ePortfolio Post 6 (Rule Sheet 3)

Group Number: 2

Game Summary

The title of our game is Pimp City. Players go around town picking up people and try to have successful dates. The more you date, the more item your personal avatar has and the player with the most cool points wins the game. 

Iteration Process

From Rule Sheet V.1 to Rule Sheet V.2, we made multiple changes to our game. We knew that we had to better specify the turn mechanics from playtesting. We brainstormed different ways that turns could be taken and we finally settled on a simple mechanic. We implemented the rule into our rule sheet and playtested the new mechanic. We decided that it was the best solution because it was simple enough for the players to understand and was to the point. Through more playtests from other players we will get a better understanding of how well the new mechanic works.

A movement to a new location would equal 1 turn

Another change we made was making the date success rate change from taking a chance on every move the player made to just taking a chance on the date. We initially gave players a certain success rate for every move they made but felt this parlay-style win mechanic was too difficult and not fun. We made it easier on the player by only having them take a chance once they're at the date location. We felt this was much more player-friendly and didn't rely so heavily on luck.

Problems Encountered

A problem encountered during rule sheet development was trying to find a good movement mechanic. The one we had in place for V.1 wasn't very effective and was confusing. It took us a couple tries to come up with an alternative because we couldn't think of something that would be simple yet be complete so there weren't any holes in our game mechanics.

A problem encountered during self playtest results was that we weren't clear enough in the rule sheet, so we were stuck during parts of the playtest. We knew what direction the game was supposed to go, but we knew that playtesters would be completely lost since the rules and procedures weren't 100% completed for the game to be functional.

There weren't any major team management problems. If anything, we could have met earlier in the week to space out the work more evenly, but we were able to complete all the changes we wanted to make to the rule sheet.

Solutions

As stated before, we were able to come up with a movement mechanic that was an improvement from the original mechanic. It made the game run smoothly and was simple. Also made our rule sheet easier to understand because we didn't need to go into great detail to explain in the rules and procedures.

We wrote down all the problems we came across during the self playtest and wrote down possible solutions. Once we tried out the different solutions, we implemented them into our V.2 rule sheet. We mostly added new information to the rules and procedures and felt that the foundation of our game was solid.

We spent more hours on the days we did meet so that the amount of work that needed to be done was completed. We did it in a timely manner which made the rule sheet revisions less stressful.

Changes Going Forward

Some changes I would take going forward would be making sure the foundation and mechanics of our game were solid before trying to add extra mechanics or getting into the dramatic elements of the game. Also, I would want to spend more days with my partner going over what wrong and making improvements towards the game.