Devlog 8

This week was a challenging week, to say the least. The card game we were working on turned out a bit of a challenge! The playtest ended up being very helpful and revealed some deep-rooted issues in our game’s rules. When reading a chapter in the assigned book, I found something that made me reflect on playtest day. The book mentions the five kinds of listening (team, audience, game, client, and self). Jessee Schell: Ten Tips for Productive Prototyping, “And the only way to know what will make them happy is to listen to them deeply, getting to know them better than they know themselves”. This was an excerpt from the listening to your audience part of the five types of listening. When we had other players trying out our game, they made great suggestions such as more action cards and maybe some designs on the color cards to indicate what they meant. We certainly have a lot more work to do before our game is the best it can be. However, we are a dedicated team with a lot of imagination. Speaking of that, the other type of listening that has been so vital to where we are now is listening to your team. Jessee Schell: Ten Tips for Productive Prototyping, “Together, your team might have all of them. If you can listen deeply to your team and truly communicate with them, you will all function as one unit, as if you all shared the same skills.” This was certainly true for us. At the very beginning, we got together and assigned each group member a role such as the person in charge of art, design, rules, and the overall leader of the group. I oversaw the art portion of the game. I went out and bought a bunch of supplies and made the drawings for the playing cards. While I was doing this, I would ask for some feedback and opinions on what I should do. Together, we were able to make fast decisions on what the aesthetic of the game was. The last type of listening that I feel was used the most is listening to your game. Jessee Schell: Ten Tips for Productive Prototyping, “Like a mechanic who can tell what is wrong with a car by listening to the engine, you will get to know what is wrong with your game by listening to it being played.” During playtesting, we were able to tell so much by just sitting back and watching out game being played by outsiders. Overall, we have a solid game that just needs a bit of touching up after gaining valuable knowledge from playtesting. We cannot wait to revamp our game and release it once again!