Board Game and Iterative Prototyping

Intro

This Tuesday our class were given the chance to continue work on the board games which we started on the first week of the course.

What is Iterative Prototyping?

We were introduced to the concept of 'iterative prototyping' and were shown how it was used in game design. Iterative prototyping is made up of 4 different processes; design, implementation, play-testing and evaluation.

Design: The first process is to choose an idea that I wished to incorporate into my board game. In this example I will talk about adding 'trap card' squares onto the game-board.

Implementation: The second process is to physically create the basic assets needed to put the idea into the game. If I was implementing the idea of 'trap cards', picked up by landing on trap card squares for example, then implementing the idea would require me to make the 'trap cards' out of card, write descriptions on them, and then write out the' trap card square' spaces onto the game board.

Play-testing: The third process is to actually test the idea. The ideal way of doing this is to get a group of 3-4 people together and play through the game with the new idea or rule being used. After these play sessions it should be fairly easy to get opinions and thoughts on the change which brings us to...

Evaluation: The fourth process is to think about the idea, decide which aspects, if any, worked and come to a decision as to whether you should keep or scrap the new idea. Once this decision is reached then a single cycle of the iterative method has been completed and a new one can begin anew from the first process, design, thinking of a new idea for the game.

It is important to remember that only one change to the game can be made at any one time using the iterative process. If multiple changes are implemented and tested at the same time, then the evaluation process becomes impossible, since the player cannot see what effect any single change would have had on the game, only the effect that all three changes had at the same time.

I shall now explain the two iterative changes I made to my board game.

Iterative Change 1: Re-drew game board.

My original board design had all three players in the game starting at different positions on the board, and treading different paths that didn't overlap much. I couldn't recall this approach being used in many board games I've played, so I decided to try it as an experiment. I discovered that the multiple starting positions, and lack of entwining paths caused a very low level of interactivity in my game, since the player was hardly ever in a position to land on the same square as another player.

With this in mind, the first iterative change I decided to make to my board game was a large one. As I said above, I wasn't happy with the board design I drew out in week one of the course, so I decided to start again and completely redraw the game board.

This time I made sure that all the players started on the same square, and that multiple paths were kept to a minimum. When I play-tested and evaluated the change, I found that it worked slightly better, but that my game still noticeably lacked interactivity between the players.

Iterative Change 2: Added 'trap card' squares to game board.

This realisation gave me an idea for the second iterative change I made to my game, adding 'trap card squares' to the game board. If a player landed on an 'trap card square' they would receive a 'trap card'. Each 'trap card' has different statistics such as; throw distance, number of uses, effect on enemy player etc.

The basic idea was that the player could use the 'trap cards' to slow players down which would allow players that are behind to catch up. When it came to testing the new idea, I realised that the player that who was winning could further slow down the losing player by using a 'trap card' against them, since some 'trap cards' like the Quicksand, could be used up to a distance of 6 game squares away.

My overall evaluation of the idea was that it added interactivity between the players, the caveat being that it had too much of a deciding factor on the outcome of the game. A single 'trap card' used on a player on the opening turns was enough to make them lose the game.

If I get another chance to change my board game, I'm going to have to re-think how the trap cards work.

This concludes my blog entry on my Board Game and the Iterative Method. Thanks for reading. :)