Week 1:

This week was a very helpful and busy week, I got the brief to our second project. In this project I have to work in a group to create an analogue game. I have learnt about rule analysis which was very helpful because I will need to write my own rules for our game, so this helped me to understand what and not to include in my rulebook. In addition this went really well because I was able to gather a lot of information about rulebooks and what are commonly found within them. I also carried out play testing of previously created games, this helped to come up with my own game idea by playing these several games. Also, I worked in Photoshop this week to recap and improve on my Photoshop skills, this was really helpful as I will need to use Photoshop to design my assets for the game. I also worked in a group to begin our first iteration in the prototype phase by creating and recieving feedback from our first prototype.

Week 2:

This week was a very busy and useful week, we worked in our groups to develop our second and third iterations in our prototype phases, we then gathered playteset feedback from both of these prototypes and then further improved our game to better suit our target audience. These prototypes went really well as we was able to present our game to a range of people and we were allowed to improve upon our games based on the feedback we had taken on board. We also visited Dice and A Slice, this was very useful as we were able to playteset an array of professional table top games and experience the games first hand, by recording our views and opinions on the games and taking in this information so we could then adopt the ideas and apply them to our game.

Week 3:

This week was a very productive and team orientated week, we were able to successfully plan how we were going to begin to design our final prototype, this involved a lot of planning documents and meetings between the group. This went really well as we were able to establish the roles of each of the team members and we created a Trello Board, Asset List and Progress checker, these were good and helpful documents to create as we all know what we are doing and we are able to plan our time to ensure we meet the deadline. I will ensure that I will continue to use these planning documents when it comes to other projects as they will help me to effectively use my time. Also, I started work in Photoshop designing the game assets such as cards and game pieces this went well, as we were able to compare designs and allowed me to design consistent assets that we all thought fitted with the theme. In addition to this, communication has increased within the group, this is really great as our productivity has increased significantly. 

Week 4 / Final evaluation:

This week I finished finalising the design and printing out all of the game assets and components for our team battle card game, Fantasy Fury. This project was one of my favourites because I was able to work in a team allowing us to each collaborate in the game. I was really pleased with how the project ended because we managed to create an excellent game that included a piece of everyone's ideas. I love working in a team because it allows everyone to contribute to an idea and concept. 

Analysis Phase

This project involved the team designing multiple prototypes for our card game that had to include a customised Die. The brief told us that we could create any card game of any theme but it mostly had to utilise cards and would have to be within the time constraints of 15-30 minutes playthrough. We were very successful in designing a game that met this brief and we ended up with a great enjoyable battle card game. We created three prototypes and one final prototype throughout this project and I believe that the rapid prototyping was very helpful in our progress from start to finish as we were able to gather feedback throughout each phase. This feedback was really helpful when it came to improving and tweaking our game before we moved onto each phase, because we were able to implement a change and instantly get feedback based upon the changes allowing for us to meet the target audience's wants and needs. 

The first area of this project involved me analysing various games and playtesting them to get an idea of games design, rule design and the mechanics that we wanted to carry over into our game. This analysis was very effective at understanding what goes into a good analogue game, this was very helpful as I previously had not played any analogue games outside of Monopoly or Jenga so this analysis allowed me to get a better understanding of how an analogue game looks, feels and plays.

In this analysis task I am going to analyse the importance of rules in a game and how it affects the overall gameplay and level of fun from the game. I am hoping to take away important elements that I should include in my game and not include in any factors or elements that may harm the gameplay experience of my game. I will also be analysing how the rules affected the overall game experience in hopes to learn what I should include and not include in my rulebook. I have also included a recording for each game displaying the groups feedback on the game.

The Crew: The Quest For Planet Nine

Rule Analysis

The rules included in The Crew feel very long and complex to understand, this negatively impacts the experience of the game from the get go, as the rules are hard to interpret and seem to go into too much detail. Although the rulebook includes several diagrams of each element of the game, I feel that the rules are not in any way tailored toward the target audience of ages 10 and up because even I was struggling to grasp the idea of the game, it wasn’t until I watched a full playthrough of the game that I was able to understand to core mechanics and rules. It took about 15 minutes to fully read and understand the rules of the game, I think that this is too long for anyone to read an instruction manual, so I will ensure to not include a long-winded rulebook in my game. Whilst learning the game and understanding the instructions I felt very confused and overwhelmed which poorly impacted my experience of the game because every 2 minutes I had to keep referring back to the rulebook. I think that the creator of the game spent too much time on the theme and story of the game that they completely forgot about the experience and enjoyment of the players. This is present in the logbook and instruction book that is more than 30 pages long, every aspect of the logbook is linked with the theme of astronauts which is really great, but the theming feels too much and overpowers the gameplay. The language used in the game is a mix of complex and simple language which does not work together because it takes a while to understand the rules fully. The game, if understood properly, would be suitable for the age range but, if the players do not understand the rules and theming correctly then the age range of 10+ would not be suitable for this game because the rules are complex and include too much unnecessary information.

Gameplay Analysis  

My gameplay experience was not in any way enjoyable; this was due to the fact that the rulebook was hard to interpret. But the overall theming and gameplay of the game was aligned with the rulebook and was reflected in the game, well all that I was able to understand. The overall gameplay experience was hard, stressful and not very enjoyable, because of the difficult rules and an overwhelming amount of different scenarios and interactive elements in the game. The game is balanced because the players work together as a team to complete a set amount of tasks and objectives, but I think this balance would be impacted by the level of ability from the players. The design of the game and its contents was very well polished and represented the theme perfectly but the gameplay did not reflect this level of excellence because of the lack of understanding that I gathered from the encyclopaedia of a rulebook. I was not able to fully experience a full playthrough so I think that I would not be able to comment on the length of gameplay. If the player is able to understand the mountain of rules then I believe that the game could be repayable and addictive, but from my disappointing experience I think that this game would not be in any way addictive or enjoyable after many playthroughs, but this is just my opinion. I do not think that the game is fun or can be enjoyable for any player so with that in mind, I think that this game would fall into the category of boring with it being placed on 1 on the level of fun scale.

In conclusion, from my analysis of The Crew I have learned many elements that should be included in my game. For example, difficult and long winded rules and several interactive elements. These elements greatly reduced the amount of fun that I felt when “playing” this game so I will ensure not to include complicated essay rulebooks and more than three interactive elements such as cards or coins because this confused me as to what each element added to the game. On the other hand, I have also learned many things that I should include in my game. I believe that I should include a theme or story to my game because this is what drew me into the game, so without it I would have completely given up and refused to play the game. 

This was just a section of the full analysis I carried out, but the rest can be found on the context page under the Who's Turn Is It heading. I found the analysis phase to be useful in the development of my understanding surrounding analogue games as coming away from the task I felt more confident in being able to create my own game and rulebook. I believe I gathered the relevant information from these play tested games that helped me to make a decision on what I felt needed to be included in our game and what we wanted to exclude, for example we made a decision to not include an overwhelming instruction rulebook as we felt confused when playtesting the games that included an essay of a rulebook. Going into this task I felt overwhelmed because I was learning a lot of new information that was important to the development on the project. After finishing this analysis task I was confident that I could move onto the next phase which was research. This research would help me to dive deeper into the design element of this project. If I was to carry out this analysis task again I would play a wider variety of games each with varying mechanics and themes so we could use the extra games to draw more inspiration from. But other than that, I found the task to be helpful in the aid of my development.

Research Phase

Throughout the project I carried out many stages of research, ranging from primary to secondary. The previous analysis tasks allowed me to move onto this research as I was able to understand the basics to game design and rule design, so I was able to effectively research into areas that I found I needed to read further into relating to my Graphic Designer job role.

One of the main areas of research that I needed to carry out was to look at various methods of designing professional character cards in Photoshop to find the best practices and design techniques. This was my main concern of not being able to design professional looking character cards, so by researching this I should be able to now design and create high quality character cards. 

However, after searching through an array of different sources ranging from videos to websites, I have been able to collate various methods of designing these cards. In the first video I watched, I came across this quote “So the first thing I do is [ ] I start to lay out the composition of the card and create [ ] a template [ ] by using the selection tool”, (Clayton Barton, 2013), After watching this in depth tutorial further it was clear to me that creating a template and group in Photoshop would really help me to structure the character cards and design a professional layout because by creating this template I will be able to effectively and efficiently drag in my artwork into the layout and repeat this multiple times for all of my characters without needing to go through the whole design process for each card. Furthermore, I have seen that by using different contrasts and brush tool abilities I am able to create a cleaner and professional design than what I was working with before. “It’s important to make sure that you are naming the layers properly to stop confusion and taking note of where they are sitting in the hierarchy”, (CLAYTON BARTON, 2013), following further research in this video, I have been able to gather some helpful tips and information surrounding best practice in Photoshop. It has been made clear that I should always be naming my assets and layers and ensuring that they are sitting properly or the hierarchy because it will make it easier and more efficient if I was to name assets as it will be easier for me to edit assets or swap assets for other characters, by using these helpful tips, I will be able to ensure that I meet the deadline requirements because I will not be taking unnecessary time redesigning every card from scratch and struggling to find assets within the layers. Whereas in another source I found the quote “Most games have cards, so having a quick system to create them will drastically speed up your prototyping process [ ] I recommend [ ] card templates”, (Board Game Design Advice: From the Best in the World, 2019) (HOW TO DESIGN A BOARD GAME, GABE BARRETT). This further shows the importance of using templates as a basis for my designs because with the templates “[I will] know exactly how much space [I] have to work with”, (Board Game Design Advice: From the Best in the World, 2019) (HOW TO DESIGN A BOARD GAME, GABE BARRETT), and I will be able to efficiently design and print out each of the character cards before the deadline for this project, ensuring for consistent designs across all of my components in Fantasy Fury: Battle Card Bonanza.

Another one of the main areas of study that I needed to carry out research on was to look at effective use of colour theory and how colours can change the views, opinions and overall experience with a product. My main concern was using incorrect colours for the theme so this research was important for this project.

After researching different sources such as websites and videos, I was able to gather an array of information regarding colour theory and the emotions that are taken from each colour. On the first source I looked at I was able to find this quote “Colors play an exceptionally prominent role in our lives. They influence our thinking, inspire our decision-making, and impact our moods. From causing changes to changing reactions, colors are more powerful than we think.”, (JACOB OLESEN, 2023), After further research in this source I found that it is really important to choose the correct colours for the emotion that we want to give off from the fantasy themed card game. I found it best to use colours that stood out to the target audience and did not invoke a lot of negative emotions that could ruin the intended emotion given off from the game. Every range of “Colors have such a substantial effect on the mind and body”, (JACOB OLESEN, 2023), I have been able to see that the most used colours in the design of fantasy are “Bright Green, Purple, and Yellow” , (Miblart, 2023), this second website was really helpful in choosing the colours for our designs because it clearly highlighted the specific colours that are used in fantasy books, although these colours can be applied to any fantasy themed product. The previous website source I looked at did not state specifically the colours that are used in fantasy although it did state that the colour purple can symbolise imagination and fantasy, which backs up the information displayed on the website by Miblart that purple is used primarily for fantasy themed books. It is now clear to me that I should consider using bright vibrant colours such as yellow, green and purple when it comes to designing the digital components for our battle card game. I will have to experiment with the different colours to really get further feedback on what works best. 

Another area of research that I needed to carry out was into how to create effective gradients, blends and why it is important to use gradients and blends. The first source I looked at was a report I found on Google Scholar, Guido Rosso (2006) said We keep discovering more and more that gradients are a vital asset when creating depth. After reading more into this source I found that gradients are paramount when it comes to adding depth and life to a digital art piece. These gradients create a great level of contrast and detail that make a piece of digital art appealing and stand out to the audience. My previous research on colour theory would also come into play when I experiment with colour gradients because I need to create a gradient that pops and bounces off of the design of the components. Further in the source I found that there are many different techniques to applying gradients, such as using a spray can tool that can spray different colours and can be blended to correct an effective gradient. However, in a different magazine source that I researched on, I found that there was an easier and more efficient way of creating gradients, “Linear Gradients: Linear gradients are gradients in their most basic form — a gradual blend of colors and following a straight line.”, (Marc Edwards, 2011). This method of gradients seems to be a more simpler method of creating a gradient in Photoshop as it involves using the preinstalled gradient tool function, I will be able to customise the colours on the gradient to suit each character and asset design so it will be more easily editable than using a spray can tool like the other source suggested. I believe that the methods shown in this magazine will be better and more beneficial to creating a great clean gradient than previous methods. I will need to experiment with these gradients to get an idea of what gradients are better for the assets in our game.

This secondary research above was just a snippet of the full research I carried out, but I wanted to analyse this section in my reflection. This section of research was very helpful in the progress and understanding in this project because I was able to gather new methods of designing professional and clean looking character cards. I previously had no understanding on the typical conventions that are used in the design of character cards but after reading and watching the sources I was able to build my knowledge so I could go onto fully design these cards in Photoshop. I found this research in the different methods of creating cards in Photoshop to be helpful and very useful, but I believe I could have researched more into this area as I only researched and compared two methods so more methods would have given me multiple methods to choose from when designing the assets and components in the game. I was also pleased with the next area of research which was into colour theory, this allowed me to recap the importance of the colour choices on the emotions of the player, this was an easy research task as I had already previously had experience in colour theory through my GCSE Media course. After the research I felt even more confident in the next phase of the project which was to move onto carrying out my Graphic Design role. All of the research allowed me to move onto this next phase and aided me when I made design choices for the assets that I created. I then moved onto Primary research to gather a large amount of qualitative data that would help me and the team to improve our game before we moved into the final prototype phase. 

The primary research was very helpful to carry out as I was able to gather a lot of data that included relevant feedback and improvements that we could implement into the game. I have included an example of the primary research here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1K1OZPKv-uB75RVR4l3HOJXPpWVK_8LNq84uiYS2Q0EA/edit?usp=sharing 

I found the primary research to be of varying quality, but I was able to gather a range of useful data that the team would take on board to improving the game before the final prototype, this allowed us to meet the brief and also the target audience's wants and needs. It was a very good idea of carrying out primary research because the data collected was relevant, up to date and useful to the project, this was great because we could instantly link the primary research to our game unlike the secondary research where I had to rework the research to suit the style of game we were making. Overall, the primary research was a brilliant idea at improving our game, but next time I would have to distribute the questionnaire more because I only gathered five responses, so if I distributed it more I would have more responses and hence more opinions and improvements. Although, I did post my questionnaire on Facebook and Instagram, so next time I will expand to Twitter, Reddit and Discord.

Experimentation

In between the research phase and the final prototype phases I carried out Experimentation. This experimentation allowed me to play with the information I picked up in the research phase and apply them to a set of Top Trumps cards that I designed in Photoshop. This experimentation phase was very helpful in the progress of this project because I was able to experiment with the new techniques before I moved onto designing the final cards for our game, so this was great because I was able to work out any flaws or weaknesses in my graphic design before moving on. I was very pleased with the outcome of the experimentation because I was able to have a recap on Photoshop and its tools, also I was able to develop consistent designs of character cards. Furthermore, the experimentation phase allowed me to further understand the elements and conventions that I needed to include on the character cards that I needed to design for Fantasy Fury. Overall I was very pleased with the experimentation and it made me more confident in what I was going to do for the final prototype. A set of Top Trumps cards have been attached below. 

After completing analysis, research and experimentation, I was able to move onto designing the prototypes of the card game. These prototypes were very helpful as I previously mentioned, but if I had more time I would definitely increase the play test size by distributing the game to a wider audience to gather a larger quantity of data that would help me to improve and tweak the game. Overall, I was really happy with how the final prototype turned out because the designs of every component matched the theme of the game perfectly and we also reworked all the components to better suit the feedback we gathered throughout the many prototype phases that we carried out. We encountered only one problem when it came to this final prototype and that was the 3D printer failed on us, so we had to wait for that to be up and ready again. Although, we created back up Die and Trackers that we had to use for the prototype in the mean time. Images of the final prototype can be found below, and the previous prototypes can be seen on the outcomes page.

After finishing this project, I feel more confident in working with a team of "Strangers" because I was able to effectively communicate with everyone in the team and we were also able to design and create the final game before the deadline and meeting the brief. Moving forward, I will continue to apply all of my learning from this project and apply it to the next projects in the future.