Devlog 7

During this week (October 3 and 5), we were divided into groups of four to begin prototyping and playtesting our travel-themed shedding-type card games. My group chose to create a game that plays similarly to Uno, but we also added some other features to set it apart. One of these is that the wild cards can be used to negate another player's action card, and another is the addition of "group action cards". At the beginning of the game, each player chooses one of four roles that determine their interaction with group action cards of each of the four types; then, when a group action card is played, each player must draw or shed cards according to their role. Chapter 10 of Zach Hiwiller's Players Making Decisions goes into detail about decision-making in games; specifically, it discusses the anatomy of choices and certain types of choices, some of which are more interesting than others. Our game provides players with the choice of which card to play on their turn, which is not always obvious; for example, a player may face the dilemma of whether to play a powerful card immediately or save it for a later point in the game. Our instructor also provided us with the suggestion to require players to display some of the cards in their hand face-up for the others to see throughout the game; this would allow a greater degree of strategy based on the cards in other players' hands. Additionally, Chapter 11 of Games, Design and Play discusses playtesting, the third phase of the iterative game design cycle, which is what we did on Thursday. Playtesting the game required us to answer questions about how the game is played that we had not yet considered, which allowed us to gain a better understanding of how the game would work in practice.