Week #2

The one where I planned and wasted some paper

This week I have worked mainly on Pre-Production, starting the prototype of the board-game and established how the application will interact with the board game. 

Pre-Production

I used a Gantt chart to keep an overall view of the project time-line. Working with milestones and using the Deming cycle allows me to have a more iterative design being able to analyse drawbacks on a weekly basis and act on them (e.g. by cutting a mechanic).

I use Trello and Toggl to analyse details of tasks. Toggle is a website that allows to register my hours worked on each task. As I am working on several other roles besides this project it helps me to quickly see if I need to allocate more time to Mind Prison.

Trello helps to go more into the details of each task.So if on the Gantt Chart it states Board game Prototype on Trello will be a card with the same name that contains several checklists with the various tasks that needs to be done in order to complete the overall task of the prototype (e.g. Character sheets, item deck, event deck can be items on the checklists within Trello). 

I organised the boards in Trello to work as a Kanban system where I drag cards from board to board depending on their production state (To-Do, In Progress, Done, Stand By). The labels help me to identify quickly what type of task the card is and if it is urgent or not. 

Board game Prototype

Before starting the prototype I needed to establish what the players will be doing in it and how it would work. This process was a little "chaotic" as I had to jump back and front between the various mechanics I wanted to implement. From the points that I wrote in my last post I started to connect the mechanics and make sense of what they will be used for. After having a clearer idea I created this Flow-Chart of how the board game will be played out.

This flowchart helped in visualizing a game session better, so that I had an Idea of items/board game pieces needed and how they co-relate to each other.

I began my prototype with the character sheets. Initially I wanted four characters and four action sheets with fixed combinations of actions. The players would be assigned randomly a action sheet so that it had some re-play value even though the mission would be the same as players get the chance to try out other strategies. I also wanted a "sleepiness" counter that would go up every time the character would use the sleep action until eventually getting "trapped" (eliminated) in the dream world. Players would also have health and different traits.

After more consideration I decided to not have the option of eliminating players either in the dream world or through physical damage. Monsters will have no health system either, this helped to reduce the scope of the project a little. Monsters are now eliminated through specific items that players will find with the search action. Instead of dealing any health damage to players they will have a negative affect on the players in the same room. For example: You can't speak to your other players in the group or your traits will be reduced.

The action sheets were also no longer randomly assigned, instead the players will find them on the character card (blue card first version, pink card second version). All players share the same traits Strength, Agility and Mentality however each character has stronger or weaker traits. The set combination of actions are now in relation to the character traits. The players can only use one of the upper row actions and the bottom row action below the chosen upper row action. They can not repeat the same action from the last turn.

Each time they use a bottom row action one of the stickers will be removed. Underneath are effects or prices the players will have to pay. This helps to increase the difficulty curve of the game. The only positive effect is after using the sleep action twice the players will gain one more movement so that they can move two sections a time. This helps to reinforce the players to go into the application. (Sleeping is played at specific points of the map and it means that the player will play a puzzle in the application). To reduce the scope further I decided to only have 3 characters. 



Application

After I established how the board game will be played I planned out how the application will work together with it. Since I want each player to be able to play in the application I decided that there will be two types of game: mini games and environmental puzzle. The mini games will mostly be things to unlock a door for example. The environmental puzzles will give the items and location needed to complete the game. There will be a mini game and environmental puzzle for each player and they will be focused on their traits. This will make sure that every player will get the chance to play inside the application and to combine both worlds regularly in the mission. 

With the relation of board game and application clear in my mind I started to think about the usability of the application. So I created a little flow chart to see how players will navigate through the application and find the right puzzles.

In the missions menu will be displayed all missions available. For this module there will only be one mission however this is where in the future more missions could be added easily to expand the game. Once the players have selected their mission the screen will ask them what puzzle they want to play. On the board game will be a number for the puzzle they will have to type that in the application and it will lead them to the right puzzle they need to solve. I wanted to avoid displaying all puzzles of a mission at once as the mission might have hidden rooms or puzzles and this would give that away to the players. 


My next task will be to create a mission design, complete the board game prototype and do a first play test session.