Week 03 - Realizing the Game

This past week, our team of three polished our prototype then went, along with the other teams, to presenting our game in front of the class by playing them through with our classmates. “Number King” was what our group presented, a game of chance amongst a sea of physical games. Many folk games, not limited to but including games like “Ninja”, while meant to encourage comradery - also encourages competition. Many of the games presented on Thursday followed suit and encouraged more fun where ours encouraged more strategy and drew out the game, dampening the energy of the players. “Competition isn’t always head to head” but in hindsight, a physical game would have likely both been better to play and better received by our playtesters (Macklin and Sharp). 

“Number King” was initially flawed, but we polished the game as best we could and brought the idea we loved to the table, hoping others would enjoy the folk game we created as a quick and fun time-killer. Ultimately, what we jointly created was enjoyable as a time-killer but, personally, that is all it looked to amount to. After playtesting while brainstorming with the people who playtested our game, the idea of constraint was brought to the table. The main mechanic of our game, presenting numbers between one through ten and hoping not to match the chosen number king, created a long game when a smaller group of people were playing. It seemed that “putting limits on player actions [,] interactions with the objects, other players, and the playspace” by restricting the numbers able to be chosen to one through five, made the game quicker (Macklin and Sharp).

This change made “Number King” faster, allowing for rapid changes of the gamestate, helping build up the energy of the players and making the game easier to enjoy. However, “a well-designed game provides feedback on player actions” and our adjustments still did not fulfill our desires for the final project- a fast paced game of change that could be played anywhere, with anyone, and for any reason with fun. Despite the lack of actual promise within the gameplay, there was a theme present, providing a “logical framework for how the game represents itself”  (Macklin and Sharp). The number king acts as a tyrant and the game is the revolution, hosted by the players or number peasants. If the king wings, they continue their tyranny and if the peasants win, then the revolution is won and liberation is brought to the number kingdom. This theme brought no new gameplay, but in hindsight, could have, to end up making our game better.

Ultimately, our game wasn’t not a folk game, but failed to encourage fun despite an interesting theme and initial idea. The lesson on trying not to hold onto ideas too tightly became, at the end of this project, something to truly reflect on. Perhaps, if our group had more time, “Number King” would have become a proper and fun folk game, but holding onto the idea ended up being a detriment in our progress and resulted in a lackluster game.