• Maximum of 8 in hand
• Can only pick up if you have less than 8 cards in hand
• only one card can be traded per turn
• only one card can be placed in gallery per turn 

The game is a 3 to 4 player game and will roughly last for an hour. It will be a board game and you can only do 1 choice per turn, the conflict in our game will be against the players. 

Next week on Lesson 6 we will be building a prototype of our game for others to play as we have read a small document about paper prototypes and the benefits of it for games design such as it can allow the designer to find flaws before building the actual product.

Lesson 4

The lesson started with everyone looking at a design process which had 4 steps. These 4 step loops because there is always something you can do to improve a design. However even though the diagram always looped, it can end, only if the client is satisfied with the product.

The 3^rd step was what we were looking at today since we have already created our concept ideas so we read a short piece of text which contained the elements that are essential to designing a game and we applied that theory to our game to see if we met all the specifications, if not we would amend our game design. In addition  the team I worked with for the Tate project were able to create a concept idea which met these element theory.

Finally once we applied the theory to our game concept we had to converge our design so we only have one idea to work with and develop; we decided to go with the first concept idea which is the card game.

The game theory being applied to our design can be seen on the next post.