Week 3

Overview

Over this week I have finished the scope analysis for the project, up to our main deadline of Friday 25th March. After the Easter break, we mainly have to advertise our game to people. However, Max has made me aware that the first year induction to use the 3D Printers is after Easter, so I will note down in the scope for that, as well as any time it will take to print out our models. Most of the week has been dedicated to coming up with a ruleset for the game. However, we've stripped away a lot of the ideas for mechanics we have, and have come up with a ruleset that just focuses on catching creatures, which will be playtested next week. We also quickly agreed upon a card design so that Kat's art won't get distorted in any way when creating the cards.

Scope

As project lead I have to come up with an appropriate scope for our game. This involves making sure that my team has enough time to complete their tasks, whilst maintaining stricter deadlines that must be met in order to ensure the delivery of our product. At first I made this in a word document, before scrapping it, as it was becoming too difficult to understand. I switched to Excel, which made the creation of tables easier, and also made the week by week plan more consistent, and easier to read.

Week 3

This week, I will continue my research into product development and costs. I'll need to have a talk with James at some point this week, if he's available. Max said that he'd continue designing characters like last week, and begin modelling, so I'm setting that for the end of the week when we aren't in lesson. Dylan's said that he's sick, which will probably set us back a bit, but I've accounted for this, where Dylan will be working on mechanics based stuff for the game for the next few weeks. Kat will continue designing creatures, so that I'll then be able to make a start on designing cards for them.

Week 4

Next week I plan to begin work on designing the cards for our game. I'm also gonna create some art for the creature cards based on the designs that Kat has made, though I might start sooner depending on if I finish this week's tasks early. I've put Max and Dylan for playtesting here, as it's important that the game plays good. Rapidly coming up with different movement and event cards will also likely come under this process. Kat will continue coming up with more creatures.

Week 5

Week 5 is Dylan's secondment, so he'll be joining Phil's team to work during this week. I will continue working on card designs during the week, and creating more creature art during the weekends. I'll need assistance with the development of these cards, so I'll also assign Max with helping with these tasks, whilst using the days we're not in class for him to develop his modelling skills and work on the player characters. Kat will continue designing more creatures.

Week 6

Week 6 I'll continue work on cards, and creating art on the weekends. Max will do similarly, helping with card designs, as well as working on his modelling on his off days. Dylan will come back to do more work on the mechanics of the game, as well as playtesting, and Kat will continue designing more creatures.

Week 7

Week 7 will be more of the same for me. Max will continue to help with cards in the beginning of the week, but then will also begin designing the rulebook, ready to be printed the following week. This needs to come later to allow adequate time for the game's rules to be concrete. Kat will also use this last week to design the last 2 creatures, so that I can turn them into cards the following week.

Week 8

Before Easter break, we'll all spend the time designing any last cards and objects that need to be made, ready to be uploaded and printed. The rest of the time will most likely be spent making sure everything is well presented, as well as marketing for our game and the arcade event.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

Progress with the game's mechanics are slow, so I've needed to step up and put aside some of my other work in order to come up with some ideas for how our game could play. As such, I'm going to be looking at the games James suggested last week, and then applying certain concepts to what we have already got.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (PACG) has a variety of card types which make up the gameplay. There are Location cards, which determine where the players are adventuring. The location determines many factors:

Size of the deck
No of monsters
No of Barriers
No of Weapons
No of Spells
No of Armor
No of Items
No of Ally
No of Blessings

There are also other factors, such as:

At this location
- Details any specific rules of the location
To close or to guard
- The necessary requirements to close the location off or to guard
When closed
- Any benefits for closing off the location

Character cards are the personas that players take on. It includes the character's name and level, as well as their race and class, and also their stats:

Strength
Dexterity
Constitution
Intelligence
Wisdom
Charisma

There are also other factors:

Hand size
- The max number of cards the character is able to hold at any time
Proficiencies
- Any skills the character gets a bonus in
Powers
- Any special abilities the character has

On the back of the card, there are more details about the character, both lore and game-wise. The card lists the number of each type of card a player can hold.

Item cards are the items that players can equip throughout their journey. They have a name, and a level of use, as well as a class. Items have a value that needs to be matched to be acquired. Sometimes you'll pull a bad card, which has a value to be defeated. They also have powers listed.

Rules:

Each player draws their initial hand (must have the character's favourite card type in their initial hand.)
Hero Points
- Used to level up
- Come back to life
- Re-roll a roll
At the beginning of a turn, draw a blessing to determine the "Hour" (acts as a timer)
At the beginning of a turn, any local players (players in the same area) can swap one card with each other.
- The hour may also grant different effects depending on the card
Players can then move unless otherwise instructed
Explore
- Draw a card from the top of the deck, and follow instructions
Before engaging in combat, players must Display any armor they want to use
A scenario is resolved when the enemy is found and defeated

Kryat Ruleset

After looking at PACG's rules, I've come up with a basic ruleset which I will propose to the team. The main Win Condition is to collect creatures, and earn the highest amount of points. The Set Up involves each player's hand, the location card face up, the Location Deck, each player's Creature Deck, and the Player Item Deck (Only used for the initial hand).

Draw initial hand (5 cards?) from the Player Item Deck
First player draws a card from the Location Deck (Encounter)
Follow the cards instructions
- Creature
  - Roll instructed stat in order to capture
  - Upon success, CAPTURE (goes to Creature deck/Hand)
  - Upon failure, follow the creatures damage instruction
    - Could choose to run from encounters, agility roll?
- Item
  - Add to Hand
- Scenario
  - Follow the scenarios instructions
End turn
Game continues till all LOCATION deck cards have been exhausted

Rules Discussion

Over the course of this week, we talked a lot about the rules for our game. My PACG inspired ruleset, as well as the many ideas that Dylan and Max came up with during their discussions. The group is still thinking in terms of travelling to different regions, so I'm going to amend that and say that we're foregoing the travelling of regions, but in a full game, there would be other regions available to travel to. The overall goal of the game still feels a little flimsy, as collecting the highest amount of points isn't too interesting, so we'll have to think of some more ideas. However, the main problem I think, is that we're jumping ahead of ourselves, and don't have the main core of our gameplay worked out.

Meeting with James

I had a meeting with James this morning about my concerns over my teammates. He told me about how a member was feeling undervalued, and suggested that I be more encouraging about their work, and make sure that they are being heard and included. I will continue to support them in whatever way's I can, and continue to open dialogues with them. I also discussed some thoughts about where the game is at right now, and how it could be improved. He said to work out the game's core loop, and suggested some ideas on how to do so, like using just dice to capture creatures for now, and players could gain or lose dice based on whether they catch or fail to catch a creature. However, I mentioned about the need to begin prototyping quickly and James agreed, so I'm taking it upon myself to set out our basic rules, so that we have something to work with, and then we can continue to add mechanics as we playtest.

Team Meeting with James

Much of the meeting was spent helping to decide on an art style for our game. As Kat is the designated art director, we turned to her for her thoughts on what she's capable of and what she could provide. She expressed interest in a more painterly style for the cards, and I suggested including environments in those along with the creatures she draws, to which she agreed.

In response to leaving out cross region travel for now, James suggested that we could leave it out completely, instead opting for just using a single deck per game to act as the region. I suppose that it's not strictly necessary, but cross region play would still be cool if we could implement some form of strategy to it. Maybe different regional creatures have their own special effects, which could help out throughout the game?

However, as I had mentioned before, and James also brought up here, our game is quite complicated. There isn't a core gameplay loop, instead we just have a bunch of ideas for potential rules, but nothing concrete. In order to get the ball rolling, I have decided on a ruleset, using ideas generated from our discussion.

Each player starts with a predetermined set of dice. Players take turns drawing a card from a deck of creatures, and rolling dice in an attempt to catch it. If the requirements on the card are met, the player gains the creature, as well as any benefits along with it. If they fail to capture it, the player has to follow the disadvantages on the card. During all of this, there will be a Grand Beast card, which players can choose to attempt to catch at any time. Once caught, the player who caught it wins, and the game ends. With the "boss" always looming, this will start to generate a risk/reward system, as well as strategy. Should the player jump straight in to try to capture the boss, or should they wait till they have a sufficient amount of help from their creatures?

Card Designs

I also came to the realisation that, with Kat making art, I had neglected to see whether that art would fit our card designs. This was a foolish mistake on my part, and has the potential to uproot the entire project. However, we solved the issue quickly, and so Kat can continue developing the art for creatures as normal. Using the size of a standard poker card (W: 2.5 inch, H: 3.5 inch), I made a template in Photoshop, and added some art of Kat's into both designs I made. We all agreed that the first design looks better than the second, so we will go with that design, but Dylan brought up some issues of clarity with text. To solve this, I'll try a mix of changing the font and colour we use, as well as lowering the opacity of certain parts of the image with text over them. Note: I'm thinking of switching round the Name and Flavour Text boxes. This should make a nicer looking "waterfall" effect.

Next Week

Plans for next week involve playtesting the game to make sure the basic rules work and are effective at generating competition. Kat will continue to make creature art for the cards, and will continue putting those into card designs. Me, or maybe Simone, will need to work on making the "ui" for the cards be more in line with the theme Kat has set out for the art. Max will continue with his modelling, and we're hoping to see if we can get an induction with the 3D printer too.