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.
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