Blog Post 8: Final Project

So my team has finally assembled. It includes Borum C., Jason S., Tri N., and myself. We have chosen to implement my original idea for the board game prototypes. I think we have decided after a few test runs that we will keep the board exactly the same, but may have to adjust a few rules in the game to make the board game a bit more decisive rather than a war of attrition towards the end.

Some thoughts came to mind:

• Find a way to make a 2v1 fight more rewarding for the side that has 2.
• Should we include killing opponent pieces or a more severe penalty for losing a battle? I think this would be too gamebreaking.
• I thought maybe a 2v1 would give a roll bonus for a battle, but that means the two involved would be frozen after the battle. I felt like this would be the best way to improve the decisiveness of gameplay. People can of course choose to take it as two separate 1v1s or choose to lock down and do a 2v1. However, this may lead to destroying the harmony of having that 1 annoying piece on positive territory.

We've decided to perhaps as our final prototype, use Adobe Illustrator to create a print-out of the board and then laminate it. We can maybe put it on a foam board. For game pieces I will just go to a board game shop and purchase the necessary materials. We still have to work out some of the finer details of the rules, but we will get some play-testing done on Wednesday to hopefully finalize the board game.

Play-testing resulted in wars of attrition

Blog Post 7: GPS Game

I literally have the worst luck when it came to experiencing Pokemon Go. When the game came out, I was busy taking 21 units. I promised myself to not start something I know I wouldn't be able to finish. I wasn't quite sure what the game would entail, but I knew that once I was done with the nightmarish semester I would get Pokemon Go, and be the best pokemon master amongst all my friends.

When the semester finished I was prepared to install Pokemon Go. I installed it, on my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 from 2012. From 2012. The hardware was not prepared to handle Pokemon Go and would result in either many, MANY skipped frames playing the game, or resulting in the phone freezing and/or crashing.

Even worse, when this assignment started, I took some pictures of people playing Pokemon Go after class on Wednesday. Alas, the luck of my phone struck again and my phone became a brick on Thursday. I've sinced bought a phone on eBay (to grandfather my very old data plan and its low cost) that can hopefully handle Pokemon Go, but it seems as the fad has already run out.

Here are a few pictures, unfortunately unrelated to our class playing Pokemon Go due to my phone bricking. I've since discovered some of the mechanics for the game and I've decided I don't like Pokemon Go. These mechanics are more or less spending the necessary time to just be at places and just doing some tapping on your phone. There really wasn't much skillfulness involved. As an old school gamer, these are the sorts of games I detest. I enjoy games that can exemplify my skill without the need to spend more hours than other people. I really dislike games where if you are the best, you are only the best because you spent the most time playing and not being clever, witty, or skillful playing the game.

A game I probably have already lost the window to play at