Devlog 9

This week in class, we took the time to learn more about battle games. Games that are strictly about competition and using your own skills to beat your opponent. I must say that I really enjoyed this segment of class because I enjoy games where I can play just by myself against another opponent. As an example, we got to play a game called Battle Battle. This is a two-player game that involves one playing card with a role such as a wizard, sorcerer, berserker, robot, cat, etc. As well as some dice. Each card has a certain power such as 8 hit points or immunity. Playing this game was very insightful for me because I have not played very many card games like that. After playing this game, we were then assigned new groups to make our very own battle game. The key to this assignment however is no violence. This makes it incredibly difficult because games that involve combat or some sort of war tactics are the best kinds of games. However, we came up with a poker-type game that we think will be a huge hit. I love the fact that we already have a running idea. However, I feel that one of the hardest aspects of this project is going to be balancing the element of competition, with how easy the game is to understand. Chapter 13: Game Mechanics Must be in Balance, “To novice designers, the business of balancing a game seems quite mysterious—but really, balancing a game is nothing more than adjusting the elements of the game until they deliver the experience you want.” One game that I feel would be a great role model for ours is none other than the original poker. Obviously, our game is loosely based on poker. I mean more about how the game is balanced. Design Lessons from Poker- Richard Garfield, “One of Poker’s distinctions is how much luck it has. Anyone can win a hand of Poker. Yet there is a lot of skill to the game. This betrays one of the popular myths in game design – that skill and luck are opposites. They are better considered as two axes.” Finally, we want our game to be quick. We all discussed how much we hate sitting in a card game where it takes hours to complete. Design Lessons from Poker, “With Poker each hand only lasts a few minutes – so having a lot of skill will – probabilistically – show itself within a fairly short time, even if not in every hand.” Overall, with everything we learned from the readings and our solid idea, I say we have a pretty kick-ass game coming up!