GAMES STUDIES : GROUP PROJECT

Survive! Healthy Master

WEEK 1

The teacher introduced what our group would do and what theme it would focus on. We also determined the group.

WEEK 2

We have confirmed our idea teacher and asked us to submit our group progress game for this week. Briefly introduce the game formation mechanism, rules and game guide, game inspiration.

Group 3 Games Studies , author Tian Dong

WEEK 3

This week our group played an outdoor game, Monopoly, and we got some ideas and conclusions from this game. Based on these conclusions, we can get new ideas. We made a new PDF about our group game design.

Game studies project 1 , author tian dong

WEEK 4

The teacher asked each of us to show him our group game idea this week, including the name of the game, a brief introduction to the game, what the game's goals are, interesting experiences based on the theme, how the learning environment is applied, the game's mechanics and rules and basic instructions, references to existing games, and a simple model of the game.

This week the teacher showed our group our game model. He gave us some feedback on our game.

We discussed in groups based on some feedback from the teacher. We first had to fill in the 11 blanks with events. Then we could think about the content of the power card and add a few more cards.

So we had our first group discussion of the week, about our improvements, we added. Things in the blanks, and we tried playing this game.

We also needed to add some power card content and deed card making. So we did a second group assignment, added power cards and deed card making, we tried to play the whole game process, and also recorded a game demonstration video as the content in the pre.

Afterwards, we began to improve our final PPT based on what the teacher sent us.

FINAL PPT:

Game studies project 1 , author tian dong

WEEK 5

Today was the pre-day for each of our groups, and the teacher gave us some feedback in class about our group's ideas.

Teacher feedback summary

Focus on core concepts

It is recommended to focus on a single core concept (such as "maintaining healthy blood sugar levels") and avoid incorporating too many elements, such as exercise, at the same time. Exercise-related content can be used as the core action design of the game (such as players completing real exercises such as push-ups in the game), ensuring that the concept is directly related to the health theme.

Refer to the framework optimization mechanism of "Monopoly"

Chessboard grid design:

Strictly follow the grid quantity and functional zoning of Monopoly, adjust the existing layout (such as rearranging the middle grid), and use its mature probability calculation and iconic grids (such as corner grids) to enhance game stability.

Simplified Card System: Reduce the number of "bubble cards" (such as simplifying from 7 cards). If "forced exercise" is the core, "sport cards" can be designed (such as completing specified actions after drawing) to ensure that the card effect is directly linked to health goals (such as consuming blood sugar and obtaining health points).

Balance innovation and classic mechanisms.

It is certain that innovative elements such as "sports actions" and "health point penalties" will be added to "Monopoly," but attention should be paid to the integration of the new mechanism with the original framework to avoid rule confusion caused by component stacking.

Avoid interference from unrelated elements

Suggest removing content unrelated to the core theme (such as non-core elements like "Black Genesis") to ensure that the game mechanics always revolve around "health management."

So we just need to optimize our model content. We need to determine how many grids there are in our game board and add some exercise activities to the power card.

WEEK 6

We did some playtesting this week. The teacher posted the tasks we have to do this week (for the group).

Prepare the game components for play-test - The physical pieces, boards, cards, dice, etc.
Handcraft the items if you can't reuse existing pre-made game pieces. BUT keep the design simple and ugly!
The most important thing is the game's rules and setup and informative details on the game's components.
Use the time in class today to play a round or two of your game.
Take notes of the strengths and weaknesses of the game as you play.
Record the gameplay session for further observation study.
Analyze these for improvements.

Summary

Advantage:

The model is very clear with complete game boards and game props.
The game process is very interesting, which increases the interest of the game theme and the interaction of players.

Disadvantage and improvement:

Missing one belongs to our game rule book, and we can better let players know the game clearly.

Example:

Can add house widgets, because players can only get a piece of paper to show that this place belongs to the player, and the instructions are not displayed on the game board. For example, the representative color of Bunny's house is pink, so after he buys this house, it can put the pink house on the game board.

Example:

SPEAL! There is something wrong with the power card content: Change 'a set of proposition' to 'a one property'
Need to change the ownership methods of Company and Restaurant.

Campany-spend glucoin to own

Restaurant-intake glucoin to own

Separate the Power Card: Divided into two parts

1. Secret Power

2. Power

We completed the Game Mechanics Review document in class.

Game Mechanics Review.docx , author tian dong

We also made a video recording.

WEEK 7

Today, the teacher talked about our task in class. We also have to experience a game this week, but members of other groups will play our group's game. Each group needs to assign a member to stay behind to explain the rules to the students who are experiencing the game, answer questions, and record the entire game process, but not to participate in the game process to avoid interfering with the objectivity of the test.

We made a new game board for this week's test based on our feedback from last week.

We exchanged our group's games with group 7. The members of their group introduced the rules of the game to us, and we started to try to play their games.

Introducing their game (ENERGY SURVIVAL)

GROUP 7 Playing our game

After trying to play the game, we wrote a Game Mechanics Review document about our gaming experience with Group 7's game "Energy Survival," and Group 7 also filled out a Game Mechanics Review document about our game.

Healthy Master - Game Mechanics Review.docx，作者 tian dong

WEEK 8: Panel Discussion

This week we had a group discussion about our final design inspiration. We analyzed our next game design improvements based on the Mechanic Review written by other groups and our group.

- We can use healthy colors (eg: red, green, yellow, light white...)

- ATP element pattern

- Points: paper/coins [30 pieces for each of 5, 10, 20, 50 yuan]

- Make a game manual

- Changed the content of a prop card to make sit-ups a bit difficult

- Changed some simple English to the prop card

- Note something on the game board and Property card to make it clear and easy for players to understand

Healthy colors

Some props

Week 9—Final Iteration

We discussed with the teacher about our ideas for the final game design.In the feedback to our group, the teacher pointed out that in terms of game mechanics, the parts that we thought were novel were reported by new players to be similar to Monopoly and lacked uniqueness, and players were more inclined to choose "exercise" rather than action cards. The existence of repetitive strategies may lead to imbalanced mechanisms. At the same time, confusion in terminology, such as inconsistent card descriptions, needs to be addressed; the test results showed that no players were eliminated within 45 minutes, resulting in a long game time. Although the feedback from new players was acceptable after adjusting the real estate classification, the balance still needs to be optimized. In addition, the lack of tracking of player health status and insufficient guidance on strategies for novices are also obvious problems. The teacher required that the report clearly compare the feedback differences between the self-test in the 6th week and the new player test in the 7th week to prove the improvement effect, emphasizing that the design of game components should give priority to ensuring playability and simplifying visual effects, but optimize the information layout for players to understand. At the same time, it affirmed the advantages of the smooth overall flow of the game, interesting event challenges, and a good combination of strategy and randomness, and suggested focusing on shortening the time and unifying terminology to promote optimization.

Week 10-11—Self-directed group work, no class

In these two weeks, we started to design the model of our group's game final project. The previous model was made by hand, and this time we will improve it based on the shortcomings of the game mechanism we found.

Li Xinli and I made the power card and secret power card parts.

Shaiba made the property card and insurance card.

Obata made the game manual part.

Wang Sai made the game board design and glu-coin part.

Week 12 Final Playtest

This week, we continued to test our game mechanics and found that one of the power cards was similar to the other cards and needed to be improved. There were some issues with the markings on the game board we made before. We needed to change the numbers of intake and spend to 5.

We also completed the review file this week.

Game Mechanics Review 3 (1).docx，作者 tian dong

We expect to complete the final model design in week 12-week 13

Week 13 Hybrid Session

This week the teacher introduced the requirements for our final project which we will complete in week 14.

In class, we completed the Iterative_Playtest_Report_Template part and continued to complete the final complete model design. We optimized the content of the power card and finally optimized our entire final prototype and report form.