Killer- A board game

In our second unit of Game Changers we finished our game and perfect the  rules, looks, and mechanics for the game. Killer is a board game where players try to survive by not getting killed by another player and finding survival objects. Throughout the unit we looked at other published games and got professional advice to help us make our games the best they can be at the moment. We also reflected on mistakes and ideas that we've created in the past and used those ideas to further our game-play. Killer has evolved many times throughout it's creation and has taken many forms to be great.

As a player in Killer you move around the board playing as a killer or a survivor. The player moving as the killer is focusing on killing all other players in the game before they complete their objective. The killer does this by moving around the board with 2 4 sided die, and landing/crossing over the other player’s characters. 3 other players will play as survivors who roll a single 4 sided die to move their character and find hidden objects around the board that only the player playing the killer will know where it is. Players with survivor pieces will need to work together and use deduction to find pieces placed on the small map that only the player playing the killer can see.




Reflect

Getting Killer to where it is now, has been a long and difficult journey. When I first thought of the idea for Killer I was thinking about the name of the game Werewolf and correlated that to being some sort of killer that hunts players down. The first game layout started with the the board a little too much like battleship and that idea later transformed into the layout it is now. When it came to showing my game idea with the paper game board it was pretty difficult to play and explain because none of the rules had been written down or thoroughly thought of. During this play-testing session each group gathered feedback about how to improve or fix things about the game; I didn’t manage to get the most helpful feedback so most of the game evolution from there to the beginning of prototype 2 was my brainstorming.

Killer’s 2nd prototype was the game’s most important stage, from the feedback to the massive amount of necessary changes to make the game better in every way. In our first quarter of time that our 2nd prototype existed we didn’t have much time to play-test Killer, and only had time to fix up the rules to where we can put the game in prototype 3. Before we moved to prototype 3 we had Killer judged and shown off at a competition, where we gained a small bit of feedback on how to make the game a little more immersive.

After Chitag we took a break from all our games, and came back at them strong by talking to some professional game designers that gave us tons of incredible recommendations. The designer said that sometimes taking a break off of your game could be the most helpful step in making a game. We didn’t have much time to take breaks, but I was 2 steps ahead because I had already been doing that before we met the designer over our 1 week break. We then met with another game designer who recommended having a strong theme in a game was helpful; our game was already pretty themed but now that it’s more implemented into the game-play it works much better than before. This designer also came with other game designers, reviewers, and sellers to look at our games and give us lots of good info on making my game better; they were all such a big help when it came to getting these games closer to prototype 3 whether it was for the looks, player’s thought process, or the game-play.

"Killer first draft" (IF) 2016

Great Games

In our first unit of game changers we experienced different games and their qualities to see what made them so good, while also designing our own games to involve these qualities. We did research on the games that we wold recommend some people that were in some sort of scenario that involved a game. I chose a scenario that included kids in a summer camp that needed a game to play and could last a while, have limited amounts of pieces, and worked for a large group of children/teens. Two games that I felt fit the scenario are Werewolf and Tapple because of their specific strengths and minimal downsides.

WEREWOLF reference sheet

The popular game Werewolf has been around since 1986 and was created by Dimitri Davidoff and Andrew Plotkin. Werewolf is a game of deduction, trust, and betrayal. In Werewolf, players are given cards that assign them roles from either being a villager, detective, or a werewolf. Throughout the game, the werewolf (or werewolves) try to kill off all of the villagers before getting caught. Every role is anonymous to everyone playing, making it both challenging for the villagers to survive, the bodyguard/detective to protect and the werewolf to kill. In every round, all the players go to sleep for the night, but at certain times in the night the werewolf decides to kill someone at random while the detective/bodyguard tries to save somebody at random while also choosing a player at random to know their role during the night. In the morning, the announcer then announces that somebody has either been killed or had almost been killed but was saved by the detective/bodyguard. If somebody was killed during the night, then all players must vote on a player to be sacrificed in front of everyone; the player being sacrificed must show/share their role with everyone and is out of the game. If no players were killed due to the detective/bodyguard, the game continues. The game ends when all werewolves have been sacrificed or all the villagers and detective/bodyguard have been killed.

Measuring progress in Werewolf is pretty simple: if there is a small number of players left in the game and no werewolves have been caught yet, then clearly the werewolves are winning. That can change very quickly if somehow by chance all players just happen to vote the werewolves, they can lose the game. It’s very hard to tell if you’re winning in a game of Werewolf is you’re playing as a villager even getting one werewolf will barely help you because the other villagers can still be killed at the same rate if there were 2 werewolves. Playing as a werewolf is also very dangerous because each time you kill a villager, there’s a chance that you can die or you can survive.

Just like a lot of other games Werewolf’s game mechanics heavily depend on lacking information for players to win the game. Werewolf is also a pretty strategic game that only has the randomness of the decisions coming from the other players; otherwise, it gets all the players thinking about what other players are werewolves, villagers, or the detective. As a villager, it’s pretty necessary to not kill off the detective by voting. To win on either side, you need to conquer challenges like deduction and critical thinking; if you encounter a scenario where you think a player is a detective or a werewolf and they get killed and you’re wrong, good luck.

Werewolf is perfect for children and teens in summer camp because the amount of cooperation, communication, and trust needed for the game is a really enjoyable for younger ages. Werewolf heavily depends on communication among players because of the mandatory sacrifice at the end of each round, this part really gets players acting suspicious about other players and gets them really involved in working together. The real downside to werewolf is the strong theme that is killing of other players to win the game; it’s not the most kid friendly subject matter for a game.( Though I did play this with my group of kids who were in 3rd grade in summer camp while I was a counselor.) Luckily there are many versions of the games that don’t change the game-play but do change the theme, like a mafia version or a hunter vs. animals version.
-also no cards needed

"Werewolf" (IF) 2016 

TAPPLE reference sheet

Tapple is a fast paced, rapidly played game that challenges its players to be creative as possible. Tapple has very simple rules that allow for easy play that is both enjoyable and creative. In a round of Tapple, the 2 or more players race against a timer to come up with words that are in the category that the game displays on the bottom of the device. The challenge is that the words words that will be called out can only start with the letter that is left up on the device. ( If a category was furniture and the letter T is already down I can’t use any furniture that start with the letter T) When the time is up, the player whose turn it was is out of the game. At the end of a player’s turn, the player pushes/taps the center button on the device, making the timer last longer for the next player; the last player in the game wins.

Tapple is a pretty random game due to the random cards that may show up when switching categories. Players decisions are strategic in which they decide would be a good word for the game and putting down a letter. There’s not much room for strategy either in the game because if you are thinking about putting a bookshelf under B but a another player says it before you, then you’re not in a good position for any other answer under any other letter. (Unless you have multiple letters prepared.)

Tapple also involves a lot of player interaction that gets especially younger ages interacting with each other and getting creative. The game allows so much creative input because of the lack of starting letters that a player can choose from.

In Tapple, progress is tracked by the amount of players in the game and how easy it is for you to come up with more words. If you’re winning a lot games of Tapple and you are breezing past every category, there are some rules that can be created to make game-play more difficult like not picking any words that involve a certain letter (like playing a rule that says you can’t use the letter A in the category of fruit) or making the players say to words that match with different categories. The lack of letters in the game only makes it harder when playing the game. Tapple also is usually targeted towards younger ages because of the childish theme and the broad categories and how simple it is to play.

This game is amazingly fun to play because of the creativity and thinking it takes to play. Of the few downsides to Tapple, one is that game is also not too immersive (having an entertaining theme) and their is a short amount of playtime per round. I believe that the enjoyable game-play and the repeat -ability of the game makes up for that. (Not to mention that the game is also very durable and was designed like that because it’s intended for a younger audience.

"Tapple" (IF) 2016