Designing and Creating Engaging Games

When I was in 10th grade I was accepted into the NYU TISCH Future Game Designers program. I’d always been interested in games, be they physical or digital. I didn’t expect to get into the program; I had no experience with any sort of game development. The program was almost immediately appealing to me. I loved tinkering with ideas for games and experimenting with new ones. When the program ended, our final project for the Fundamentals of Game Design class was to work in small groups to create a board game. We were given 3 classes (around 10 hours) and after taking the game home to continue working, we were able to finish it. Despite its “completion” the game was boring to play and look at. Though we technically finished the game, it felt like the game was underbaked.

When I started making this board game, I looked back on my past experiences and felt like I had a better idea of what I wanted to do. I spent the first week researching, watching videos reviewing board games in-depth, reading about how games are made, and playing games. I took a lot of inspiration for the game Dominion, and the feeling you get when playing that game and building a hand of cards. At the same time, I found myself inspired by the material mechanics of Istambul and the special buffs of King of Tokyo. From there I started making a game design doc, planning out my game mechanics, and preparing to build my first prototype.

The game’s mechanics were all crafted around the idea of player freedom. When researching games, I found I consistently had the most fun with games that allowed me to feel as if I were in control complete control and that my choices mattered. This idea presents itself in two primary ways in the game, the potion mechanics and player movement. The primary mechanic of the game is the potion mechanic, which allows players to craft and play a wide variety of options that each have a different effect. The idea behind this mechanic was to give players the ability to tailor gameplay to their own interests as much as possible and craft incredibly specific strategies similar to Dominion. The Player movement was also crafted with the intention of giving players as much freedom as possible. Not only are players given branching paths, some of which are monetarily restricted, but they have the freedom to move in any direction. Players can either chose to rush to the end of the board, or they can explore. While I was not able to create a completed game, I think that the idea of player freedom I wanted to be present at the forefront is present in the prototype I made.