Devlog 4

During this week (September 12 and 14), we were divided into groups to focus on developing a board game based on a sport. My group chose to create a game based on competitive tag. In the video "Making it Matter: Lessons from Real Sports" (05:41), Bennett Foddy states that one of the reasons why sports and eSports have found more success in mattering than other video games is the aspect of performance, which is meant in two ways. One (physical performance) is that players must know both what to do and how to do it; the moves are not trivial, and it is difficult to replicate the same sequence of actions exactly. The other is that sports are performative, with meaning being communicated between players and the audience. For our game, we chose to add depth using spaces of varying heights that restrict movement in certain ways, adding an element of strategy in negotiating the terrain. At 09:31 in the video, Bennett Foddy makes another point about stakes, which are basically missing from games; higher stakes make a game matter more. We chose to raise the stakes in our game by implementing a hard limit of eight turns for the game's length; we also balanced the game by decreasing movement for certain players as one side gets closer to winning to keep the game close and the stakes high. Finally, at 21:07, Bennett Foddy states that a game can be given performativity by having live spectators watch in person or online. We chose to implement this by allowing four players to play our game at once, which required reformulation of the rules to make work. We are still in the process of refining our game; one of our new ideas is adding walls to enhance the strategic aspect of the game.