ROLEs

Gameplay Designer

2D Artist

RESPONSIBILITIES

Gameplay & Systems Design
Playmat Graphic Design
Card Design
Playtest Coordination & Observation

Team Size - 5

Development Time - 1 Month

Status - Complete

Project Description

Refurbished is a 3-way rock-paper-scissors shoot style card game. Actions fire at the same time; deflecting, blocking, and/or dealing damage to opponents. The first robot (player) to rack up enough kills is the victor.

Game Design Process

Concepting

When our team was formed, we knew we wanted to make a game that resembled Rock-Paper-Scissors but with 3-way combat. Since actions could take place simultaneously, we assumed our biggest challenge would be determining the order of effects.

Our initial solution was to add speed indicators to the cards that designated which cards acted before others.

Much of Refurbished's game design was a collective effort with many of our ideas being bounced back and forth between each other during team brainstorming sessions.

Brainstorming & Iteration

With our initial concept in place, our team went about brainstorming ideas for cards.

We first brainstormed a list of verbs and actions and then abilities & theming. This excitement during brainstorming lead us to come up with several ideas for different decks. We had to quickly set limits on our scope to reduce complexity.

We scaled back and converged on a few ideas we thought to be effective. These ideas were used to form our first deck of 7 unique cards.

Prototyping & playtesting

Our team conducted several playtests both internal and external.

During these sessions, my teammates and I would take observation notes to help highlight issues with Refurbished and identify 'where the fun is' so to speak.

Using the feedback we received, we constructed several questions detailing our key design challenges and made a list of action items for our final draft.

Final draft

The final draft of Refurbished featured several changes following testing.

Firstly, we removed the speed system and changed the card descriptions to accommodate simultaneous action.

A blank card used to fill the empty target slot was also added to mitigate cheating.
Players would originally place a card to their left or right to target a player. This resulted in an optimal strategy or cheat wherein a player would view the movements of an opponent and quickly switch their own target.

In addition, the upgrade/junk card system was added to support persistent play with 3 players.
Originally, 1 player would be eliminated after the first round which introduced softlocks and reduced the number of strategic options for remaining players. Players would now remain in play and be given the opportunity to draw cards that may give them an advantage in the next round.

Asset Design process

Early sketches & prototypes

I participated in the project as both a designer and artist which informed the visual design of the cards themselves which needed to be functional as game pieces.

I began by sketching a few concepts in Miro and then made mockups in Adobe Illustrator.

Because the game was only ever prototyped with rough digital or paper placeholders with card sleeves and was never printed, a card backing was never designed.

The Playmat

The prototype playmat designed by Ethan Micallef.

Prototype

The first iteration of Refurbished's playmat was a paper prototype designed by one of my team members, Ethan Micallef.

The discard slots originally moved from right to left and used hourglass icons to indicate how long cards had been discarded. An additional symbol was included which showed the cards returning to the player's deck.

Target slots used symbols oriented in the direction of attack.

Health was tracked using a grid in the middle of the board which snaked down until it hit 0 which was considered a death state or elimination.

The final playmat I designed.

Changes & Final

The final playmat was adapted to match the design of the cards.

The most important elements to include were the target slots used to target each opposing player, the discard slots and their direction of play, and the health bar at the bottom.

I used graphic elements, icons, and a similar layout from the cards to help players understand the affordances of the playmat.
For example, I used the target symbols used on targeted cards in the upper corners of the mat to indicate targeting direction. The arrows on the sides of the target slots reinforce this concept.

Instead of having the discard pile move from right to left, I changed the direction of play from left to right.
Refurbished doesn't include a conventional discard pile on the player's left-hand side but rather has the cards return back to the deck. I wanted the discard direction to reflect this.

The symbols were changed to text to improve clarity for playtesters who did not understand the purpose of different slots.

Assets

Deck (Without Artwork)

A copy of a deck without artwork.

I was responsible for the graphic design and formatting of the cards. Refurbished contains 3 mechanically identical decks with hues differentiating them so shades are used to differentiate between card types.

Deck (With Artwork)

A team member, Ethan Micallef, designed the artwork for the cards. We communicated frequently to ensure visual consistency between the artwork and card interfacing.

Upgrade Cards

Upgrade cards are drawn by players after a round. Upgrades have a screw icon in the bottom left corner to make them easily identifiable even when partly obscured.

Junk Cards

Junk cards are mixed in with upgrade cards. They apply no penalty to players and can be redeemed for an upgrade card after the next round.

Junk cards are coloured grey instead of white to enable players to quickly differentiate them from upgrade cards. This visual language is consistent with non-interactable UI elements in digital games and software.

Developed @ Sheridan College - 2022

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