Car(d) Chase Second Game Write Up

Car(d) Chase Second Board Game Write Up

This blog post is an update from the previous entry; my partner and I formed the group called Evil Leprechaun Entertainment. We were given the topic of creating a simulation game for 30-40-year-olds. Are game is called Car(d) chase; it's a game about cops and robbers; your job as a criminal is to evade the cop and traffic all the way to the exit; your goal as a cop is to evade traffic and capture the criminal before he escapes. 

This game is targeted at Storytellers because it's a classic Cop and Robber scenario with perks that give a little character to the characters; storytellers play games with a rich story like The Witcher and Skyrim. This game also targets Craftsman because this game is a bunch of strategic decisions to outsmart your opponent; they play games like civilization and halo wars.

 At the start of this project, my group's goal was to create a cops and robbers game; we looked for reference around the internet to decide whether our version of the idea was original in its mechanics. 

Once we were good we started to brainstorm how the game would work; we came up with the Character Cards pretty fast but we encountered a big wall in production; this was our main mechanic movement, and we didn't know how to implement it. 

We tried two different methods: one was dice rolling but we decided that was too random of an outcome, and the other one is the three card movement system which was the one that we went with in the end; this is because it's so unique compared to the standard random dice roll. Another problem that we ran in to was our board; we had no clue on how to design the thing so we just threw a design on there for the first playtest. 

The first playtest was a disaster but we ended up getting really good feedback from it; a total of 2 groups tested are game. Both groups when they read the rules and tried it out actually ended their games very quickly so they spent the leftover time telling us stuff that we should add, fix, and take away from the game to make it work as intended.

This first playtest was definitely a learning experience for my partner and I. After this feedback we got right back to work trying to make this a great game; we completely changed the board because during the first playtest every group somehow broke it when my partner and I tested many different ways. 

We also decided that there should be a space on the board that benefits the players rather than harming them so we came up with the * spot which lets the player who landed on it call out a card for their next movement.  

The second playtest showed some more flaws in our game design; during the playtest we saw that players didn't fully understand the rules; this in turn caused for more quick rounds. We were told that this is a fun concept and would really work but the board design is the real game killer.

The second playtest definitely told us how close we were to fixing everything; we had three groups play it and we got some good feedback and some mixed opinions. Most of the feedback this time was aimed at the rule sheet; now it was on the longer side but that wasn't the reason that people complained; they wanted a clearer rule sheet, and we were given feedback of moving the important information to the front of the rule sheet. We were also given the thought of "did you think to start the two players on separate lanes." So we got great feedback to improve the game overall.

My whole development process needs to be improved still; I don't get enough solo playtests in to really form an opinion on the game, and my main reason is because of my other classes. For this next game, I really want to have a better game before the playtest, because each time I think we have a good game it gets picked apart and then we have to work with a bunch of problems that we thought were fine. 

Car(d) Chase Game Write-up

Car(d) Chase Board Game Write Up

At the start of this unit, we were randomly assigned topics based on our group number. My partner Christian and myself are group 5, are group name is Evil Leprechaun Entertainment and the topic we made was a Simulation game for 30-40-year-olds. 

The game that we worked on for the last week and a half is called Car(d) Chase, this is a game where a criminal is running from a cop. Traffic plays a role in the process of this game, it makes you coin flip to see whether or not you hit traffic. Movement is a key part of this game, you move with 3 playing cards but after each card move, it alternates movement between the cop and criminal. 

My group's goal for this game was to attract the Storytellers because we gave backstory to the characters in different scenarios, we also were attempting to attract the Craftsman because our game requires strategic thinking and problem-solving skills. 

Christian and I encountered a few problems when creating Car(d) Chase. Some of these were how the player should move, what the character cards should be, and how to create the board. I'll go into more detail now.

Player movement was a big topic of discussion because we didn't want something that was super simple but we didn't want it to be a massive hassle to move. We tried dice but decided against it because it's way too random in a chase game. The solution that we came up with was a 3-card movement system where when you move with 1 card your opponent moves with 1 card. This balanced the game to where the other player was never too far behind and they always have a chance to catch up. 

Christian and I thought of the great idea of putting in cop and criminal perks, we thought long and hard about what they should be because we didn't want the traits feeling busted so we made 3 traits for each class. For example, Coffee and Donuts for the cop: It allows the cop to coin flip traffic before he makes a move so he can plan accordingly. Bank Robbery in Change for the criminal: It allows the criminal to throw a bag of change behind him to act as unavoidable traffic for the cop this gives the criminal a little lead.

We were carefully deciding how to create the board so that it didn't feel too unbalanced for 1 side. We thought that if we gave them only 1 exit that it would be a very boring game of cat and mouse so we decided to give the players 2 choices of escape with a few ways to get there. We added the traffic spots to make the game a little more interesting. 

When we wrote the rule sheet we were trying to think of every outcome that people could think of so we ended up making the rule sheet a little confusing.

On the day of the playtest we were confident that the game was is working order but we were very wrong. When people read our rule sheet they looked like they had a general idea but got confused on little details like when moving you alternate but instead 1 group moved all 3 cards at once, so we had to explain and clarify missing parts in the rules. 

When the first group tested the game we saw an immediate problem in are design, there was nothing stopping the cop or criminal from changing direction so group 1 prolonged the game by 10 minutes. 

When group 2 tested it they also had a general idea for the rules but didn't count correctly when it came to movement, this resulted in 2 very short rounds because the criminal lost to unlucky traffic roles.

 From both groups we were given feedback, they told us to add some more mechanics, improve the character cards, have different spaces do different things, and also reduce how random it is.

What I wish that we did for this project before the playtest would have been adjusting the rules a little more because not everything was explained that well and I would have wanted more detail. 

For my development process, I believe that we made a creative game it's just again we didn't play it enough. This time I got to meet with my group member 2 times a week and we always chatted over messenger, Christian's schedule wasn't super cluttered so I had more opportunities to meet up with him.