Lesson: 25.1.11

Today, we set about arranging the board of the game, we decided on a hex board, with the centre being the destination; the job interview. Next we needed to give each vehicle their special characteristics, advantages and disadvantages ad ways to sabotage other players. At first, we thought of quite a few of each, however they were imbalanced. For example the train seemed to be the most advantageous, with it being the fastest, being at the top of the ‘food-chain’, where a bike can hinder a pedestrian, a car can hinder the bicycle and the person can hinder both, the train seemed unstoppable. The train would quickly become a dominant strategy, we needed to give it disadvantages and have the effect of sabotage balance its advantages. One idea was a person jumping on to the tracks, another included

Being able to cover straight distances quickly seems an advantage, but if the route includes turns, this would prove difficult, however, we still have to discuss this idea of routes, after a while, the players will learn the shortest distant, another dominant strategy, one idea that could be implemented would be where players can be awarded sabotage cards so they can leave them in the route of other players, for example, leaving the sabotage card: person on track in the route of the train. Another example could include the cyclist leaving the sabotage card: flat tyre, in the shortest oncoming route to the destination, disrupting the car, the car player then has a choice, suffer the flat tyre and therefore miss their next turn but still be on the shortest route or to change route but still be able to play their next turn.

Jerry outlined the idea of giving the player lots of things to remember, that by having multitasking in the game, it requires more effort and is for older audiences, keeping this in mind, we needed to elaborate our idea of fuel depleting, he pointed out that in a digital game, the code would do this, keep an eye on it and stopping the vehicle when fuel = zero, but here, the player will have to do it, while planning their next move and sabotaging players, how would it be done? Will there be a timer, like chess, but the fuel will deplete even while everyone else is playing their turn? Also, this fuel concept only affects the train and the car, so the pedestrian and cyclist will need a similar depletion of something, like energy perhaps. This time/fuel/energy-limit element would add the sense of ever-present urgency to the goal; Costikyan believes that the goals should ‘guide our behaviour in the game’ (2002, p.12) Similarly, Crawford defines game as a ‘conflicts in which players directly interact in such a way as to foil each other’s goals.’ (2003, p.8) which could reflect our idea of sabotaging other players so they don’t get to their goal before you do.

The table below shows some of the advantages and disadvantages of each mode of transport:

Pedestrian Advantages Freedom of movement Disadvantages Slow Has to stop at railway crossings Have to wait to cross roads Depleting energy	Car Advantages Fast Disadvantages Restriction of movement, has to follow roads Has to wait at traffic lights Affected by road works Depleting fuel
Cyclist Advantages Can skip traffic lights Relatively free movement Disadvantages Can get a flat tyre Can get hit by car Depleting energy -	Train Advantages Fast Disadvantages Affected by people on track Affected by engineering works Restricted movement, has to follow tracks Has to stop at stations

We also discussed implementing move sets similar to Chess, e.g. where the knight can only move 2 grids forward and one left or right. What we drafted was trains moving 4 grids forward and only turning after two goes, cars moving 2 grids at a time and turning on their second go, pedestrians being able to move one grid and turn on any go and cyclists being able to do the same. However this may mean the players will have to remember what go it is and whether they are permitted to turn or not. Although it poses other problems, we need to calculate the amount of grids that need to be traversed to win and if using the train, is more difficult because there is less movement, so if they are 1 grid away from the destination and there turn dictates that they have to turn, they will not win, needing to perform an awkward U turn while the other players get closer to the victory condition.

So our main aims for next lesson are:

1)      Balance the pros and cons of each mode of transport

2)      Balance the sabotage scenarios

3)      Work out the movement on the hex board.

References

Costikyan, G. (2002) I have no words & I must design: Toward a critical vocabulary for games [internet] Available from <http://www.costik.com/nowords2002.pdf> [Accessed 28 January 2011]

Crawford, C. (2003) Chris Crawford on game design. United States of America: New Riders Publishing.