Project Title: Designing and Creating Engaging Games

 

Essential Question(s):

What is the relationship between design and development?

 

Statement of Purpose

 

For my Senior Project, I will create a board game to answer my essential question. I will meet with groups of playtesters to receive feedback and learn how to improve my ideas to create a final product– a fun, playable game.

 

Overview: Describe your topic and project to the committee.

For my senior project, Designing and Creating Engaging Games, I want to answer the question: what is the relationship between design and development?

In 10th grade, I was accepted into the TISCH School Future Game Designers program, in which we learned the fundamentals of game design for both physical, and digital platforms. As part of our final project for that course, we, as teams of three, were tasked with creating a board game. 

The process was long, hard, and ultimately not enough. We were given around 28 hours to complete a game, and while we were technically able to meet the deadline, it wasn’t fun, engaging, or polished. We created a design but didn’t have time to playtest, revise, or perfect. Since then, I’ve taken 2 more game design programs, one focused entirely on theory and design, and the other on digital development. I want to return to creating physical games for the chance to combine everything I’ve learned so far, while also getting the chance to learn new things. I want to, in a way, revisit my project from 10th grade to create something I’m proud of. 

At the same time, I’d like to get in contact with board game companies such as Gamewrite, ALEA, Blue Orange Games, Days of Wonder, Ravens Burger, Stone Meyer games, and more to ask them a series of questions related to my question, such as:

How do you get your ideas for a game?

What is the process of getting your game from idea to reality?

How do you incorporate player feedback?

Because there may be times where my main project is stuck at a standstill, I also plan to be working on a smaller side project. Dominion is a game that was released in its base in 2009 and sees its players building their own deck of cards with the end goal of having the most victory points. Since the game’s initial release, expansion packs have been created that add new features and variety to the game, while keeping it balanced and play relatively consistent. I learned to play Dominion when I joined the Games Club in 9th grade and have been playing ever since. As a side project, I’d like to create my own expansion for the game that would be able to be played either stand-alone or mixed in with other cards. This would give me an opportunity to answer my question from a different perspective, that of adding to an existing product.

In attempting to answer my question, I’ll be faced with the challenge of creating a creative game that not only makes sense to learn and play, but that incorporates player feedback. To do this I plan to split my time into 4 phases: research, design, creation, and testing. To start I’ll play through a wide variety of games, taking notes on what’s fun and engaging, and what distracts from the experience. After that, I’ll begin the design phase, where I made an initial plan for the game. Then in the creation phase, I built a prototype for the game. After that, I played the game with a consistent group of people, who gave me feedback. After that I repeat the cycle starting at design, using what I learned from playtesting to try and improve the game, the cycle continuing until I have a completed, balanced, fun game.

At the end of this project, I hopefully will not only have a better understanding of the relationship between design and development but also an expansion for Dominion and a fun game to play with family and friends.

 

How will you measure your success?

Learning Goals

1. Learn how to create a prototype and effectively change it
2. Learn how game creation happens in a professional environment
3. Learn how to work with different materials
4. Learn how to use feedback to enhance a project

 

Resource List

One resource is the book Becoming a Videogame Designer (Masters at Work) by Daniel Noah Halpern. Though about video games, I think this book could give me insight into game creation through the lens of large group/company cooperation and game creation in a corporate environment. I also believe, from my own experience, that there are elements of game design that transcend platforms. Though this book may teach me this isn’t the case, a realization like that could deepen my understanding of board games as their own medium, apart from other types of games.

 

Interviews with professionals from game companies as I explained in my overview.

 

Another resource is the youtube channel Prozd, which has a series about reviewing board games and analyzing what does and doesn’t work. As this series contains over 100 episodes, it would give me a chance to notice trends and the ability to avoid common pitfalls.

 

Yet another resource is the website Boardgamequest, a website dedicated to all things board games. It contains articles about all sorts of things, from game creation and reviews to in-depth explanations of game mechanics.

 

The final resource is the podcast The Game Design Round Table, a podcast all about different types of games with the goal of teaching its listeners all about game design. To do this they have frequent professionals join them as well

 

Daily Plan & Schedule

General Work Outline

Week 1

• Play through a wide range of games and take notes
• Read Becoming a Videogame Designer
• Create plan/game design doc for game
• Prepare for playtesting
• Make plans for Dominion Expansion

Week 2

• Create an initial prototype for the game
• Hopefully, have interviews with game companies
• Playtest game
  • Use feedback to make a new iteration
• Create initial Dominion Expansion

Week 3

• Create a new prototype for the game
• Hopefully, have interviews with game companies
• Playtest game
  • Use feedback to make a new iteration
• Playtest Dominion Expansion (insularly)
  • Use feedback to make changes

Week 4

• Create a new prototype for the game
  • Start constructing final parts for the game
• Hopefully, have interviews with game companies
• Playtest game
  • Use feedback to make a new iteration
• Playtest Dominion Expansion (both insularly and with other cards)
  • Use feedback to make changes

Week 5

• Create a new prototype for the game
  • Construct final parts for the game
• Hopefully, have interviews with game companies
• Playtest game
  • Use feedback to make a new iteration
• Playtest Dominion Expansion (both insularly and with other cards)
  • Use feedback to make final changes

Week 6

• Create the final product for the game (only small changes at this point is necessary)
• Write official ruleset
• Playtest game

 

Documentation Plan

I plan to document my plan with a slideshow. I think a slideshow will work well because I can use it to easily show my progress and I can add a lot of visuals showing both the conceptual and physical progress I make. I plan on making two detailed slides a week.

 

Material Needs

For material needs, I’ll need some sort of cardboard or foam core to create the board of my game, as well as basic art supplies like tape, stapler, scissors, glue gun, etc. I also think I’ll also need some air dry clay to create my game pieces, and cardstock and card sleeves to create any cards for my game. I’ll also need access to a printer. Most if not all of these items I either already have access to, or can get from my local craft store. I’ll also need a space at school at some point to hold some of my playtests.

 

Backup Plan

If for whatever reason I can’t make a physical game or playtest in person, I found alternatives to make a card game online. I would remove the Dominion expansion entirely and focus on learning how to create my game online, which would require I learn some coding and new software.