Blog Post 3: Prototyping

Introduction to “Card Gains” Game

The context of our game is that there is a board similar to chutes and ladders, and a regular deck of playing cards. The game is more fun with 4+ players. All cards, except for two Jokers, are distributed equally to every player. Players can either start each round playing with double or singles, and loser must advance on the board based on the recently played card number. First player to reach the end loses the most calories, and the player furthest from the end gains the most gains (definition link of “gains”).

Original "Card Gains" with Elias Cherfonh (my partner)

Materials

• ·      A Deck of Cards
• ·      A Board
• ·      Character Pieces

Mechanics

• Strategy
• Sweat
• Timing
• Luck

Set Up

Equally distribute all the cards to each player. Each player must choose a character piece for the board, and place it on the "START" square.

How To Play

Each player take turns playing their hand by choosing to play weakest or to strongest card. 

Order of power from the cards:

2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace

Type of cards (weakest to strongest):

Diamond, heart, clover, spade.  

Player with the weakest card (2 of diamonds) goes first. They can start with single or double cards. The number of cards that they start with is the number of cards that everyone starts with until next round. When a player does not have a card, they must move forward on the board based on the recently played number card and winner starts a new round. For single play, each player must beat his or her opponents played single card. For doubles, players can play double based on number or suit. If player has no more cards, they will shuffle the played pile and take half of it as their own deck.
If a player does not do an exercise square with a ladder then they must advance up the ladder. If they do the exercise, then they stay in place. If the exercise square has a slide and player does the exercise, they may slide down. If not, they stay in place and end their turn. If a player does an exercise square with no slide nor ladder, then they must advance forward again with the same number. If they do the exercise, then they stay in the same spot and end their turn.
How to End the Game
One player who reaches the "END" square first is the loser and means that the game is over.
Play Log: Session Play 1
The original gameplay had lots of faults, and there were times where we forgot if a scenrio were to happen. How do we end the game? What happens if the player ran out of cards? Should that be considered ending the game? There were small details that slipped our mind during the gameplay. We also did not have space to do the exercise, so we used our imagination. 

Editing the Original Game

First, we dealt our cards equally and started off playing doubles. We kept on playing doubles because we were a two player team, so we changed the rules to 5+ players, however, with our limited time, we can't gather 5+ students. We came up new ideas as we go such as what character pieces should we use to move when I lost (I lost first). So, I grabbed the nearest, smallest item, which was my eraser. And we continued playing till the very end with doubles. As for the exercises, we imagined it in our head since there wasn't any space and wasn't dressed for physical activity.
Play Log: Session Play 2
Another classmate played our game, Taek, and he thought our exercises are too easy and might be boring. "5 Push Ups in 2 minutes" is considered too easy. So, he suggested we add more challenges such as making the time limit shorter.
 

making notes on our game edits

Taek did a similar gameplay as us. For the exercises, they moved in their chairs and used their fingers as a representation to them doing the exercises.

Play Log: Session Play 3
My friend, David, played our game and suggested that there needs to be random elements to the game and suggested that players should play it in a way that they can half look and half not be able to look at their card. It was too boring so random element is nice.

New Revised Game

Everyone played it the same way as us in the beginning, since there were not enough players.

Blog Post 2: Boardgame Lab

During lab, we tested a couple of games until we found two games to play till finish. The first two games that we tried were Settlers of Catan (I picked this) and Carcassone (David picked this). There was too many rules to keep track and remember that we went for games that had a shorter list of rules. We picked card games that were Scrimish (I picked this) and Suitors (Ly picked this). They were simple and had elements of past card games that we were familiar with.

The most enjoyable game was Suitors compared to Scrimish where it didn't require too much memorization and strategization. Suitors focused more on decision-making and luck.

In the card game, there was Taek, David, Candice, Ly and me (from left to right) who were playing. David was the selected mate, who we will all try to win his hand in marriage.

The set-up starts everyone with three cards, and the rest of the cards are faced down in a drawing deck. The cards are classified in three images. There are the crown, gold coin, and heart cards from highest to lowest points. There are also numbers on the cards. The numbers are in priority and then the images. Basically, each player puts one card in the middle and see who keeps the played pile. The player with the highest card, collects all the cards into their pile.



The card with 9 coins is the winning card in this pile because number is priority.

There are times where we have special cards with instructions such as player keeps all cards. Then, we all take one card from the drawing deck after everyone's turn.


That bunny card is a special card, which I played. That card let's me collect all the heart cards in the played pile (the cards that are facing up). There is only one heart card, so that card was mine.






To end the game, everyone must run out of cards, and we count how many points in everyone's card collection to see who won with the most points.

(This card game is similar to 'I Declare War' card game, which was popular during my elementary and middle school years.)

We all took turns going in clockwise direction starting with David. The order we played in was David, Candice, Ly, me and Taek.

Typically, in this game, the selected mate is the dealer and cannot play to win their own heart. However, we bent the rules and had David play so he doesn't sit there and watch.

In the middle of the card game, I won some cards but lost it all to a played special card.

I came in last place with zero cards. Sadly, I am the least desirable to take David's hand in marriage.



At the end, Taek (left) won David's (right) heart.