Polaris

My name is Theron Rex Howard, my partner is named Landon Mote, our group name is team Dragon, the number is group 10, and our game is called Polaris

Polaris is a turn based strategy game for college students who are interested in strategy games. In Polaris, you have to build your base and create your troopers to defeat the opponents soldiers and destroy their command center.

  

In the game, you start off with a command center, and $300, and you have to build resource buildings, barracks, and an armor factory, to build your troops to fight the enemy. The combat is based on dice roll, where each soldier has a certain number of dices. Some soldiers also have special abilities, like the light/scout vehicle can move two spaces. You then have to defeat the enemy troops, and get to the command centre and destroy it before they destroy your base.

There were many problems with the game, with complexity being the most important one. Due to the amount of troops that we had, and the amount of rules we needed, it was a lot to take in at once, and it was hard to get rid of some because the game needed those rules to work well. What we did instead was separated the rules to two pages, one for actual rules, and one for the troopers, and my partner refined the rules as well. There was also an issue with the pieces that I used, at first they were just shapes, but when I printed out actual pictures, they were black and white, so it was very hard to see the pieces. What I did to fix it was printed out colored pictures. There was one little issue over thanksgiving break where I was told the rules and treatment was going to be done over break, but they weren’t, so I did them myself, but since I didn’t entirely know what the plan was, I just put in my game. It was a mistake on both of our parts, and is something we have made up with the amount of work we have both done.

 

The only thing I would like to do with the game moving forward, is to add some complexity to it, maybe add some extra troops, and even terrain that can hinder certain types of troopers. One type of troop I would like would be the sniper, where it can shoot at a farther distance than the other troops, or maybe even aircraft that isn’t affected by terrain, but needs to go back to the airbase to refuel and reload. The terrain could be stuff like water, where you can go through, but you would be slowed down, or you can take the bridge, but that would be slower, and tanks can’t go on bridges. I would also find a way to even out the anti-armor trooper, because they have more dice than the infantry and scout vehicle, but the same amount as the tank, making it able to beat almost everything. There is still a lot of luck involved, but they are a little bit overpowered. I would also change the name of the game to something more military, or strategic so it sounds like it would fit the game.

    

This is my game, Polaris, a strategy based game that takes elements from games like Starcraft, and Command and Conquer, but in a board game style. The reason I wanted to do this is because I thought that it would cool to play these types of games, but in the style of a board game.

Theron Rex Howard

 

  

  

     

Virus VS Survivalist

Hello, This is Theron Rex Howard, my partner is Cameron Fox, our team name is RexFox and we’re group two. Our game is called Virus VS Survivalist. Virus VS Survivalist is a board game designed towards five to ten year olds, hoping to teach them how not to get the zika virus. The game is played by moving to the end, and using a needle gun, and event cards, which are cards with special effects, to defeat the viruses before they get you.

When we first tried to make this game, we had the concept of making it digital in mind. We thought of making it a 3D platformer, like Crash Bandicoot. There was one problem with that though, we didn’t know how to make a paper prototype of a digital game, especially for a 3D platformer. We tried our best, but these types of games require skill, and since it’s hard to do that with a board game, it became very reliant on a “random number generator” so the player had no control of it whatsoever. The game also had to many rules, so people thought the demographic was older than it should be. The last issue was the map, it was really small, and had to many confusing stuff on it. The first playtest was a train wreck.

We were able to solve these problems very easily. First we got rid of a lot of rules, almost half of them, and got rid of some of the more complicated event cards, and made simpler ones. Then we added the needle gun, to get rid of the randomness in the game, and to give the players more control of what happens. Lastly we made a bigger map, so that the game will be a little longer. There were still some problems, like no core mechanic in the game, and the demographic still wasn’t for five to ten year olds.

At first, my partner and I was on the case, every assignment, we were done with it on the day it was assigned, and we got together a couple of times beforehand, to work on the game together. After to first playtesting session however, there were some issues. We worked on the stuff during class, but we didn’t get together until the day of the second playtesting, only to learn that he didn’t do what he was supposed to do. He was the artist between us, so he was supposed to draw the map and characters, but he didn’t. I’m not mad at him, it’s hard for me to be mad at people, but still, this set us back. He was also suppose to write down the new event cards, but there wasn’t enough time, the printers in the library weren’t working properly. I feel partly to blame because I could’ve had us meet up over the weekend and work on the assignment together, but I didn’t.

One thing I would do to change the game for the future is to get rid of the event cards. They make thing a lot more complicated that they should be, and they need to go away. I would also keep the idea of a small map, not a large one, this is a game for five year olds, not college students. I would make the path a little bit more linear that it is now, kids don’t care for complicated routes, they just want to get to the end, making more than one way to get to the end will make it confusing. Lastly, I would make it a choice to play as the virus, to me playing the bad guys seems fun, and would be something kids would love to do.

This is Theron Rex Howard, and this is my game Virus VS Survivalist.

All artwork was drawn by Cameron Fox.

Ninja Vs Samurai

Ninja Vs. Samurai

Group 7

Theron Howard

Steven Powell

Summary

• The game Ninja Vs Samurai is a Risk style, first person board game, set in Feudal Japan, with the target audience being college students of either gender who love to travel.
• The game has you take on the role of the commander of either the Ninja army, or the Samurai army, and your goal is to take over the other person’s territory, before they take over yours

Problems

• There were many issues with the game, including the thought process, first playtest, second playtest, and equipment
• Pre-Production: It was hard to think of what the game was going to be like, and what gameplay aspect that there was going to be. The hardest part was trying to figure out how to make the game first person. I came up with the loophole to make the game a strategy game, and to say that “you” are the commander, making it “first-person”. Another issue was the rules, it was hard to figure out what we should do with the rules because we didn’t know whether or not the game will be to simple, or to complicated.
• First Playtest: The first playtest was very rough for us because we hadn’t tested it yet, so we didn’t know how bad of a game it was going to be. The issue of the playtest was lack of equipment, a terrible map, and terrible rule. We didn’t have an official spinner, I just drew a circle and put some numbers on it, and we used a pen to spin. There was no dice, so we used a website that had a dice system in is, and we used that. There was also no tokens that we used for the character and his troops, so I tore out a piece of paper and put a big “S” and a big “N” on it, and called it good. The last issues was the map, which had a lot of small spaces, and to many rules, which made the game, long, boring and complex.
• The second playtest was a lot better than the first. I had designed a better map, we got rid of the spinner, added some rules, and took a lot of them away. The only problem was that I had one playtester, and that we accidently left out some rules. Other than that I think it was very successful.
• The last issue, was that we never got the chance to meet up and practice the game before hand, and there was some communication issues between us.

                                       

Jobs

• We both had our fair share of jobs for this assignment.
• Map: My partner created the first map, but it ended up with to many territories, and they were too small, so I created the second one, that was a lot simpler. I used photoshop to create the map.
• Tokens: I found some pictures on google and used those
• Spinner: I was suppose to create the spinner, but it was terrible, then we got rid of it.
• Dice: I was suppose to buy the dice, but I never got to it, so I used a website to roll the dice (Link below)
• Rules: While we both thought up the rules, my partner did most of the typing because he was a lot faster.

All-in-all the game still turned out a lot better than I had thought it would, and maybe I will have a better time on my next project.

(link: http://www.d20srd.org/extras/d20dicebag/) (Disclaimer: I do not own this site, or D&D, or everything here is owned by Hasbro, and Wizard of the Coast)

Group 7

Different Dimensions

The game Different Dimensions is a strategic card game based on luck, and strategy. The game is meant for people who like to play card games like Yugioh and Magic The Gathering. The game is played by playing cards and attacking your opponent until their health is zero. There weren't a lot of problems with the tasks, but two of the problems were big ones. The first one was a printing problem, the printer cut off the bottom part of some of the cards, so we had to write in what was cut off. The second problem was the card sleeve, I wasn't able to find the location to get the card sleeve, so we had to just use the paper cards. One problem while play testing, was taking to long to read and understand the instructions, and the health being to low. These were simple problems that can be easily changed with a few keystrokes. The only thing I would change in development is getting the card sleeves for the cards, and spending more time creating different type of cards for both decks, instead f just using the same one over and over.  (I created the cards on heromachine, I do not own heromachine, or any of it's products, these cards are not official cards, just concepts.)