We began with The Worst Case Scenario Survival Game (TWCSSG). The choice of this was pretty interesting as I gave my friends the option of which game they wanted to play out of the above games and Risk, (Simpsons) Life and Monopoly (Original, Star Wars: Saga, Star Wars: Clone Wars). They chose TWCSSG over the other games. What did they base their decision on? Well none of us were familiar with the game rules so that ''mystery'' probably somewhat fuelled it. Furthermore in my previous posts I have been talking about how games often use bright colours or gimmicks to attract an audience - but yet TWCSSG has an extremely basic package design. It is simply yellow with the title in a basic typeface. Around the writing there are a few illustrations of sharks or jungles (clearly as signifier exotic dangers). I think given that they both could take a good solid look at the game box, they could make their decision out of that curiosity. However i wonder if the same could be said if it were one game amongst several in a shop like Langley’s or Toys 'R Us.
TWCSSG took only around 2 minutes to set up and had only 4 aspects to its contents;
-The board (which had a twisting ''track'' of footprints with small illustrations in a similar style to the box adorning the edges)
- The cards (these were some yellow cards with two sides of writing. They had a bold question title at the top of both sides and three questions below. One of the answers was in bold)
-The card box (this was made of plastic and just fit all the cards)
- Four coloured playing counters (The colours were Red, Blue, Green and white. They were in a similar shape to a traditional chess pawn)
After one of the players read the rules, he explained that:
- The order of turns is determined by who is the youngest and the oldest goes last
-The player rolls the dice.
-Another player picks a card randomly from the card pack and reads out the two questions - making sure that the other players can’t see it.
-The player choses which question they want
-Then all the three choices are read out and the player choses their answer.
- The ''reading'' player declares whether it is correct or not (the correct answer is bold on the card)
- If the answer is correct then the player moves according to their dice roll. If they are incorrect, they cannot move.
The aim of the game is to reach the end of the track.
From this description, it is safe to say that TWCSSG is a ''Race'' game as the aim is to reach the end of the track before other players. It also mixes in questions much like trivial pursuit. It is these questions that are the Unique Selling Point of this game. They are Survival based questions that will often rely on a player’s general knowledge being applied to a bizarre situation or on common sense. As a player several times I had to rely on ''informed guesses''.
Of course, due to not answering the question causing players movements to Holt, the gameplay time is determined by how successful players are at answering questions. Our playtest took an hour and twenty minutes to complete the game. This would probably extend to further with the maximum playing (four players (we had three)).
Pros:
-Unique slant on traditional race games and question/ answer games
-Very quick to set up
-Simple Rules
Cons:
-Can drag on if players cannot answer questions
-Basic package design won’t stand out enough on a shelf full of interesting, bold and licensed games
-While it is ''mysterious'' to new gamers, they are not likely to play it a second time and perspective buyers are not likely to buy the game based on just that
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