On Friday, me and the rest of my game design class partook in a playtesting activity where we critiqued two in development educational games based on economics and finance. The first, "Shady Sam's" which was a game where the main goal was to con people by various means to make them pay the greatest loans possible. The second game was a tabletop game prototype to be made digitally later based on credit scores and paying off debts. Both were legitimately enjoyable, and I walked away with what I presume to be a more economically aware perspective. It's important to playtest with your target audience because no matter what, a room of adults will never be able to see completely into the minds of teenagers, so getting their input is more than necessary. As for the games themselves, I honestly see little to no problems at all with Shady Sam's, if anything I wished it could last longer! (Though then again this is coming from a person who can regularly clock in 100+ hours into most RPGs, so don't exactly trust me on this one) As for the prototype however, I feel like if there was a better explanation at the start, that would have eased me into things a bit quicker, and having an actual counter for the number of turns left, rather than a painted die, would work out much better. As for the gameplay itself, there definitely needs to be a bit of balancing done, specifically if you get a bad start, there's not much you can do as long as your opponent plays it safe. After all, if they never take expensive risks, they're almost guaranteed to win, especially if most of the chance cards only affect the individual, not the whole board or just your opponent.
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I have completed both light and dark versions (Day and Night) for all of our background scenes, and have designed a basic textbox for all of our main dialogue to fit in. I'm also in the process of finishing up any and all other characters we'll need in the coming scenes, but until I get that finished, I've created a Dummy character that Chloe can use for a placeholder for her coding. I don't know if she was able to figure out a streamlined way to get the text to load correctly, so she might resort to just using a lot of if statements in place of an array of some sort. I don't care how everything is set up in the code, as long as it works I'll be impressed. Though I fear the pressure might be getting to Chloe, and I wish there was something I could do to help lighten her load, however, just how I could help is something that I am unsure about. Maria has finished up the script, and she wants me to look through it, however I've been so busy with my own projects that I haven't had the chance to go through it yet. I want to edit it because while it is fairy decent on it's own, some moments are far too cluttered or far too sparse when it comes to dialogue and descriptions, and I got confused easily while reading through some sections. It's passable, but it's by no means a masterpiece, however with the amount of time we have left to finish everything up, I will be glad if everything gets implemented correctly. I don't think what we have now fits Maria's original vision at all, but If she's upset about it then she hasn't voiced her concerns. I think she's just like the rest of us; we just want it to be finished and working.
A stunning idea about manning a rescue boat with co. to learn navigational skills and how to prep for a possible disaster you may have to trek through. While I am very impressed for the concept, as the idea of being able to man a rescue ship in dire conditions and search for the remains of the survivors of the wreck is very appealing to me, I still am curious as to how various roles of the ship will be designed. For example, are you able to designate roles from the beginning, if so, who does this, and are they interchangeable throughout the progression of the game, or are they static for the entire duration? All in all, could this be a game that could be designed by students? Possibly, however, I don't believe it could be any students. A small ragtag group like ours probably couldn't, just with the numerous time constraints plus our limited members would make something like this a very difficult feat to accomplish. Not to mention, a game that is aiming to be as realistic as possible poses a threat on how well the game engine could load and display the map with all the current characters present within it and the various weather conditions it would need to simulate. Not to mention, water, clouds, wind, and various other types of weather can be some of the most difficult things to animate, not to mention just how all the parts would interact with each other. Even the boat would probably need to simulate some sort of weight so that players can get a feel for how to move without tipping overboard. However, this idea would be quite marketable since there doesn't seem to be any games that simulate this quite exactly, Its a subject that's up for grabs. Plus, the gameplay would probably be dynamic and unique in ways not usually seen before. Along with the dark atmosphere, and the urgent vibes players would likely feel during more active moments would create a simulation that could probably be enjoyed recreationally.
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Creator InfoThis is a blog for a Game Art Design class. Future programmer and currently an artist and writer. Archives
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