Bad Pets: A Good Plan

Deadlines

Deadline 1: Wyvern’s Liar 20^th April – 100 words + 1 image

Deadline 2: Playtest Slot at UKGE

It is a good thing to have a deadline, it focuses the mind and the intentions.  For deadline 1 I need a game that I know people find fun, exciting, re-playable and most importantly sellable.  If it does all of these things and does them well writing a 100-word pitch will be a piece of cake.  Getting a “decent sketch” and generally good looking prototype for the photo will also be “Highly Desirable”.

From that point onwards I only want to be making small changes, little tweaks as I don’t want it to change too much between submission and (fingers crossed) presentation for Deadline 2.

GDA - Game Design Adjustments

This is a list of GDAs to bring the game up to what I have in my head.  Most of these have been part of the “original plan”, some have come as a result of playtester comments and feedback.  But right here, right now I’m writing them down and planning them.    With each Adjustment, though it is important to know at least 2 things:

1. Why am I adding it?


2. What is the intention?

Now, if these 2 questions cannot be answered and quantified then said “Adjustment” doesn’t go in the mix.  Answers such as “Just because.” Or “Its cool” do not count as answers.

My Adjustment List:

1. Bonus Scoring
   
   
   
   1. General Tiles
   
   
   2. Player Die
      
      
      
      1. Start of Game
      
      
      2. End of Game
      
      
      
      
   
   
   3. Clock/Picture/Window Tiles
   
   
   4. Four Player Game
   
   
   5. 3 Player Game
      
      
      
      1. 2 Vs. 1
      
      
      2. The Kid
      
      
      
      
   
   
   6. Boredom Busters and Beds
      
      
      
      1. Treats
      
      
      2. Toys
      
      
      
      
   
   
   7. Pets
      
      
      
      1. Guarding
      
      
      2. Attacking
      
      
      3. Movement
      
      
      4. Asymmetry (?)
      
      
      5. Penalties
      
      
      
      
   
   
   8. Bonus Scoring.
   
   
   
   

I have two ideas here and within those two ideas, I have a further two.  The bonus scoring will add modifiers if a set of, or certain furniture is damaged.

1. General Tiles – now this came about because of my love for Tera Mystica, and if you’re familiar with the turn scoring in that game you may notice some similarities. If you’re not then it works that 5 random tiles are drawn and laid on the board to indicate how that turn will score.  Bad Pets will just use 2 (although one of these is actually a turn reduction to create a faster-paced game).


2. Dice – These will have to be custom dice eventually really (I’ll create a little look-up table for early playtests) but these will give a more specific modifier, there’ll be one cat die, and one dog die and these will determine what will score for that specific animal

The What and the Why for these additions are very heavily linked.  Increase the strategy level.

In playtests, some very regular feedback was that strategy seemed a little light, and it was difficult to really set a goal and plan.

Graphic Time:

Let’s start with a heat map.  I put together a pretty decent post-game questionnaire that every player happily filled in, which allowed me to build this.  What this tells me is that the majority of playtesters felt the game had a medium level of strategy but it leant more heavily on chance.  Now, there will always be a sizable level of chance in Bad Pets; it’s a tile placement game so just like Carcassonne, Isle of Skye etc. chance plays a pretty integral part of the game.  Now, if I can increase the level of strategy, give players something more to think about, something else to aim for my hope is that my Strategy score goes up and I can hit that sweet spot of High Chance and High Strategy – this, in turn, will hopefully make the game more replayable and more worthy of coming to the table.

My other choice I have here, and I feel more inclined to let the player decide which is best suited for the game they want. 

Are the bonus tiles/dice decided at the beginning of the game?

Deciding at the beginning of the game gives players something to really fight over: great – however, this is a Mechanical decision. However; deciding at the end of the game potentially gives players an added bit of drama and tension (especially in close scoring games), this then would be a Thematic decision.

Story Time:

Now I’ve come home from work or a day out, on more than one occasion to discover my dogs (I’m not a cat person, and my dogs are really not cat dogs) have chewed a remote control, a console control pad, a book, shredded a magazine, smashed a mug, pulled the carpet up (and then proceeded to eat the underlay) and have also taken chunks out of the sofa.

Note: on these occasions, I have not scolded, reprimanded or told my dogs off – the destruction they cause is really my fault; not enough exercise, too many treats, too long left alone, not enough interesting toys left out for them and so on.   

The point here is that when there is a lot of destruction it’s not always the biggest, most expensive item that causes the most upset – in the above example, the most upsetting thing was a particularly beautiful picture of my partner and me at a wedding.  So for me, at least the thematic decision seems right, but we’ll have to see how it playtests.

2-4 I’m not going to list every change and the ‘whats’ and the ‘whys’ as it will just make for dull reading, just rest assured that change will come.

5 & 6 Boredom Busters, Beds & Pets

The biggest, most consistent feedback I received was regarding the pet pawns, and truth be told, I was fairly sure this would be the case going into the playtest.

What exists at the moment is a really good idea, that hasn’t been executed fully.

The primary function of the Pets is to Guard a tile; preventing an opponent from changing it. This simple mechanical aspect of “worker placement” adds a very slight bump to the strategic value of the game.

The secondary function of the Pets is to fight/chase the opponent pet away, thus preventing the Guard and now allowing access to a previous inaccessible tile.

Super-Mega-Important

Getting the Pets right is pivotal to the success of this design:

There really is no down-side to the pets, unless they don’t work well, which at the moment they don’t.

Boredom Busters and Beds

Just 2 ideas of how the Pet actions can become more dynamic.

Boredom Busters will become a weapon for players, forcing an opponent to miss a turn, and or disabling their Pet’s Guard – and thematically this works too.  Which is nice.

Beds will be an additional title, or game component: which is literally the pet’s bed that players will put down on one edge of the board, and now whenever a Pet is chased it will return to its bed.

Additionally, I could make the pets more asymmetric, or give them Hit Points, but; not only do I not want to open that can of worms, I’m certain it would up the complexity with very little gain.

So, there’s lots to do, lots of Alpha testing and hopefully, I can be in a position to get this to Charlie Level testing soon.

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed this more in-depth look at playtesting and a glimpse at the playtesting analyse that I’ve done.  You’ll find a copy of the questionnaire I used to get this data too if you want to have a look and adapt it to your needs, please feel free.

 

Thanks for reading folks

Prototyping – Over Prototyping Compulsion Disorder

Hello, my name is Rory and I’m an Over-Prototyper.

(This is where you say hello back to me in unison)

[caption id="attachment_76" align="alignright" width="300"] My tableau tile placement game: Bad Pets[/caption]

I suppose thematically it makes sense that I would write about prototyping at the beginning of my blogging journey, but also since I’m building version 2 of my current game (literally I’ll be glueing some paper to card as soon as I finished writing this blog post) it also makes chronological sense too.  Which is nice.

Now, I tend to make a bit too much of my prototypes; which as I’m told is a flaw common to many beginner designers.  I try to justify it to myself by saying it will be worth it, and it will make the game more visceral when I play test it, or even that I’m doing most of the work during my lunch break.  But truth be told, I’m just addicted to game frills.

I tried using sticky address labels and a deck or two of old playing cards, and it made me very sad.  I tried using paper cut-out squares and it just wasn’t for me.  When I figured out that I could use Microsoft Word’s table feature to perfectly duplicate the dimensions of

[caption id="attachment_77" align="alignleft" width="300"] A version 4 prototype of a game that is taking a break at the moment: Devil's Deal[/caption]

playing cards and that I could add colour and some graphics it was the end of moving a project forward, but I was blissful in my time wasting.

My experience so far, has been that most of my game ideas have only a certain level of what I’m calling “Enthusiasm Fuel”; that is, I only have so much time to turn an idea into something that I can put on the table before real life happens, another game idea comes along, or my Enthusiasm Fuel just runs out.

Case in point, I’m “working” on a Zoo building game, think Zoo Tycoon for the table top, with a deck building and worker placement mechanics and I went wa

My Zoo game has over 300 cards, all sleeved and backed, but has never been played.  Error :/

y, way over the top on making the cards.  (This photo is the first time I have even laid this game out).  It was fun but futile.  The game idea wasn’t bad, and at some point, I will go back to it, but I think there is (certainly for me) a real need to get the game out of my head and onto the table as quickly as possible.  Doing this is very tricky when a lot of your time is taken up with getting the right shade of purple (I very real problem I had, and how daft does that sound), however; I have developed a process.

 

My process isn’t written in stone, it’s not a set of rules or steps, it’s a guideline, and, as Rufus, the thirteenth apostle says “It’s a very good idea”.

Very Good Idea 1. Stop.  Just hold the dice and wait.  Think through the game, think through the player turn.  Really think about it – it is perfectly acceptable at this point to think “I’ll come back to that later”, in fact thinking that is great, it indicates that your game is layered; which is a good thing.

Very Good Idea 2. Write down (scraps of paper allowed) a list of components. This is like a shopping list of game parts – I do this so I can then figure out how much I’ve got to build, buy or borrow from existing games.  Writing this down will also help focus your mind.  Ask yourself what do you need to get the game skeleton (the most basic level of the game) on the table.  If you can only get part of it to the table, just get that part down, the rest will come.

Very Good Idea 3. Build it (must restrain oneself from clichéd Field of Dreams quote). This will take some time, the less time you spend here the better because this step will be repeated over and over, like a monkey with a miniature cymbal.  Remember the ABCC of building a prototype:

Audience – remember who you are building this for, to start with you’ll be playing against you, then friends and family, then strangers, then, if all goes well you’ll demo this to publishers or you’ll go down the Kickstarter route (to be discussed another time in another blog).  Make your prototype fitting for your audience; you, your friends and family will be happy to play with the most basic level of the prototype.  Simply turn the quality up a notch or two for each subsequent level of player.

“Bin-able” – your first pass at this will no doubt end up in the (recycling) bin.  As too will version two, three and four.  Do yourself a favour and don’t be precious about it.

Concise – just use the information required – fluff text and pictures take up too much time

Clear – your prototypes need to very understandable, chances are it will be pen on paper/card, all the same colour across everything, and when there are a lot of pieces on the table it will look quite unruly.

Very Good Idea 4. Play your game.  Play it lots.  Add to it, take stuff away, change it.  It’s yours and you can do what you want to it, but you’ll only improve it by putting it through its paces, simply called playtesting, which is what I’ll be writing about next week after I’ve taken my latest game to friendly local gaming store to be tested by strangers (exciting!).

This is the first of my prototyping blog post, there will be more bite-sized prototyping blogs at a later date which will deal with specific issues (art and custom pieces for example) in more detail.  Until then, it’s over to you.

Do you suffer from Over Prototyping Compulsion Disorder too?  Is it just a phase every designer goes through?  Is there anything you do during the prototyping phase that is different or extra?  Let me know in the comments.

If you’ve enjoyed this article hit the little star icon to let me know.

Thanks for reading folks!