My Game Environment

Sketch for board game cover

 

Sketch for board game cover

Testing out pop ups on paper

Experimenting with pop ups with paper.

Paper board

Beginning paper layout of my board game.

Characters

Inspiration for Characters in my board game!

Laying out basic shapes on board game.

 

This was a beginning look at my game board when I was planning it out. I started by planning out basic shapes and where important areas would be. The two light blue circles are the ghost spawn points. The red rectangles are the player start areas and the grey areas are where blockades would be. (Blockades = Gravestones)

The large black squares are where I planned on making pop up locations.

Wagon Prop

Apple Tutorial

http://www.ctrlpaint.com/home/2011/6/21/brush-technique-blending.html

Doing this tutorial helped me think about blending. What I liked about it is the tutorial explains to blend by taking each shade and pulling them towards eachother. The video teaches you to create a nice soft blending effect. From the tutorial I learned how to create a smooth blending effect. What I didn't like about the video is that it is short and didn't continue into color. I would like to see how far I can take this apple. I would also like to see more attention on lighting for the apple.

Second Tutorial

Followed the tutorial posted by Ester Yang

Digital Painting

The tutorial I followed was learning about painting a mountain and water landscape. Through the tutorial I learned it is all about lighting and shape. If you aren't showing value or getting the shapes right it isn't gonna come out right. In the tutorial he talks about using different brushes for different areas of the painting. For example, when painting the clouds he uses a soft brush to give it a soft look. What I found myself having the most trouble with is opacity and shape dynamics. Not knowing what opacity he is using or knowing what size of brush to use. He also used some of his own custom brushes but I ended up choosing a brush that was like it and changing its settings to get it close to his brush. Overall doing this tutorial was fun and a good learning experience since I am eager to learn more about digital painting. He was very helpful in talking about brushes, lighting, color, and shape. I am excited to do another tutorial by another classmate!

Here is the tutorial if you would like to follow it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGYqZZwzp18&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PLD78C2C5916ABD820

Game Mod

Unmodified:

What I found when playing my game unmodified was that people found it boring. They said that rolling the dice to move was making the game slow and uninteresting. They also said that they didn’t even care about what room they were in because their goal was just to go to the closest room to suggest so they could get clues. They also thought there wasn’t much strategy and that there wasn’t anything to get on their way to rooms.

Another time playing my game the people liked the game and said it was interesting. They liked “having secrets” for example, holding their cards away from other people and marking their answers on their notepad. Also trying to figure out the answers.

Modified: The first modification was to make the game faster. To change the pace in moving and get the game going so that people won’t get bored waiting to move. I thought this would solve the problem, and it did end up making the game go faster. The rule is that you can move horizontally or vertically as many spaces as you want but only in that direction. Moving with this rule makes your movements faster but you cannot move diagonally.

Next I added in blockades: I started thinking about having my board as a graveyard and the blockades being gravestones. So to test this mod I placed buttons on areas around the board to see how it would affect our game play. It made it more of a challenge getting to places or more of an inconvenience. When playing it we liked having the blockades because if we didn’t it might make it to easy to get to a room. It also made it more like a “maze.” 

 

 

The next mod I added in was the “ghosts that move.” So to start off I added 2 blue buttons onto the board, which were ghosts. The ghosts are there for anyone to stop on their spot and get a “ghost card, which has a clue.” The rule here is that there are two ghosts and after a persons turn they get to move a ghost piece one space. This will bring more strategy into the game as your trying to get the ghost in a place near you or away from another player.  During this play testing it was funny because one player moved the ghost away from another player that was trying to get the extra clue.

What I learned about my game is that most people thought the movement was uninteresting. I decided to change the movement to make the game move faster so that more players would not become bored of it. I also learned that players thought the game was so repetitive, which brought me to the idea of adding in ghosts and blockades. Which would change up the game since the ghosts are constantly moving and since you can try to keep the ghost moving from other players. I decided that I want to do some type of ghostly/cemetery type theme. So that I could have the ghosts floating around on top of the cemetery. (blockades) I also thought about having a story to the game and adding a haunted house or an area you need to get into. Another thing I wanted to do was have the cemetery stones sticking out of the board game. (Not flat and painted on the board) Play testing the game and trying out mods is inspiring me to keep trying new things and find what works best.

Notes:

ADD CONCIQUENCES

THE MOVING MECHANIC – boring and its so linear

Something that could boost your character

SEARCHING ROOM TO FIND OUT WHATS END OF GAME

Symmetrical or Asymmetrical

You go into the room and there is mini game, which then makes story.

Repetitiveness

Prizes

Peacock-blue eyeliner leads to person

People like to have secrets.

Duds

Step on special areas

All about figuring out who the killer is

Graveyard

Get some type of reward

You can move  horizontally or vertically as many spaces as you want but only in that direction. (Taking away dice)

Grave stones block you

An inconvenience (grave stone)

After your turn u move a ghost or you roll to move

Ghost cards

 

 

20 Ideas

What is successful about it? What would you definitely like to keep?

What I really like about the game Clue is that it is a really fun and creative game. What I found successful about it is the game play. The game play is fun through out the whole game and the game is not too complex. It is well balanced and what I would definitely want to keep is the “solution cards.” The solution cards envelope is placed in the center of the board game and are the 3 hidden cards in the game. So I definitely want to keep that because that’s what makes Clue unique from other games.

What could be better about your game? What would you definitely like to change? What I would definitely want to change about Clue is the theme. I also want to change the art style because it is kind of simple with lots of outline. I also want to add another deck of cards to the game. These cards would have rewards and cards that would set back a player.

What crazy, outrageous, thing would you like to try?

One crazy Idea I had was making it a pop out game or making 3d pieces that clues can be hidden in or under.

1. What if I Add more dice?
2. What if I take away cards?
3. What If I Add more cards
4. What if I make it catch up (race)
5. What if I make more than 1 mystery
6.What if I make a wild cards?
7.What if I make a wild card to see a solution card?
8. What if it is about War/fighting?
9.Teams
10.Kill instead of mystery
11. What if there was a Capture mechanic?
12. Resource management- something you need to survive
13. What if I add a Reward card pile?
14. What if I add a Risky set back card pile?
15. What if I make a card which makes you show 1 person a card you have.
16. What if you can block players with blockade?
17. What if there are Territories?
18.What if I remove cards from solution pile card?
19.What if there is a skip turn card?
20. What if I add more game pieces that you roll the dice to have them move around the board capturing other players?

Crab cakes

This time I cooked fish, shrimp and crab cakes. The crab cakes took 3 minutes on each side. I added the Philadelphia cheese sauce again to the shrimp. I also made the fish the same way as last time with onions and lemon and it seems to be coming out better! The crab cakes though were really salty and fishy.

Trying again!

Making fish again with shrimp until I get better at this. I bought this new Philadelphia cream cheese that you can put into the pan when your cooking and it melts into a sauce. They had multiple flavors but I chose the Italian Cheese and Herb. I want to try the Garlic one next time. So in these photos I am posting I cooked the fish again. Using lemons and onions, cooking until the fish is white. For the shrimp I used butter and the Philadelphia cream cheese sauce.

So I've been learning how to cook Tilapia. Which tastes really good! I have been cooking it until it is white and have been adding lemon juice and onions. At first when I move it around it stays together but as I continue it falls apart. So hopefully I can get better at that through this process of learning how to cook. Here are some pictures of the beginning of my cooking.

Keyboard Mod Ideas

Ideas:

Color theme- seeing which one they use.

Making them press a certain button.

Making them avoid certain buttons.

Messing with all the keys on the edges

Have all keyboard one color and have one key a different color.

Do not press.

Corrupt key

Shutdown key

Making keys upside down

Making letters/keys backwards.

Power symbol key to see if they press it.

Label certain keys that they don't work

Sounds when you press a key.

Having the keyboard work but then you press a key it isn’t that letter because we scrambled the keys…

Keyboard LIGHTS led.

Library  all 3 of us sit at the Macs and then put the crazy keyboard on the PC.

Have a do not press button and then do something if they press it.

Making them avoid important keys by making those pointy or weird.

To them avoid certain keys

Or to press certain keys

Or to do it in a sequence- A B C or 1 2 3

Fragile keyboard and see if they touch the keys sticking out.

Making the computer speak to person by making the speech key as enter or space bar. (See how they react)

Make a giant keyboard that people interact with.

Pescatarian

I fell in love with Tilapia and shrimp!

I was cooking it the other day but the fish completly came apart. I've cooked it a couple times but I am having trouble keeping the fish together. Hopefully after a couple tries I can keep it together.

 So for this I needed lemon, oil, fish, shrimp, onions and spices.

Since I am not sure what spices to use I went ahead and tried 3 different spices.

Deconstruction of Clue!

Goal of the game-

The goal of the game is to find out the who did it, where and with what weapon. Basically the goal of the game is to figure out what cards are in the envelope that is hidden to all players.

Using strategy to figure out who, where, and what. The envelope has the three hidden cards, which you are trying to figure out. Each of the three cards reveals who, what and where that reveals who was the murderer, with what weapon they used and in what room.

Core Mechanic-

One of the core mechanics of this game is managing cards. Using cards to your advantage knowing which cards you can mark off your list of your detective notes. By managing what cards you show to the other players to keep them from finding out who, what and where by process of elimination.

Another core mechanic of the game is Process of Elimination by marking off what cards you know are not in the “Solution pile” which is the cards in the envelope. By using strategy and remembering what has been asked previously you can use this to your advantage to eliminate more boxes of the choices.

Deduction- Using the cards you have and by making a suggestion about who, what and where it happened you are eliminating choices and making it easier to figure out each answer. Using deduction also helps the player to find out the answers faster because of the strategy used to eliminate choices by memorizing and using an educated guess.

 

Space of the game-

The space of the game is a one-dimensional space and the rooms around the board go in a loop. There are nine rooms inside the Mansion:

Library

Hall

Study

Billiard Room

Conservatory

Kitchen

Lounge

Ballroom

Dining Room

Four rooms on corner of board have a secret passage, which allows you to go to another room on opposite corners. You may choose to roll or take a secret passage if you are in the room with a secret passage. The four rooms that have a secret passage are Kitchen, Conservatory, Lounge, and the Study room.

Around the board there are multiple start points for each character in the game. These are specific points that have the name of what character should be placed there. All characters are put into the game even if you have less than six players because one of the players is going to be part of the solution envelope.

In the middle of the board there is a black X.  Inside this box it says “Clue.” This spot is for the solution cards, which are hidden inside the envelope.

Objects, Attributes, States

Characters (Six Suspects):

Colonel Mustard

Miss Scarlet

Professor Plum

Mrs. Peacock

Mr. Green

Mrs. White

These are the six wooden tokens used to move around the board game spaces.

Props:

Weapons: Lead pipe, Knife, Wrench, Candlestick, Rope, Revolver

Detective Notepad-

This aids your investigation and helps you get closer to solving the mystery by using process of elimination.

Twenty-one Cards:

One of each of the six Suspects

Six Weapons

Nine Rooms

Also in the game there is a Die, which determines how many spaces you can move.

Attributes:

Colonel Mustard- Yellow

Miss Scarlet- Red

Professor Plum- Purple

Mrs. Peacock- Blue

Mr. Green- Green

Mrs. White- White

Six kinds of weapons:

Lead pipe- Metal

Knife- Metal

Wrench- Metal

Candlestick- Metal

Rope- Plastic (White)

Revolver- Metal

Different types of rooms:

Library

Hall

Study

Billiard Room

Conservatory

Kitchen

Lounge

Ballroom

Dining Room

Colors of Rooms:

Blue, yellow, orange, brown, grey, and green

State-

Going into a room you are able make a suggestion meaning your guessing who, with what and where it happened.

Using a Secret passage instead of rolling the die.

Blocking opponents from entering a room.

Actions-

Blocking an opponent from entering a room that you are currently in.

Choosing to go through a secret passage or roll the die.

Move up to 6 spaces depending on what number you roll.

Trying to reach a different room in the mansion.

Checking off what you know in the Detective notepad.

Entering and leaving a room.

Making a Suggestion.

Proving a Suggestion is True or False.

Making an Accusation- Guessing which cards are in the solution envelope.

Rules-

First you must divide the twenty-one cards into three groups, which are Suspects, Rooms and Weapons.

Choose one from each of those piles to put in the Solution envelope. Solution envelope then gets placed in the middle of the board on the X spot.

Then place each of the six weapons in any of the nine rooms as long as it is only one weapon in each room. The remaining deck of cards needs to be shuffled and then passed out in a clockwise rotation. Each player must have a detective notepad sheet to use process of elimination to figure out who, what, and where.

Start at the name on the board closest to you. Miss Scarlet the player with the red token always plays first. Then the game continues in a clockwise rotation. You roll the die to figure out how many spaces you can move. You can move horizontally, vertically, forward, or backward but not diagonally. You can also change directions as many times as your roll will allow but don’t enter the same square twice on the same turn.

When you are in a room that has a secret passage on your turn you can choose to roll the die or take the secret passage. The door of each room is counted as one space even though there is a square on the board that says door and then a illustration of a door. You cannot enter a room that's blocked by an opponent’s piece. You also cannot enter a room that you have already entered on that turn. You can also block people from entering a room with your piece.

When you enter a room you must make a Suggestion of who, what and where. The where must be the room that you entered. You must also put the weapon in the room that you suspect.

Once you make your suggestion the player to the left will show you a card if they have one of your suspects. If they have two cards they are only allowed to show you one. Then it continues to the next person left of them.

When making an Accusation you must say out loud who, what and where you suspect. Then you can look at the solution cards but if you are wrong you must place them back and continue to play the game by showing your cards to players that suggest. You cannot win once you make the wrong accusation.

Through the game there is no limit to how many suspects or weapons are in each room.

To win the game you must make the correct accusation unless the other players made the wrong accusation and you are the last player.

Skills players learn:

Process of elimination

Memorizing

Taking notes

Marking off the cards that you have in your hand on your detective pad.

Using other player’s initials to take notes on their suggestions.

If you have two cards and someone gives the player another card you will know what that third card was and mark it off your detective notepad.