game Iteration

In critical game design we had to make a board game in 15 mins,

Using card, dice, counters etc, I made a track game called Motor cross,

It was the normal run of the mill game, if you landed in the waster square you went back two paces, that sort of thing. The idea wasn’t to make a fantastic unique game in 15 mins.

Thank god for that! It was partly to help us understand that it’s better to do something fast and get it done, rather than just sit there twiddling your thumbs thinking up ideas. Get an idea working fast then go back and look at it, using iteration.

We looked at the games and added changes one at a time, then played the game with the new idea, that way if it worked we could keep it, if it didn’t it was easy to remove and reset the game state.

First I added a chance card like monopoly some would make you go back, some forward.

Also, a take your opponents sparkplug card that you would keep until you landed on a square with another player on it, using the card would make him miss ago.

It worked a treat so it stayed in.

Second, was adding laps, the game was playing very fast so I added one lap. That also worked well so it stayed.

Last was a through the fence square, it was a second lane outside the main track it had twice the number of squares as the normal track so by the time you went down it and it  rejoined the main track you had lost some time. That also worked. So it stayed.     

The Iteration technique is one I use all the time, it’s the only way I can work with the rendering software I use, there are so many settings if it was done any other way you would be completely lost.