GAME STUDIES- PROJECT 1

April 07, 2023

GAME STUDIES- PROJECT 1

Week 1 (7/4/23)
Student: Tai Ser Yeet (0345798)
Programme: Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media
Task: Project 1

INSTRUCTIONS

MODULE INFORMATION BOOKLET

Fig 1.1 Module Information Booklet, Week 1 (6/4/23)

WEEKLY ASSIGNMENT BRIEF AND TRACKER

Fig 1.2 Weekly Briefs & Tracker, Week 1 (6/4/23)

PROJECT 1

WEEK 1 -

First and foremost, Ms. Anis instructed us to choose our teammates for the group project. We had to have 5 people per group. Below is a screenshot of my teammates' personal details.

Fig 1.3 My Groupmates, Week 1 (6/4/23)

After getting into our groups, my groupmates and I began brainstorming the possible references we could extract from nostalgic childhood games in many forms such as tabletop, card games, or even those made from pure sheets of paper. Games thrown to the table include Temple Run, Subway Surfers, Pet Society, Purble Place, Monopoly, UNO, and more. In order to produce a tabletop game that could attract a young and saturated community, it has to be high on the level of relatability. For context, players need to be able to connect with the content and concept of our game in order to find it interesting and memorable.

Fig 1.4 Group Project Brief, Week 1 (6/4/23)

One idea came about whereby we would create a Taylor's Edition of the Monopoly board game. The game revolves around this duckie character getting dictated by his luck with the school's social customs, be they good or bad. Players would choose their own style of "duck" character and explore the facilities set on campus.

In the end, we have finalized our references and decided on:

1. Malaysian Dream

2. Monopoly (board game)

3. Louis Vuitton’s Playable SS23 Show Invite

4. Mafia Game

Jia Hsuan also suggested visiting a boardgame cafe to observe the various playing methods of different boardgames and possibly integrate a few of their interesting points into our own tabletop game.

DELEGATION OF TASKS

After class, we also opened a couple of documents to keep track of our tasks and ideas. I was in charge of researching the UNO game and writing the problem statement.

Fig 1.5 Task Allocation, Week 1 (6/4/23)

Fig 1.6 Miro Board, Week 1 (6/4/23)

DATA COLLECTION

INSTAGRAM STORY

To proceed with our idea of doing a Taylor's Monopoly Board game, I have created a social media post on Instagram.

Target Audience: Malaysian University Students

Purpose: To obtain the various perceptions of Taylor's University from young students & outsiders.

Benefits to our game: Helps us increase familiarity and relatability of the game which makes it much more appealing to our audience

Fig 1.7 Instagram Q&A, Week 1 (6/4/23)

RESULTS OF DATA COLLECTION

Fig 1.8 Responses from Q&A, Week 1 (6/4/23)

WEEK 2 -

DATA COLLECTION

VISIT TO A BOARDGAME CAFE (12TH APRIL 2023)

The place that we visited was called Invictus Forge located in the Tropicana Gardens Mall. Below are the pictures and videos that we took during our trip there.

Fig 2.1 Documentation of the Trip Q&A, Week 2 (12/4/23)

Fig 2.2 Documentation of the Trip Q&A, Week 2 (12/4/23)

OVERALL EXPERIENCE & TAKEAWAYS FROM THE BOARDGAME CAFE

After the trip to the board game cafe, each of us wrote down our own personal experiences and understandings from playing the various types of games available. For easy referencing, my write-up is located on page 4 of the document below.

Fig 2.3 Write-Up of Our Playing Experiences, Week 2 (13/4/23)

On Tuesday, we conducted a meeting whereby each of us was delegated a task to complete for the ideation stage. Pei Yun and I were in charge of finishing the fun facts section. I took the responses gotten from my Instagram Q&A and interpreted their meaning to form the ideas for action cards.

Fig 2.4 Taylor's Fun Facts Document, Week 2 (13/4/23)

Fig 2.5 Game Experience Document, Week 2 (13/4/23)

WEEK 3 -

MORE DATA COLLECTION

Ms. Anis declared that this week's class was self-directed which meant there was no class conducted due to the Hari Raya Celebrations. To make full use of our spare time, my groupmates and I scheduled a meet-up to play the various Monopoly games such as the original Monopoly board game as well as the Monopoly Millionaire Deal Card Game. The purpose of this playtime was to gain insights into the thoughts and emotions of being a player in each game. This, in turn, could help us develop new ideas on ways to spice up our board game and also avoid mistakes made by the existing games in the market.

Fig 3.1 Compilation of Game Exploration, Week 3 (20/4/23)

Fig 3.2 Compilation of Game Exploration 2, Week 3 (20/4/23)

OVERALL EXPERIENCE & TAKEAWAYS FROM PLAYING THE MONOPOLY GAMES

Once again, each of us wrote down our own personal experiences and understandings from playing the Monopoly games. My write-up is located on page 3 of the document below.

Fig 3.3 Write-Up of Our Playing Experiences, Week 3 (20/4/23)

Fig 3.4 Miro Board for Visual Design, Week 3 (20/4/23)

During this week's meeting, we needed to settle a couple of things such as choosing the number of odd & even cards, the number of duck characters, and the number of players. In the end, these numbers were determined by superficial aspects as well as facts relating to Taylor's University.

While we were discussing the monetary system for our board game, I suddenly had an idea to use cute components to represent our social and academic credits. I was envisioning the size of the credits to be something similar to a small candy.

Fig 3.5 Example of the Cute Components, Week 3 (20/4/23)

Fig 3.6 Initial Gameplay, Week 3 (20/4/23)

WEEK 4 -

PROGRESS OF PROPOSAL

During class, Ms. Anis came to our group and gave us useful feedback on our progress. In short, she said that we wanna create a game that reflects university life but should avoid the mention of Taylor's name in order to prevent any issues of copyright and sensitivity from arising.

Following Mother Anis's feedback, we tweaked our game concept and gameplay, and that shall be the concept that we will present in our proposal. Besides that, our group divided tasks amongst ourselves whereby Jacqueline, Pei Yun, and I focused on completing the action cards whereas Jia Hsuan & Ember brainstormed on the duck character designs.

Fig 4.1 Sketches by Jia Hsuan & Ember, Week 4 (27/4/23)

Fig 4.2 Sketches by Jia Hsuan & Ember, Week 4 (27/4/23)

Fig 4.3 Progress for Action Cards, Week 4 (27/4/23)

WEEK 5 -

TRIAL PLAYTEST
I was in charge of making the two dice which are the normal dice and the +/- dice. YouTube was pretty helpful in guiding me on how to create the template for the paper dice. As for my teammates, Jia Hsuan handled the credits board, Ember with the character design, and Jacqueline & Pei Yun with the player tokens and board game design.

Fig 5.1 Timelapse of Trial Playtest Session, Week 5 (4/5/23)

Fig 5.2 Evidence of Trial Playtest, Week 5 (4/5/23)

PROPOSAL PREPARATION
After our trial playtest, we discovered many loopholes in the gameplay and noted them down to make the changes later on. Although we also felt that the game concept ought to be developed further, we have decided that we should stop right there and move on after the proposal because we needed feedback from Ms. Anis.

The following days were spent prepping for our proposal presentation documents and slides. Since it was an online presentation, we thought we could present it together for efficiency but in the end, we opted to do it individually and compiled it together due to the lack of time and for the sake of convenience.

The draft design layout of our game components was designed by Siew Weng while the duck characters were by Ember and Jia Hsuan. Despite Ms. Anis's tiring efforts and constant nagging at us to "keep the design simple", it is clear that none of us really listened(haha) and proceed with clean and rather finalized-looking visual elements anyway. (Sorry Mother Anis). For me, I was in charge of writing the gameplay rules and basic instructions.

Fig 5.3 Boards & Assets, Week 5 (4/5/23)

Fig 5.4 Game Setup With Assets, Week 5 (4/5/23)

Fig 5.5 Proposal Document, Week 5 (4/5/23)

Fig 5.6 Proposal Slides, Week 5 (4/5/23)

Fig 5.7 Video Presentation, Week 5 (4/5/23)

FEEDBACKS

WEEK 2-

General Feedback:

The game concept was quite interesting
Focus on how to interpret it to make it more appealing to your target audience
Keep in mind that your target audience might not just consist of returning students; it might also comprise new students who might not be familiar with Taylor's fun facts that you had created
The black crow- can be a bad character because the crow likes snatching people's belongings especially if they are shiny
Can either illustrate or reuse the visuals created by Taylor's marketing team, but be creative; you have the option of recreating the duckies' illustration
For the playtest, make the design ugly
The playtest helps you identify potential issues with your game; the designed version may be built after the play-test

WEEK 4 -

General Feedback:

Like a game of life (realistic university student life- balance social and academic life)
Credit points are based on social and academic.
We should change the board game's name to something other than the university name. This is to avoid sensitivity and copyright issues because if you want to incorporate contents that might be detrimental to Taylor's University's reputation then it is better to not mention the university at all.
Wordplay of names/scenarios in card games E.g. Narnia-> Alice in Wonderland
Implement point system: Academic/social credits (E.g. Likes/CGPA)
To give and take (When the players want other players to lose something...they themselves would also have to sacrifice some points)
E.g. You sabotage your friend, but you lose social points.

REFLECTIONS

Throughout the five weeks, I felt we were quite organized and on track because of our leader, Jacqueline. She neatly created all the documents equipped with hyperlinks into a google drive, assigned each member tasks equally, and most importantly, produced high-quality work. My other teammates were also very cooperative and responsive when it comes to discussing the project hence, making everyone stay on good terms with each other. In terms of the class environment, I appreciated how Ms. Anis took the time to give each team feedback which in turn, could help us view our board game from a different perspective. Not to mention that she always ended class early, giving us more time to do group discussion, and still go home early so that's a plus point. (yay!)