No progress - Dr. Charles was in China.

We were briefed on our group project and were told that there would be three components of our work as a group, Project 1, 2 & 3. We formed a group during class and exchanged contacts to create a WhatsApp group chat.

During this week, we grouped on campus to explore various card games, gameplay, and game mechanics to help us further refine our game ideas. We played Aeroplane chess as a bonding activity and to get inspiration for our game. After trying out several games, we decided to further develop our first idea. 

We then brainstormed several ideas for our tabletop game proposal by combining existing games. It was suggested to go with idea 1, Cluedo + Taylor’s Design Lecturers + Among us

Idea #1: Cluedo + Taylor’s Design Lecturers + Among us

An investigation-type game featuring the Taylor’s Design School Lecturers. ​

Objectives: To find the culprit, players must compete against each other to see who can find the culprit the fastest based on clues. ​

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Idea #2: Prisoner’s Dilemma + Snakes & Ladders

The players are the snakes and ladders. ​

Objectives: Instead of having to reach the end, the player must work or compete against each other to accumulate points. (Games can vary in length that way)

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​Idea #3: Aeroplane chess + more rules + roleplay

The same rules of Aeroplane chess but make it more intense (compulsory to cut other players) and apply roles to each piece.

Objectives: To make such an engaging game that it burns the bridges between relationships

Before our next class, we met up on Tuesday to generate ideas and explore 2 more games (cards provided by Reema): 

1. Exploding Kittens 

2. Angry Indians.

We reworked the game idea to a card game where the cards are based on Taylor’s University.

During class, we got together to discuss the rules, gameplay and card types of our game. We created drafts of potential card designs.

To get the proposal done on time, we divided the work between us. We finalised the gameplay and prepared the slides for the proposal presentation.

Finalised the proposal and filmed the presentation. 

We met up to discuss the specifics of the gameplay and cards, as well as started working on the game prototype card.

We conducted a playtest during this week. From this playest round within our group, we noticed it was difficult to differentiate between some colours. It could be a printing problem but to be safe, we looked at new colour palettes so that no two colours look similar. 

This week, we did a playtest with Dr. Charles who gave us lots of feedback to think about. Specifically regarding the following:

• Storyline/ Narrative ( try to make it match with the current member cards ) 

• ⁠Attack cards 

• ⁠Power up cards

• ⁠Card Design

Independent Learning Week (ILW) 

Even though it was ILW, we had an online meeting to discuss the feedback and points given by Dr. Charles. After the meeting, we decided to meet up next Tuesday before our class to test out some game plays. 

Before the next meeting: 

• Think about how to recontextualize the attack cards. (Make them fit the narrative of sabotaging the other team)

• Think of the university name and our game name

After the next meeting: 

• Finalize the gameplay. (Can still be changed)

• Decide our card design and split up the workload between everyone.

We met in Billy Boys to do some discussion and playtesting. We did two rounds of playtesting on this day, one with a large group including all of us, and one with a smaller group of people.

During our class, we found some illustrations that could be used as a reference for our art style. We also worked on the card distribution as per Dr. Charles's feedback. In our last playtest, we were playing with maybe 32 attack cards (-3,-2,-1), but obviously had to keep shuffling so we needed more to replace the lost ones. We adjusted the attack cards to be more balanced.

We also worked on some descriptions of the character cards to be more entertaining. Because we voted to not rename the "self-sabotage" card to "self-harm", one of our group members wanted to have an attack card called “suicide attempt #26”, which was quickly voted down. 

• Miss. Hip-olyta - She is just one of the kids*, of course, she knows what tok tik is.

• Self Promoter - Will somehow manage to bring up their career in every conversation.*

• Exerc-eyes - In the gym but the eyes do more work*

• Volunteer Hero - They are better than you, and you know it*

• Back Seater - The person who you don't even know exists in your group project.*

• Lives on Campus - Non-stop assignments, can't leave* 

• Negative bank balance OR 1-digit bank balance

After last week, the cards are completely finalized and updated in the spreadsheet.

Sketching out the character card designs was done this week by Janice and Hui Yi. These were some rough designs and variations for different characters. We also distributed the remaining card illustrations within the group since most of us were design students.

At the same time, we conducted a playtest with people outside our group, as of then we have only played with ourselves. 

During this week, we started digitizing our card design sketches. The main issue we noticed was that since we divided the illustrations between our members, all the designs had different art styles. Due to this, we all met on Thursday and spent the time deciding on an art style and working on the design together. We made a set of guidelines and body parts we can all use for the characters. 

We also conducted a playtest with a few friends outside of our module. Then next week for the final play test we test print the cards out.

This week we focused on creating the final illustrations for all the card designs. The day before class, we printed out our prototype with whatever visuals we had done on the final card size. 

Since the most common issue was about the card size and not being able to differentiate the cards during the playtest, the new prototype cards solved this issue during the playtest.

We also forced Warith to be a teacher and spellcheck all our cards one by one with a red pen. 

The second last week was filled with lots of final touches and getting the game finished. We worked on the card illustrations and did a round of playtesting with an almost finalized version of the cards.

We also distributed the final presentation slides among the group, with the criteria and structure provided by Dr. Charles.  

Furthermore, we finalized all the card designs and double-checked everything before sending it to be printed. We used a printer on Shopee, which we sent for test printing prior to this. 

This was the last week of our official class! We all gathered one last time to finalize everything before our presentation. We worked on the slides together as well as finished all the materials that needed to be printed. 

The final week was our presentation week. Some feedback that we were given from the guests and Dr. Charles were:

• Get a copyright claim 

• Get commercialization data and a business plan 

• Industry guests found it entertaining and easy to play once they got the hang of it