Week 4 Day 4: Playtest

Today, our group as a collective had a rough play-test of the formal elements of our game. Over the last week we have had one other playtest from outside testers - which gave us a good idea that our basic game premise worked. However, we discovered that the game was unbalanced via the inclusion of too many demolition and steal squares. Furthermore our board became too cluttered with build icons, having squares allocated to various pieces. This had led to a design overhaul in the placement and implications of some of the rules.
Now our design involves two sets of Cards: Build and Star (or ''Miscalculation'') - each with their own icon on the board. The Demolition and steal rules were placed into the Miscalculation cards also (they each featured once in a set of 32 cards so are rare). These were the positive outcomes to having such a playtest early in the iterative process. Now it was time to refine these elements.

Today's playtest was played within the design team. Jack was the ''Banker'' (a role that could be allocated to any of the 4 playing - we just did this for efficiency and another perspective), Jess, Steven, Robert and Josh played the game, while i observed the play through (making brief notes).

The game took a little while to set up. This was not due to too many pieces but rather as some pieces had to be hastily constructed. These were:
 The playing counters
And the ''dice'' (for which we wrote numbers on some paper. Then each turn a player would randomly select a piece of paper and whatever number was their subsequent dice roll). We will be using a dice for our final game.

Furthermore we had to use the 'build cards' as the robot for two of the players. This was unfortunate, however we have decided for some members of the team to build two other robots (so that there were variants for aesthetic appeal).

The game got underway at 12:10pm and from the first signs of play, it seemed to be playing well. One problem appeared two minutes into gameplay. This was that the ‘randomised’ build cards could have the potential to slow down play –especially since the rules specified that the build had to run from bottom to top (legs then torso, etc.) We changed this mid play so that a player could simply pick up whichever piece was needed straight from a build squares.

Having been reading ‘Games Design Workshop: A playcentric guide to making games’, it had become apparent about the importance of both balance of play and currency systems in a game; something I considered heavily when observing the play session. Our monetary system ran smoothly – with the 300 Credits every game revolution dispersing a reliable stream of cash to players. This was evened out heavily by the purchasing of parts (each part being 500 credits) and the Miscalculation cards – which had a 60/40 split to negatives (ranging from Miss a Turn to 500 credit deductions). Not once during play were all players struggling for money, but yet it became apparent that we had captured the ‘power struggle’ aspect of games such as Monopoly. One player in particular had been hit financially by the Miscalculation cards, often struggling for money in the early stages of the game. I feared a little at this point that more positive cards would have to be slotted into the deck.

One red flag incident was the ‘Betrayal card’. Betrayal targets all players and removes 400 credits. This was met with instant unhappiness from all players as it reduced almost all of them to no funds. Due to this it was ‘Removed from play’ and will not feature in any other playtests unless I review just how much money it takes from all players (100 credits is a possibility).

The Miscalculation cards took 45 minutes to reach fully play through, before re reading old cards. At this point they were shuffled and play continued. This wasn’t a bad sign as many games have several duplicate cards, so for them to last 45 minutes was not bad. Furthermore we expect normal players to use common sense to shuffle the deck – as this is not something normally included into design rules.
At this point of play the game had rewarded the player who was struggling early game and he was vying for the winning pieces with the current leader – causing me to realise that the early observation; that the game had the power struggle feel of monopoly, was not entirely incorrect as the balance of play had switched several times. Jess had gotten an early start, getting two legs early in play. Steven and Robert had one, while Josh until mid-game had no pieces. In the closing stages of play new leader Steven had gotten one arm, a torso and both legs. Josh had gotten up to the torso stage, while Robert and Jess were still at the leg stage via a bad run of the Miscalculation cards.
At the end of play Steven had won and we officially finished the game at 1.15pm. This meant our game had a running time of 1 hour 5 minutes. This we agreed was a good running time, which could have extended either way depending on play.
Speaking to Josh afterwards, he said that the game was ‘both infuriating and good’ and he remarked upon the sudden upturn of his fortunes mid game, thinking that that was a sign that the game was moving in the right direction.

After the game, as a team we spoke about a few aspects – namely the 2 needed Robots and the playing pieces. The playing pieces, Josh suggested, could be a character stood up on some kind of slit based plastic base. My own view was that it should be simple and looking at the board, whilst considering the theme, I pitched the idea that the playing pieces should be small spanners – of different colours. This was because counters are often simple and this would also be easier to produce the most effective prototype of. Jess agreed and put herself forward to make them. This was met with approval from the team.
As for the Robots, both Steven and Josh put themselves forward to make them – while Jess also expressed willing should the team wish, to remake her current robot design, but alter it 4 times for each team. Furthermore, Dom is said to be making another prototype so we shall discuss this further tomorrow.

Bibliography

Goodfellow, Carole. (2008) How We Played: Games from Childhoods past. 1st ed. History Press.

Hathaway, Nina. Jacobs, Byron. Kinsman, Andrew. Perryman, Nigel. Sutcliffe Jenny. (1998) The Encyclopedia of Games. 2nd ed. Aurum Press Ltd.


British Museum. Playable Royal Game of Ur, available from;
http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/tombs/challenge/cha_set.html
[Accessed Tuesday 28th September 2010]

Arneson, Erik. The History of Risk, available from:
http://boardgames.about.com/od/risk/a/risk_history.htm
[Accessed Tuesday 28th September 2010]

Thomas, Phillip. A brief History of Cluedo, available from:
http://www.cluedofan.com/overview.htm
[Accessed Tuesday 28th September 2010]

Wikipedia, Senet, available from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senet
[Accessed Tuesday 28th September 2010]

Maler der Grabkammer der Nefertari.The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. Available from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_003.jpg
[Accessed Tuesday 28th September 2010]


Ferrera, Steve. Market Deco Font. Available from:
http://www.dafont.com/market-deco.font
[Accessed Wednesday 13th October 2010]

Wk 3: Day 4: Printing and final touches

Today was printing day for our team, and the 'Miscalculation cards', Money (Credits - as not to be partial to any forms of current money), Board, Instruction manual and Box were all printed. There were some issues with the printing of the cards - due to the double sided design. Initially it was printed onto 150 gram paper. The print turned out fine, but unfortunately the paper was far too flimsy for cards. The second batch was done on thicker paper, but had to be turned half way into the process. This was okay, until it was discovered that the card was printed on upside down so that the back was upside down to the front. This wasn’t a huge issue, but it still wasn’t ideal. The third batch was correct.
However an issue was discovered in the cutting of the cards. The back wasn’t exactly matched up on the successful batch. The upside batch were slightly better; however the flimsy copy was exactly right (due to the double sided printing specifically). Nevertheless I, Jack and Josh agreed that this misalignment was an issue, but not really large enough to warrant another batch print.
I cut out both batches (leaving a rough outline to make sure not to damage the cards) so that we could mix and match in future test plays.
When I got home, to tell them apart I quickly produced two long thin sheet designs to be wrapped around the successful batch and spare batch. This was both for presentational and divisive purposes.

Wk 3: Day 3: Changes taken

With print day fast approaching, I needed to finalise the writing on the card. My first idea - which was the neon lighting - was far too modern for the theme so stepping back from that, I took Josh's advice and used Market Deco typeface - obtained from DaFont.com. The typeface, designed by Steve Ferrera was specified as free for personal use, so meant that it could be used without copyright infringement. This was useful, as the writing perfectly fitted our theme.

But nevertheless I needed to incorporate writing onto my cards - which I had altered to be a more copper colour to fit with Roberts’s earlier advice to make them look copper colour.

Once again, the features of Photoshop elements 6.0 were handy in creating a bevelled effect on the typeface – which added to both the 3D element of graphic and meant the representation of writing carved into metal was met. Once again though, upon asking several people for their opinions, I discovered that many found it very difficult to read the writing on the card. This was a critical blow and after experimenting with different typeface and colours, I decided to make alterations to the card template. The major issue with the typeface was that it was hard to read in the darker areas. To counteract this, I used the dodge tool to lighten the area around the typeface to ensure that it was easier to read. This process was repeated until all of those I asked could read the writing.

The final card design - which I applied all 30+ effects to and saved in TIFF format for printing.

Wk 3: Day 2: Card Back

Inspired by Josh's 1920's style design, I realised that my metal design was perhaps not as fitting to other people’s ideas and I needed to change this. The back of the card hadn't been designed yet so this was a perfect opportunity to link the theme of the board game with my original concepts. Using a simple Google search ('1920's posters’) I realised that the artwork and Art Deco style was comprised heavily of smooth lines and block colour.

Choosing red and beige as the colour theme I began to construct two sets of diagonal lines that extended in width as they got further out. Furthermore I incorporated the basic Logo in the centre of the design. The Logo wasn’t perfect but nevertheless this was something that could be changed on Thursday before printing. Besides, Josh had said that his logo would be up on our Facebook group by Wednesday.

After making the basic geometric shapes, I crumpled some paper, folding one corner - before scanning it in. Josh had mentioned in the team meeting that he had used paper texture as an overlay to give it a worn feel. I imitated this in my card design. I also included the fold so that the back of the card looks as if it has been crudely stuck onto the metallic surface (shown by the front of the card). This way it bridges the theme and my face design excellently.

I showed the design to a few people on my social networking list. They liked the design but had the criticism that the 'Star logo' (which I had included to look as if it had been burnt into both the back and front of the card) drew attention away from the design. I removed the star from the design on the below version.

This was a definite improvement as the attention then focused onto the logo and 'Miscalculation' title. I chose Miscalculation for the name of the cards as our narrative storyline is that our player is a mad/ evil scientist. The word 'Miscalculation' is synonymous with scientists as it describes something unplanned or a wrong answer. By using this word, it means that the card is neither positive nor negative.

While this version was again positively received by those I showed it too, some mentioned that it wasn’t too apparent that the back was meant to be peeling off the metallic design. So I used the burn tool to highlight the paper texture in the below edit.

I liked this version but again, the same issue of not looking like it was peeling off was there for those I showed it to.

. This was the penultimate design made. I used a more contrasted edit of the paper texture to make the crumples more prominent - and give the design a darker, worn look. With further constructive input from people I showed it to, I added two screws in the top two corners to finish off the look. This was met with positive feedback. Later I replaced the logo with Josh's as it was much more precise, and was used in all other designs, so was needed to make my design gel with others in the group.

Wk 3: Day 2: Team meeting

At around 11 o'clock everyone in the team had gathered and discussed each other’s progress over the previous evening. I presented my designs that the team liked, however Robert offered some advice that perhaps it would be best to add a bronze / copper style tinge to the cards. I noted this down for editing tonight or tomorrow - before printing on Thursday.
Looking at other team members designs, Robert had created an impressive blueprint design that had summarised what we wanted as a team collectively. He had also created a great back of the card that made it seem like a secret military dossier. Overall, I was very impressed.
Josh had made some similarly impressive box art that adhered to the Art Deco style, which was popular in that period of time. Using a typeface from the website; 'Dafont.com', that had allowed users to use it for personal use and a realistic crumpled paper effect, Josh had captured the theme perfectly.
Steven had been doing some Robot concepts, which were really detailed and professional. The only worry that was shared by the team was that they were perhaps too futuristic. Nevertheless Jess and Steven will continue to work at it.
Jack had produced some excellent money for our game also, that again really fit the theme. I could begin to see that when all the pieces come together at the end of the week, it would be an impressive board game.


One aspect of the cards I had yet to cement entirely was which effects the cards should have. I spoke with Dominic and together we collaborated to create this list:

Positives

You won the noble prize (gain $400)

Reports say problems are happening at your build area. You rush back to find that it is only a mime outside the gate (go to your build area ...and that mime wasn’t around for long)

You persuade an engineer from a rival military force to work for you. He brought with him some blueprints from his previous job (pick up a build card)

You invent some kind of death ray and sell it at an auction (gain $400)

You sell space on your robot for advertising (gain $300)

After pleading with the general you get an advance on your pay (gain $300)

You get a free delivery with your ‘Evil meal’ (move to nearest delivery square)

Defeat your Arch-nemesis and sell the silent movie rights (gain $300)

Spies report back from an opponent’s base with their plans (pick up a build card)

You win evil scientist of the year award (gain $500)

You collect $100 for charity ...it’s your charity (gain $100)

Negatives

You hire a group of train robbers to loot the bank accounts of your opponents. Unfortunately they target your own account also (everyone loses $400)

Some idiots in the local security office install some form of metal identifying device – forcing you to leave all carried pieces (lose carried piece)

You are invited to an honorary zeppelin ride. It crashes. (Miss a turn)

Some of your scientists were testing woods properties with the steam engine. As a result your robot caught fire. (Lose $100 for each piece you own (if not paid lose that piece))

A platform collapses. With you on it (Miss a turn)

You are tricked by a pyramid scheme (lose $500)

You are forced to partake in a military parade (Miss a turn)

Through a clerical error, explosive testing was scheduled on the same day as build servicing (lose a piece)

Take a personal leave to quell worker/ robot uprising (Miss a turn)

One of your workers quits, joining a travelling band (pay $200 to have him Eradicated...)

Your steam engine runs out of coal (pay $100)

Your aircraft is blown off course – move to adjacent square (if build / chance square it is NOT activated. Also if you pass your build station it does not allow you to get pay / place build items)

Joinery workers on strike (if you have a piece, cannot attach until next go)

Your local wireless rant on how robots will eventually run flying machines gets you barred from all delivery squares for 1 turn)

Dud

You come last in a beauty pageant ...ouch

You get gum on your shoe ...how irritating

                Aimed

You try out one of your scientists new inventions. It’s a success ...unfortunately for your opponent (Chose a player. That player can only roll between 1 and 3 their next turn)

You discover a vinyl with hypnotic qualities.  (Pick a player. They miss a turn – waking their workers)

Weapons practice: you decide to try out your robot’s destructive capabilities...on your opponent (pick a player – they miss a turn)

Amnesia – everyone re rolls their ‘who starts’ dice roll to determine a new order.

Pickpocket – you may steal either $500 off an opponent or a carried ‘piece’ (you may NOT steal from the build area)

Steal – You may steal one piece from an opponent’s build area

Demolition – you may destroy remove one piece from an opponent’s build area

Sabotage – you sabotage the delivery system – other players cannot use it next turn

Wk 3: Day 1: Card Front

Given the role of Card design, I thought a lot about our combination of themes (1920’s industrial sky city and the somewhat futuristic Robot build) and how best I could incorporate this. The word Robot brings forth connotations of futuristic, clean lines, sleek design. But then again, in the 1920’s it was very bulky. Furthermore Cogs, Copper, steel and a solid industrial process were all features of production lines in that era.

This was the basic template I constructed. Using simple geometric shapes and metallic toning, I aimed for a plain metallic sheet look. This wouldn’t have been too difficult in this era as steel was very much part of the economy. Never the less, it looked rather simplistic so, I decided to add a slightly ‘futuristic’ look to the design by incorporating some clean lines that would divide up the metal. My reason for doing this is it does make it look more futuristic but nevertheless wouldn’t be impossible to achieve in that era. I added a small cog into the bottom left hand corner to further increase the detail of the design and further improve the construction of the theme.

Josh had suggested that the mishap/ positive cards had a star icon on the board that looked as if it had been 'spray painted on' with a clear centre. This is the design of which I felt fit those criteria, and also would fit the card design as it looked as if it had been burnt onto the metal. After having done these above concepts, I experimented a little with colour and form using photoshop effects.By applying the Photoshop effect ‘Poster edges’ and a cold photo filter, it showed another direction I could take with the cards that was bright, vibrant and more unrealistic. Of course, this isn’t my main intention for the card, so I will present it tomorrow to the team in addition to the card templates. I also trialled some interesting text effects for the card.

The neon effect is easy to read and fits the theme of the card; however I do worry that it shall be too futuristic for the time period. Again I shall present this to the team and gather any criticism or opinions.

Overall, I am optimistic about the designs I have created. Of course there will be room to manoeuvre within the designs depending on the directions others have taken. But hopefully it will be accepted well, and the opinions I gathered from friends that I have showed the cards to was great so this can only bode well.

Week 3: Day 1: Meeting and Presentation

Today, our team had to present and pitch our concept to the group. I showed some of my concepts which seemed to get a good reception, as well as other themes the team presented also. Overall while the presentation went well, there was a definite room for improvement within our pitching. The tutors mentioned two points:
- Assigning roles when speaking (either one person speak about the entire project or each team member is allocate a topic that they cannot stray from).
-Do not show your own project in a bad light (‘‘If you think it is bad, what are they going to think?'').

The first, much more than the second applied to our group and are something I will definitely take on-board next time I am pitching my ideas and concepts. The second didn’t apply as all of our team members were very positive about the game and each other’s concepts.

After the presentations we decided to playtest our basic concept with another team. Using the rough board template that Josh produced early on in the process and a rough paper robot that Jess had made, we quickly decided on basic board squares:
4 Demolitions
4 Steal
4 legs
4 arms
2 torsos
And we decided to have the 'delivery squares' (of which there were 4) as the point where you claim the 'Head' at the end stages of the game.
The board and playing pieces were very rudimentary, but never the less it seemed to be playable. However the first of the bugs became very apparent around 5 minutes into the playtest. With many squares dedicated to steal and demolition - it meant that players were 'destroying' pieces quicker than building them. This was a clear issue and needed to be addressed. In the playtest we decided to have 'steal' to only apply to pieces that players were carrying at the time. While the play testers were growing a little impatient with the process, there were definite hints at what we were trying to achieve in our game. (At one stage a player was carrying a piece, it got stolen then he landed on a delivery square - which would have saved it. It is these kinds of ironies that make board games both fun and frustrating and I was very happy to see it happening). Nevertheless this playtest lead to some important decisions about our game.
Firstly the demolition squares would be rare and only target pieces in an opponent’s build area. Furthermore Steal squares would be equally rare, targeting only what players had on them. However despite these changes that were needed, the playtest was relatively successful and meant that we could finally work to cementing the rules, theme and play style of the game as a team. To do this we had a meeting.

All of our team (Me, Jess, Josh, Steven, Robert and Jack) were present aside from Dominic, who had some urgent matters to attend to, and Ronnie who was suffering from an illness (they were notified straight afterwards of their roles).
In our very first meeting as a team, we had decided not to include cards. However over the last week, it became very apparent to me that cards can make a game fun and unique. Josh had also included some form of card system into his concepts. His idea was to have the pieces as cards that could be picked up from a ‘Build pile’. This was an interesting idea as it means that luck would play a huge part in whether a player is successful or not in acquiring the right piece or not. We decided as a group that this was probably the best way to do the method of acquiring build pieces. In doing so we removed a tactical element of the game – however considering how a dice roll determines play, we were simply specialising in the Luck aspect of our game rather than an ill attempt to be a strategic game. If there is build cards, there should also be chance or mishap cards – much like my Acts of god card concept. We spoke about this, and after discussing the pros and cons of them, I put myself forward to produce both the artwork and actual happenings on the cards. This was accepted by the group.
We still had yet to decide on theme. After having been impressed Josh’s 1920s board design in the presentation, we all decided to adopt that theme for the final product. However there was a slight debate on whether or not we should build buildings or not. Josh’s original idea had been to be buildings – as had mine. But Jess argued the valid point that young people would not be enticed by buildings. It wasn’t attractive as a proposition. From that, we decided to incorporate the robot theme that Steven and Jess had been working on as it would be a much more appealing ‘build’ for a younger audience. Jess and Steven had also been decided to be the team to work on constructing the robot and playing pieces, using light weight clay. Additionally Jess would be researching about robots, and presumably ways how they could fit the game’s 1920s feel as she was passionate about the researching side of the project.
Josh, having produced the Board was decided to make the instruction booklet and box art as his style was the overall theme. Robert put himself forward to produce the build cards, which I collaborated with him for the idea to incorporate them in some kind of blueprint. Finally Jack decided to take on the challenge of designing the money. Having decided on roles, we all headed off with a clear direction for the next session tomorrow.

Wk 2: Day 4 - 6: Board design

So far, I had looked at board logos, card design and general logo for my theme. What I had not attempted was board design. So I allowed myself several days to draw up some basic concepts for a board. My photoshop version used Joshua Allen's basic board template that he had drawn up and posted on facebook for the rest of the groups use - as well as his own.



Josh Allen's basic board template.



In the template there were two distinct board blocks - the tiles that the players would move around and the build areas. The build areas would clearly have to be identifiable for a certain team or colour. I used washes of brown, with the dodge, burn and smudge tool to create the mud texture. Then i used block colours, with the burn or dodge tool to create the outer edging.

Given that my theme was simple building, I used a basic geometric looking pavement square design to be the board squares. They are plain but identifiable as pavement.



The corner square( created by combining three of the original pavement squares)



My Basic Board concept.

This board concept I created by placing my pavement squares onto Josh's board design. Then I placed the 4 build areas in each corner. Then I produced a simple centre piece and layered my Build it Up logo over the top. I asked a few people on my social network for their opinions. Most said it was okay, but they brought up key issues such as:

-The yellow and green build areas were hard to read.

-The centrepiece was dull and too simple

-The logo obscured the centrepiece and didn’t fit with the board.

I decided to address each problem, one by one.

I went about making the writing easier to read by first trying to edit the typeface colour - which didn’t help. Following that, and some advice from a friend who was proficient with Photoshop, I was introduced to the bevel effects. By using these I could raise the writing from the background with ease.

The next issue was the centrepiece, which was deemed too simplistic and dull. I attempted to make a courtyard and fountain to replace the park and lake. Again I was finding problems making it interesting and not dull. I experimented with a variety of Photoshop effects and finally found the below centrepiece was much more potent.

The above two images are my 'final' board concept. I once again asked a variety of people what they thought of the board and generally the reaction was positive. My only worry is that the board will become too busy with different icons. Still I have yet to see what my team mates have been producing so hopefully they will have insight into how to deal with that issue.

Wk 2: Day 3: Other Logos

These were a few more logos that I designed. The first - H & Earls Brickwork was meant to symbolise the Wall pieces. I chose to keep it simple - using a stress brick object - taking a picture and studying the shape and lines. I used block colour to map out the key areas and lines. Finally I wrote H & Earl's Brickwork using a Photoshop default typeface.

The City Hall Planning commitee was another element that could be included in the game. (Before building a player must have planning permission). Of course this could over complicate the game so is purely a concept, so I will pitch this to my team later this week.

This is yet another piece based logo - this time covering the cement foundations or flooring. For this I drew and scanned in a simple cement bag shape before tracing it with my tablet. After which I typed Clements Foundations and deleted the inner area of the writing - so that the floor shows through it. For this logo, I wasn’t that impressed so I am likely to change it later if my theme is liked by the group.

Wk 2: Day 2: A series of unfortunate events

Unfortunately today the servers were down for the Media Lab so we couldnt do any work. Also some of our team members didnt arrive so it means that we still have yet to decide on a theme focus. Because of this, I am going to focus my efforts on creating 'generalistic' event square logos from notes we made yesterday. This way hopefully my work can be applied to several different themes without needing to be changed.

Wk 2: Day 2: Act of God Cards

Early on in discussion Monday, our team had decided not to make cards, however looking at the basic gameplay ideas at the moment, it seems too plain. Thats when I had the idea for 'Act of God ' cards. Having asked a family member who was involved in construction work, he said that often crazy things would happen on site where he was. Having taken a few of the things he mentioned and some of my own here is a possible list of 'Acts of God' :

Discover Iron age burial ground (pay ..... (When people would find archilogical digs on a site, the building firm would have to pay for the dig to happen))
Local kids push down brickwork (pay ....)
Gales Blow the roof off (lose roof peice)
Discover rare toad colony, pay for their relocation (pay ...)
Accidently cut down preservation tree (pay ...)
Plumbers set fire to your house (pay .... (this came from something that happened to our next door neighbours - their plumbers accidently left a torch on and set fire to their house))
Lightning strike damages electrics (pay... (one of the members of the course had this happen to their street))
Accidently hire Cowboy Builders ( lose one peice to shoddy work)
Your work force suddenly flees the country - (miss a turn to rehire)
(Recent update : A construction member accidently floods your house and a fish is found in the room. Pay for repairs and a fishing license
Some local teens 'liberate' some of your street cones (miss a turn)

 positive ones:
Sell your story to a documentary show (gain money) - inspired by grand designs show on channel 4
Win Design award (money)
A local builder gives you a spare piece (gain piece)
Find gold coins (money)
You inherit a plot of land that you sell for money (money)
There are rumors about laama pouching near by. The newspaper uses you for its source (pick a player and they miss a turn trying to dispute the allegations)

I'll need to pitch this idea to my collegues so I decided to do some artwork for the symbol.

Considering how most of my artwork so far has been mainly based around symbols, I decided to continue this theme with my 'Act of God' concept. My first thought was the stereotypical hands in the air worship pose. I asked a friend to pose while I took the picture. Then using my tablet I traced their hands in photoshop, before applying the film grain effect.  After this, a stencil styled text was added, with the paint tool utilised to create the paint dripping effect. Finally I lowered the opacity of the layer to drop the intensity of the 'paint'.
Overall I was pretty impressed with the end product, and many of the people I showed noticed this more than other logos.

Wk 2: Day 2: Logo's

Considering our basic concept was based around the construction of a House being the objective, I decided to focus my attention on creating basic logos for application on the board - following the theme of simple house building.
In our meeting Monday a few ideas came up, such as Van Hire - which would allow a player to carry more than one construction piece around the board (i.e.: foundations and a wall piece, etc.), and a Demolition Crew - which would allow the player to remove one piece from the opponents board.

 

This was my concept for the Van Hire square. When speaking to everyone monday, the phrase Van empire or Van Hire made me think of the word vampire. Obviously that would be quite an obvious pun so I decided to edit the slogan to reflect this ' The necks (next) best thing for moving materials'. For the actual logo design I used the square and circular selection tools in photoshop with fill colour to construct the truck and semi circular mark. The Van Hire and slogan texts were made using one of the default photoshop typefaces. Finally I used the Neon artistic effect to create the red glow around the objects.

Another product of the selection tool and fill colour to construct the basic shape. Filling it with grey colouring, I used my tablet and the burn/ dodge tool to render it to seem more 3D. Again Photoshop effects were used for the grainy texture (Film Grain - Artistic). Finally I used two different typefaces from Photoshop to make the 'Wrecked' Demolition sign (lowered opacity for both a little to sink them into the wrecking ball).

For both of these different logos, simplicity was crucial. As board-games are often not too fancy, I decided early on to keep them more as symbols than images. Also, given that my 'theme' was the basic construction version of build it up, it needed to seem basic - as other versions would need to 'outshine' it (something learnt from looking at franchises of Monopoly.

Week 2: Day 1 -Meeting

Today we met up as a group and decided on the boardgame that we were going to do. Josh, a team member, thought it would be interesting for our game to have a 3D aspect to it (be it board, ect) but we decided it would be tough to impliment having a full 3D board like The game of Life and others. However eventually between us we focused the games objective to be a race game, that would have elements of time limit to it. Then we implimented Josh's suggestion of 3D into it by having the game to be a race to build some object (be it house, or army or castle). We also settled on the name 'Build it Up' for our concept and we decided to try out different themes as 'homework for tomorrow.

Im going to focus on a more conventional 'build a house'' style. This is because some members are in the construction buisness and it will be useful to pick their brains for some useful information that I can impliment into the game.

Day 6: Comparing different variations of Monopoly

One of the most licensed and varied board games over the last 20 years is Monopoly. When exploring Jarrolds, Toys 'R Us and Langley’s vast board game selections, there was around ten or more variants of the game in each of their various game selections. Here is two shots at Langley’s that perfectly demonstrate this point:

 

As you can see, Langley’s have over 30 Monopoly variants - including a Make Your Own copy; but what is the reason for these board game companies to use variance of box design and other game assets to fuel sales?

Interestingly when we were speaking about our research into board games and about them in general in our group, one member stated that while she didn't actually like Monopoly, she would likely buy a Halo franchised Monopoly set. When quizzed, she said that it would be interesting to see how they would fit some aspects of the Halo universe into the board game. Furthermore she is a fan of Halo so the whole ''collectors'' appeal suddenly comes to light. Surely it is these same points that cause Hasbro’s Parker games division to find it viable for these versions to be sold worldwide.

And furthermore other companies have seen that this is a huge way to make money and have created their own 'off brand' Monopoly sets - aptly named (something) -opoly. These are shown clearly in the right picture above and are made by 'Late for the Sky'. You can tell they are not official by slight variations. The biggest is that the Monopoly sign on the side of every Hasbro's copy never changes- no matter what the style. But yet these copies (for example Cat-Opoly and Choc-Opoly) have different type faces and do not feature the famous 'Monopoly Man' logo.

So from this it is clear that, however it is made, specialised board games aimed at a certain market clearly have the demand to warrant them being on the shop shelves - even in the video game age. But what makes them different from other copies? What changes are made to game assets and box art? Should we create a board game that is reliant on slight licensing (in the style of but not directly (otherwise copyright issues rear their ugly head)) then what could be changed and how.

To find this out, I photographed some copies of monopoly I had at home; Original Monopoly, Star Wars: Saga Edition and Star Wars: Clone Wars edition. 

From the beginning there are clear differences between colour and design of the side panels of the boxes. In roughly the centre of each box there is the Monopoly logo. On the traditional box there is the slogan 'The Property Trading Board Game' clearly visible beside the Monopoly logo. To the slogans right there is the Parker games logo (and under it, the recommended age group). In the corner of the left side there is the Yellow 'Try new quick rules inside' caption. The colour scheme is simple - red and white and the presentation is simple.

The other copies are a little bolder. The Clone Wars copy has a blue galaxy sky as the backdrop, the Star Wars logo in place of the 'quick rules' caption and a circular decal with 'New Force gameplay' in Star Wars typeface. The saga addition again is different. It justifies the Monopoly logo slightly to the left, whilst switching the Star Wars logo to the right. On each Star Wars box, they have placed the slogan under the Monopoly logo.

Both copies clearly have to redesign their boxes to allow the necessary advertising of the Star Wars brand and also to appear more appealing than the traditional box - as to persuade both the new buyer and people with monopoly sets already at home that they need that copy. On the other hand the Original Monopoly copy is almost overly simple. It doesn't really need to describe or sell itself to the public, given its astronomical reputation. Instead it simply just sells through the brand name.

So it is obvious that all sides of the box are important, not just the large box cover. This is normally only presented in shops for the well-known fancy games. This will mean that whoever is designing the box art will have to focus the attention actually on the side of the box. This is what the customer will see and it must be able to 'Hook' them. Then they will slide out the box and look at the cover.

Point: Use box sides to Hook the audience. Use mystery or fancy styling’s to do so perhaps?

          Then having done that the Cover/Back needs to make them WANT to buy it

      

The traditional Monopoly box is pretty simple. It retains it's mainly red and white colour scheme and has a photograph of the board taking up around two fifths of the cover. Above it the Monopoly logo takes up most of the space (once again the logo is in large typeface below it). In the top right corner it advertises its 'quick rules' in an identical fashion to how it was presented on the side.

The Clone Wars edition continues the sky backdrop onto the cover of the box. The Monopoly Logo is identical in Size, Position and Style to the original box. Below there is the Star Wars logo centred and the 'Battle of the Force gameplay' decal.  To either side characters have been picked from the film and placed around the various logos. It is from these that it is easy to tell that this copy had been crafted around a film, as they are direct screenshots.

This board game box-design is the most extravagant as it is made from slightly holographic/shiny card that reflects in the light. Furthermore the characters have been drawn and rendered in such a way that is both dramatic and realistic. The artist has chosen to use several movement lines to force your eyes into the centre of the box, and perspective based poses to depict a sense of drama. In the bottom left corner, there is a small golden area that advertises the detailed brass figures inside. This clearly is meant to be seen as a powerful selling point, else the box design wouldn’t have been as disturbed by the inclusion (compare the blue company logo to the bottom right with the area used for the figure advertising to determine how valuable they think that is).

Obviously, the design variations continue onto the back panels of the board game boxes, however it mainly retains the same template for each of the three versions. A large image of the playing surface takes up around just under half of the space, and the background colours continue onto the base. Furthermore details of the game are written to the left of the image. The back is somewhat less impressive than the front - as by the point where the customer is looking at the back; the key battle has been won (for the game to have been slid out of the display and taken into consideration). It is at the back where all that needs to be done is the game needs to be described, and other features advertised.

    Still, the Star Wars editions have tried again to improve upon the original copy - offering a much more dynamic camera angle for the playing surface picture and in the case of the 'Saga Edition' some space has been devoted to advertising the Collectors figurines. This widens the market of the game to collectors, beyond fans of Star Wars. This isn’t evident on the Clone Wars Editions - simply being just a promotion of the second film.

Having studied the box artwork, and how it specifically uses each piece of space wisely to target particular people and views, I know that designing and making the box will not just be a task for one, but maybe three of our eight people. Much time needs to be devoted to all of those sides as it is an integral part of the board game - as a product. Of course, the course is games art and design, so the emphasis is on making a working game and its assets - however if we had to make this like a real product - which would be a good mind-set, then assigning some of the team to creating the box would be important.

 

Now that I've looked pretty in depth at the outer layer of advertising and superficial colour - now it’s time to analysis the inner box.

The traditional Monopoly inners is comprised of red, moulded plastic in a way that allows slots for the property cards, the money, the metal playing pieces, the chance/ community chest cards and the Houses/ Hotels. This basic template is identical in the below edition - just black material has been used. The way Hasbro has produced this means that it is up to the player to organise the way they want to place each object before play. This could either reduce or significantly raise the set up time - but the result will be down to the player.

One 'con' to this is that the assets can be mixed up if the box is turned in transition, which can be irritating.

The saga edition's moulding is similar, but is altered to house the limited edition figures.

Here are the 'Houses' and 'Hotels' from the three Monopoly versions. The 'Clone Wars edition (far left) features a tall futuristic apartment block as the house, whilst the Hotel is a large spiked structure. These are presumably based off similar structures from the planet 'Coruscant' - a location in the second Star Wars film. These buildings, whilst being made of the same cheap, hollow, moulded plastic are a far cry from the simplistic original monopoly buildings. Those buildings are identical but for the fact that the red 'Hotel' is larger and not green. The Saga Edition Houses are similarly as complex as the Clone war's, if not more. The smaller white building is reminiscent of the buildings on Tatooine, whilst the 'Hotel' is a grey, small cityscape. The mechanical moulding process is obviously much more detailed for the Saga Edition than the other two.
         But as was evident with the way the box was presented, the Saga Edition is clearly aiming for the collectors market. This is all the more blatant when you consider the playing pieces below.

So far, Hasbro's has thought well and hard about how it can best fit in key aspects of the Star Wars universe - while keeping the production costs the same. I say this considering how, while Clone wars and Saga essentially become increasingly fancier, the materials, templates and actual manufacturing remains roughly the same. The card used is the same, as is the playing surface material. All that changes is what the mould looks like for the plastic assets, a few small rules and what is actually printed. The biggest variation is in the way the playing pieces have developed but even this isn’t hugely different.

The original monopoly piece is hollow and made of a thin silver metal. The Clone Wars 'Obi Wan' is similar, but with a different material used. The only variation is really with the Saga edition Obi Wan. It is made of a darker, fancier looking metal. Furthermore it is larger and features a coloured base. Also, it is clear that the moulding is far superior - offering greater likenesses and more extravagant characters can be made (General Grievous). This is where Hasbro's has had to pour more time into - to truly make it appeal to collectors in addition to their expected market.

Day 5: Playtesting from Day 3 (Cluedo)

The second game we played was Cluedo. Again the decision was chosen by my friends and I think once again a few things altered their decisions to why they wanted to play that game over others. Firstly the previous game 'The Worst Case Scenario Survival game' would have effected their decision. It was a question and answer ''race game'' and Cluedo is far removed from that genre. It is a Mystery / Strategy game. Also it would have likely have been Cluedo's reputation that also made them want to play it. It is well known and a ''classic''.
Like TWCSSG it was exceptionally quick to set up and familiarity with the game meant that the rules were refreshed in about a minute, meaning all players knew how to play (a problem with Scotland Yard was that they had to be ''guided'' by another player). The game comprised of:

-A large board divided into eight rooms. In the centre there is the logo and a graphic of a set of stairs.
-6 playing pieces (in this edition, each piece represented a character)
-2 dice
-A series of notepad paper with each object, a tick box and a notepad design printed onto them
-A series of cards with each object, character and place on them
Several metal representations of the objects

The game took the longest out of the 3 to set up but this said the actual set up time was low. The rules were that each player would pick their character. Then one player would shuffle the cards, placing three into the card folder to be hidden, and distributing the rest to the players. The players would then note down which cards they held. Each turn the players would move to around the board trying to traverse the rooms. In each room they would announce 1 Person, 1 Object and their current room. If any of the players had those cards they would show one of them (By doing this, players slowly eliminate all but 1 Person, 1 Object and 1 Room). At this point (or any during the game) the player can announce their final conclusion. They then look at the cards in the centre. If they are correct, they win – else they are kicked from the game (as they know who it is).

The game played well, and was good as it relied on strategy (whether to pursue your own thoughts or throw out a red herring).  The game time was 30 minutes each time (we played twice). This game time was perfect as it wasn’t too short and was long enough to warrant a second play.