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.
