Ensure the main enemy (Climate Change) is threatening enough to make players want to cooperate to take it down while ensuring that there are enough incentives to tempt them to sometimes act in their own interests as well.

Manage your Worth, Together go Forth, Save the Earth.

‘Climatic Crisis’ is a cooperative-strategic game in which players will have to manage their own assets and make decisions in conjunction with other player’s actions to prevent the Earth from perishing due to climate change while trying to defeat a common enemy. Each player will represent a corporation aiming to gain the most profits, and their choices will impact the Earth’s well-being, which is represented in the form of the green tiles on the board. The combination of green and player color tiles (any tile that is non-black) serves as the Earth’s total amount of health points. Based on this feature, players must manage their resources and make the best decisions they can when choosing event card effects based on the current state of the game board in relation to the other players’ goals. If the game board is overtaken by black tiles (indicative of total annihilation of the Earth’s inhabitable land by climate change), then the players will all lose the game.

From https://www.wri.org/insights/setting-record-straight-about-renewable-energy

An article published by CNBC also states that should renewable energy continue developing, then fossil fuels could possibly be pushed out by the 2050s.

However the reliance on fossil fuels is something that cannot be overlooked, and even then, by 2050 how much of the Earth will already be damaged by fossil fuels? A study titled “Youth perceptions of climate change: A narrative synthesis” writes about youths' perception on the shift of climate change, bringing attention to the fact that young people do care about the impacts of how these fossil fuel corporations are affecting the Earth. Things such as the amount of protests and youth’s participation in these protests were recorded and it should be taken into note as it is evident that youths do care about how climate change is affecting their future.

Overall, while fossil fuel corporations are a detriment to the Earth and accelerate the speed of climate change, there are developing solutions that are being executed on hand. Things like renewable resources could help us reduce the amount of carbon emission for a much greener lifestyle, and if corporations were to take a look into these alternative options rather than resorting to fossil fuels then the pace of climate change could be slowed.

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change

https://www.eesi.org/topics/fossil-fuels/description

https://www.wri.org/insights/setting-record-straight-about-renewable-energy

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/23/climate-renewables-could-oust-fossil-fuels-to-power-the-world-by-2050.html

https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcc.641

c) Team motivation

Climate change affects our future, and if people do not take action to combat it in the present then it would lead to an unsustainable Earth in the near future. It is relevant to us because any problems that arise from climate change directly impact all of us as we all live on the same planet, and we are seeing the effects of climate change on us now. The effects of climate change over the years have been very transparent; for example, the frequency and intensity of forest fires in BC has aggressively accelerated in the past decade. As the years progress and climate change worsens, the threat of forest fires will only continue to grow. Another instance would be how the water levels are rising due to the melting ice caps and increased downpour of rain in an abnormal quantity, causing more flooding to occur in our geographical areas, such as the Abbotsford floods that occurred this year.

d) Why would a game be a suitable approach to tackling this challenge/problem?

The game puts players into the roles of corporations and shows them how satisfying their own greed can come at the cost of the environment. By immersing players into these roles it shows them how these corporations have a responsibility to use the resources they have to combat climate change. A game would be a good approach to this problem as games are a very immersive form of media. Compared to other media, a game format engages the player by giving them a first hand experience of what big companies do that drastically affect climate change and the disasters that it causes. By putting the players into the roles of large corporations we can show them how corporate greed often comes at a large cost (in the case of our game, climate change). Players will also experience the reasons why these large companies refuse to fully commit to stopping climate change, which allows players to contemplate incentives for companies on how to reach a consensus between losing the Earth to climate change and having these companies go bankrupt from lack of profit (transformative experience). Some unique affordances that are present in the game include game pieces that are abstractions of real world items, such as land as tiles or money bills as representations of real world money.

e) Desired “transformation” and impact of game on players

We want to make a game that makes players think about how acting out of self-interest can impact others and the Earth itself, as well as how often large monetary gains come at the cost of the environment. Beyond educating players on how corporations contribute to climate change, it can show players how often good deeds do not come without some form of sacrifice. It could show players how sometimes we must think of the greater good instead of ourselves. After playing the game, we want the player to be transformed in the sense that they would be more aware of how their actions could affect the Earth more than they think, and possibly be more encouraged to use cleaner options rather than options that harm the Earth. We chose this aspect because in relation to climate change, there are a lot of controllable variables that affect the Earth, especially with the technologies and materials we have in recent times which seems to be built upon draining the Earth of its resources. By allowing the player to realize this, we would be able to teach them that their actions have consequences and can affect the future of the Earth. The main focus is on making players understand and possibly change their behavior, or to adopt views that would be more green.

f) How would you assess the game’s impact?

The main goal of our game is to educate players about how large corporations are contributing to climate change and make them more aware about how the products they buy and use from these large companies are indirectly contributing to the increase of climate change. We think one of the potential indicators of success happens during the game, when the player realizes that they should think carefully over their decisions, such as whether to benefit themselves for more profit or if they should help their teammates to prevent the climate change tiles from spreading. We can assess these indicators of success by gauging the player’s reactions and observing what kind of decisions they would make during the game. This would indicate that the players are taking consideration of their actions seriously. These would help us better understand what worked and what didn’t because it would show how engaged the players would be in our game. Additionally, as our game is based on the players’ decision-making skills, the amount of time players spend pondering about their next actions would show reasonable investment into the current play session.

Best Friends plant trees

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2cqQA_zsKY

This is a video about two friends who have planted 10,000 trees. The beautiful friendship and cooperation of these two men is really inspiring, especially considering that one is blind and the other has no use of his arms. The video gives one a sense of hope and motivation to do better when watching it. These are some powerful emotions that we want to instill into our gameplay and narrative. Their teamwork and slow but steady progress of planting 10,000 trees is something we wish to reflect in our game. Much like how these two men have positively impacted the world, we want to encourage players to work together to help reduce the environmental impact of the fossil corporation in our game.

Illuminate, a climate change game

https://ic3uwaterlooca.itch.io/illuminate

This is a game in which players must strategically budget their money while choosing different options which could potentially reduce climate change. I liked how they offered short, concise, but still educational information through the different choices the players could make. This is similar to the style of information we wish to present in our game. Additionally, having to manage limited resources (money) while playing the game made me think about the information more carefully. We similarly will aim to successfully relate our information to the choices players can make, as it will better harmonize our message with the game mechanics, leading to a more well-rounded experience for the players.

Bee Simulator

https://beesimulator.com/

Bee Simulator is a game where you play as a honey bee working for it’s colony. Throughout the story there is narration as well as facts about how humans are contributing to and how they can prevent honey bees from going extinct. The game touches upon climate change and how humans play a key part in the endangerment of animal species through their contributions towards global warming. By playing as a species that is being hit hard by climate change, the game wants players to become more aware of their actions that affect other animal species that rely on nature and a clean world to thrive. The core aspect of this game is to play as an animal to give the player a different perspective than what they have already experienced. Much like Bee Simulator, our game allows the player to play from a big corporation’s perspective to show them how these corporations contribute to climate change.

#TeamSeas Fundraiser

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXDx6DjNLDU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV2gBU6hKfY

https://theoceancleanup.com/

Team Seas is a fundraiser run by two famous YouTubers with the goal of raising 30 million to remove 30 million pounds of trash from the Oceans by 2022. Earlier in 2019, these youtubers also had a fundraiser called Team Trees aiming to raise 20 million to plant 20 million trees. Both of these YouTubers used their online presence to raise awareness around topics that they believe should be talked about and to help raise money for it. One of these YouTubers specialize in technology type videos and his video was about a self driving cleaning robot that helps get rid of garbage from one of the dirtiest bodies of water in the world. His video helped showcase the robot in action and also the sheer amount of garbage that it picks up daily. The videos in general are used to raise awareness and show the viewer a first hand experience of the problems in a fun and interesting way.

Bill Nye The Science Guy Rage About Global Warming

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjXxAVayBEY

Bill Nye is a well known science communicator. In the video he presents a brief explanation of how we must reduce global temperatures to combat the effects of climate change. The comedic and blunt way he emphasizes to the audience the urgency of climate change is inspirational as it is brief but it leaves an impact.

a) Innovation

Our project is innovative and interesting in that the outcomes of the gameplay are never the same. There is a high degree of freedom in which the tiles can be placed and spread, in comparison to say, a game with a fixed board. This makes it so that every playthrough of the game will guarantee different results in how the tiles would spread, and each round the players are given the choice to where they want their tiles (player agency). Additionally, unlike other tile games, our game allows players to change the game board itself based on their decisions and actions. The degree of freedom that is exercised is supported by the element of chance and unexpectedness, which is why the board can produce many different variations within the 10x10 board. There are other elements that support this as well, such as the event cards, and the decisions of what other players might make when given the choice.

b) Relevance

Our project is relevant as it reflects the state of climate change— it is a situation that can produce expected and unexpected consequences, and is also something that creeps on us slowly, endangering the sustainability of our future on this planet. Oftentimes, people do not realize the effects of climate change until we are affected by a major event that is caused by climate change. In a way, our game somewhat ‘simulates’ the reality we live in, in which there are event cards that also speak of environmentalists protesting for big corporations to take action against climate change. Our game board is also shared among all the players, in which all green tiles are free for taking, just like how the Earth is to us humans. This is why the topic of climate change is relevant and meaningful because it directly ties into our reality and our future. One example is the heatwave that happened in Summer 2021, which was the previous semester before when the game was created-- global temperatures reached its highest in that month for many areas in BC, which is an example of the impact climate change has on our day to day lives.

c) Selling Point

Our main selling points would be the competitive-cooperation aspect. The game is inherently a social game where the player not only has to be aware of their own actions and the board, but they have to be conscious of how other players act as well because every action affects the game. It provides a unique type of gameplay for a board game. The players would care because if they enjoy games that do not inherently only isolate the player from the rest of the players, then it would be an experience where the player would be able to flourish, as communication and socialization plays a key role to the outcome of the game. In a way, players would want to play because of the competitive-cooperation aspect that allows every interaction to matter instead of being restricted to only your own actions. In essence, the main selling point would be the gameplay features, and the message we are trying to convey is what we want the players to get out of the experience.

Premise: Players represent different energy-production corporations where they balance their personal profits and resources in an effort to ensure Earth’s future stability.

Setting: Abstract version of Earth (Countries, cities, companies/industries, etc…)

Objective: Prevent the Earth from ‘dying’ by cooperating with other players to defeat the universal opponent NPC by depleting their black tiles on the board. Each player must retain at least one tile of their own colour (characterized as their assets to prevent bankruptcy) to continue playing.

Core Gameplay: Players will make decisions while trying to defeat the enemy NPC, represented as black tiles on the board, in order to save the earth from climate change.

What makes this game Unique: Players work together against a single opponent NPC, while also having shared and private resources— players will compete against one another for personal profit (money) but must also work together to ensure that the green tiles are not overtaken by the black tiles (representative of climate change destroying existing land and habitats) or they will all lose.

The Earth is facing many adverse effects of climate change (such as global flooding, heat waves, etc) due to the neglect of big energy corporations who exploit Earth’s resources for their monetary profits in an unsustainable manner. Due to the public’s demand for these energy-producing corporations to adopt long-term and sustainable solutions, the player aids their respective corporation to make decisions for their financial wellbeing, doubling as a sustainability solution for the Earth. These choices involve repairing environmental damages at the expense of a corporation’s personal profits, or choosing to neglect or further damage the Earth to increase personal profit margins. However, as a business, the player must also take their financial status into account at all times while facing the business dilemma of pursuing personal profits or saving the Earth..

In our game, Climatic Crisis is a cooperative decision making game that can be played up to a maximum of 4 players. The core mechanic is to purchase land (green tiles) to make into their own color, and purify land corrupted by climate change (black tiles) back to green. The goal of the player is to convert as many tiles as possible to their own color, but also working with other players to prevent the spread of the black tiles. In addition, they are aiming to gain the highest net assets by the end of the game. These assets are calculated by adding up their money and tiles at the end of the game.

Our target audience range is early teens to young adults. As the game mechanics are a bit complex, the game would not be simple enough to immerse younger children. However, early teens to young adults will be immersed into the game because of the gameplay loop and mechanics we implemented, as well as learn about the message behind climate change. Due to its educational nature, the game would play well in a classroom setting, environmental conference, or for anyone who is interested in learning more about climate change.

The game is set up on a 10x10 board, each filled with tiles. The four corners are filled with 3 tiles of the players colour, and is the starting setup for each player colour. In the middle of the board are 4 black tiles, which represents the effects of climate change. There are also two decks: a white deck (event cards) which is used by the players per turn, and a black deck (boss event cards) that functions as a random detriment to the players at the end of each turn cycle.

Our game has a balance of chance and skill, but allows the player to exercise skill more often. The chance aspect is in drawing the event cards which gives the players two options which the player then can exercise their knowledge about the current setup of the board and make a decision based on an informed decision. However, chance is still relevant because there are some event cards that are stronger than other event cards, and that is entirely up to whether or not that is the card the player draws. It is evident in our core gameplay that we have a mix of both chance and skill evenly, because the game revolves around picking event cards and presenting the choices for the player to decide upon; the chance aspect in the drawing of the card, the skill aspect in the decision making. The event cards drawn offer the element of chance because whatever is drawn is random and usually never the same or expected. As for the skill element, it ties with the mental calculation category, for the main skills a player will use throughout the game are mental skills; players must make observations and decisions which may or may not affect the state of the game board. With the addition of green and red tokens, there is an added element of skill and mental calculation. Players can weigh the pros and cons of taking red or green tokens and use them to their advantage. This is mainly skill based because there is no randomness in taking red and green tokens, you know how much you are gaining and losing. The player must also work with their teammates and think of ways to get the upper hand while getting minimum punishment in the form of climate crisis and punishment tokens. The only chance aspect of tokens is the punishment that the other players can pick for you. However, it is still not completely random as they have to pick an option from the list. For physical dexterity, our game does not have main aspects that rely on such elements.

Refer to the "Rules" page

a) Decision Types

Analyze for hollow, obvious, or uninformed decisions

Our game contains obvious decisions depending on the circumstances players may find themselves in. Despite players having the ability to choose between two choices when they draw an event card, if they do not fulfill the requirement for one of the choices they must default to the second one. If this happens too often it may make the game a lot less fun for that player. A way we could improve this is to further balance the game to prevent this from happening except in extremely rare cases (in which the cases that do occur are purely due to the player’s own actions in their previous turns). Some of the event cards we have are somewhat hollow decisions, as they offer players advantages such as gaining a certain amount of money, or they may choose to gain a lesser amount of money, but everyone else can also gain that lesser amount. These event cards do not have any real consequences when dealing purely with the game itself and not its players. However, picking the selfish option with these event cards could have implications for the deciding player later on. A possible consequence of this could be that the other players could decide to single out and target the deciding player as punishment for choosing the selfish choice rather than the one that benefits everyone. This is not a consistent consequence though, as it is reliant on the players themselves and the behaviour of players will naturally vary from group to group. Additionally, choosing to be selfish instead of sharing the money may cause one of the other players to become bankrupt, which can make the game harder to win.

Analyze for desirable decisions

Our game contains all five decision types to varying degrees, and these change depending on each playthrough.

An example of a decision the player must make is a weighted decision type. When playing the game, the player can choose whether or not to utilize each of the resources they manage to capture. If the player decides to utilize the resource, then they will earn more money, giving them an advantage over the other players but cause negative effects to the Earth, such as increasing the number of black tiles or speeding up the ‘climate crisis’ turn counter. If the player does not decide to utilize the resource, then they won’t earn the money from the resource, causing them to fall behind in money but preventing the negative effects from affecting the Earth. This choice can also be either an immediate or long-term decision based on the state of the game. Another example is if the player picks up an event card with an option that allows them to gain a large amount of monye, but it turns the climate crisis counter up by 2, this could be an immediate or long-term decision depending on the state of the board. If the counter is already at a high count, picking that decision would lead to an immediate climate crisis which would affect the board. However, if the climate crisis is low, then the decision would not go into effect immediately, but the player would become aware of it later on. Additionally, acquiring a green or red token would be a weighted and long-term decision in the sense that the tokens have specific effects when accumulated based on player knowledge; the effects also don’t take immediate effect, and it is only when the player acquires more then they will start to feel the effects of the tokens.

We also have instances of informed decisions which are based on the state of the game board. The tiles on the board feature the current status of each player in real time, which is accessible to all players involved. For example, the amount of black tiles in relation to the amount of green tiles will indicate to the players how much danger they are currently in. All of this information influences player decisions on each turn and narrows the scope of logical decisions when they draw an event card. Tokens can also be redeemed, and this decision is made by the player as a result of an informed decision; the player would have to know which perk or punishment should be redeemed, as it might be situational which perk or punishment is better. Thus the informed decision is made in the sense that the player knows the game mechanics and what would be the best option to choose in that current time.

We also have dramatic decisions in the scenarios in which player’s draw an event card, and they’re given two decisions which have equal value scaling. The choice depends on if the player wants to benefit themselves or if they want to encourage cooperation. There are various other choices that are available on the event cards that have elements of dramatic decision as well, given the effects and different possibilities such as two negative decisions, but one would yield lesser punishment to the player but would affect the other players in a way that is more negative or vice versa in a positive light. These decisions may be influenced by previous decisions/events or by the current state of the board; however the effect here is that players are given a choice of equal value and are forced to pick one or another in order to continue the game.

The variety of choices we developed improves the gameplay as it makes the game unpredictable and exciting. Players must carefully weigh their decisions and calculate if an advantage is worth taking when accounting for the numerous possibilities of the next turn, making the game fun in a challenging and engaging way.

b) Dilemmas

Our game’s card system doubles for a dilemma/non-trivial dilemma system, as players must choose between two types of detrimental effects if they draw a dilemma card. These are part of the core gameplay as players must draw a card if they choose not to gain either a green or red token in order to end their turn. While picking up an event card is a much lower risk of losing money than simply picking up either a green or red token, the players, however, are faced with dilemmas they have to make as a result instead. They tie in with the overall game objective as the dilemmas often target players’ resources, which they use to progress through the game, or aid the enemy npc, directly influencing the current state of the game. They improve gameplay by crippling (to an extent) the economic status of players or altering the game board in favour of the enemy. This prevents players from hoarding resources (forcing them to pay via taxes or surrounding them on the board with corrupted tiles, causing them to take action in some way using their resources) and/or adds a dynamic change to the game state. As the enemy (black tile) has one turn after each player has had their turn, these dilemmas are a sort of “harmful/undesirable surprise” to the players, forcing them to decide in what way the villain should profit, while also taking up one of the player’s chances to receive bonuses. These dilemma cards add randomness into the game, where players can suddenly find themselves in a threat of losing if they do not constantly strategize and take action.

Moreover, such dilemmas provide decisions that relate to the topic of transformative games because the offered options on the event cards force the player to think about how the decisions they make can affect the earth (the board) making them make the connection to the realistic nature of climate change’s effects in reality. Additionally, these non-trivial dilemmas improve the gameplay by providing a sense of unexpectedness, for the outcome of the board is never the same and is always a surprise as to what options on the card are drawn (ex. the choice can save the earth, or cause damage to it); this randomness could also factor into how different players react and how different players make decisions in relation to what they see on the board when given a variety of options and actions they are allowed to perform.

c) Rewards

The two main rewards that players can acquire are money and tiles. Every turn, each player receives a $200 passive income at the start of their turn. This passive income is vital for players, as it helps them buy and clear tiles, both of which bring the player closer to victory. During every turn, the player has the option to be able to draw an event card that can provide the player with benefits such as money or tiles. The rewards can only be obtained during each player's turn, and reinforce the player’s desire to continue playing as it gives them motivation to stay in the game. Another reward players are able to acquire are the green and red tokens, with the rewards being more so the green tokens. Green tokens can be earned through making good decisions or bought with money. The green tokens can also be redeemed for a perk or reward of great value once the player has three. The incentive for earning green tokens is to gain a bigger reward that would benefit the player. However, red tokens also yield rewards, as when the player takes a red token they gain $500, but in exchange for the large amount of money the player is then at risk for punishment; this allows the player to weigh whether the reward is worth earning points to possible punishment.

d) Surprise

Player Event cards add an element of surprise as a player cannot predict what cards they will get and which two actions they must choose from. However, the randomness of the cards are balanced by giving the player a choice between two actions. This also adds to the social aspect of the game as other players may try and sway the deciding player’s choice. The Boss Event cards add an additional element of surprise. While players know that Boss Event cards will always contain events that will negatively affect players, it adds a sense of risk and danger which makes the game exciting, as players cannot predict how dire their situation will be. Players may either try and plan to prepare for the worst case or place their fate in the cards.

e) Endings

The game resolves when players have either gotten rid of all the black tiles or the amount of black tiles are less than the total amount of tiles on the board at the end of the final turn. There is satisfaction in the victory as it takes the cooperation of the players to beat the Boss. In addition, the Boss presents obstacles for the players throughout the game in the form of its Boss Events. These events no doubt frustrate the players at points of the game, further increasing the players’ satisfaction at the end of the game. However, there is also an incentive for the player to try to have the most amount of assets after they have reached a cooperative victory, as the player with the most amount of assets wins in the end in terms of a player versus player aspect, which would give satisfaction to the player who managed to come out on top.

During the process of assembling our team, we understood that everyone had a shared concern regarding climate change. This made it easy for our team to agree upon the issue we wanted to explore with our game (climate change). Therefore, we began our brainstorming process by further narrowing down various subtopics within climate change. The topic we decided to further explore was how corporations are negatively impacting the environment. We thought this would be a great issue to highlight as a large portion of conversation around climate change revolves around the personal environmental responsibility of ordinary people, rather than the responsibilities that large corporations have when it comes to reducing their environmental impact. Having chosen our topic, we set out to brainstorm a game that would show people how corporations can directly negatively or positively impact the environment in their bid to amass the largest profits they can.

We settled on a tile format for our game, drawing our inspiration from Sid Meier’s Civilization V. We thought this would be a good way to give players a visual representation of the impact and influence of companies, as well as the impact of climate change. Due to the use of tiles and territory management, we concluded that a turn-based format consisting of various turn phases would be the best way for our game loop to proceed. In addition to the players, we created a boss character to act as an abstract representation of fossil fuel companies and the negative impacts of climate change. Researching climate change was vital in designing our transformative game as we needed enough knowledge on the topic that we could then draw on to educate others. In addition, we researched other games focused on climate change in order to see the different ways others presented the topic, which helped a lot in designing our game.

For our first prototype, we mainly focused on the mechanics of the game. As we progressed through our different prototypes, we added more narrative elements to help strengthen the immersion and transformative impact of the game. We also added more mechanics and custom assets to the game with each iteration. The main insights we gained were that adding new mechanics drastically affected the balance of the game. For example, we attempted to balance our new red/green token mechanic by increasing the amount of starting income the players received, but this made the game too easy and reduced the amount of hard fun our game had. This meant that we had to spend a lot of time balancing the game to ensure that the game was appropriately balanced and not too easy or difficult. Despite this, the overall game loop was smooth and playtesters were able to progress through their turns without much issue. One thing to improve on in the future is to ensure that the game is balanced at all times before adding too many mechanics. Each time a single new mechanic is added there should be balancing done right away to implement the new mechanic. Another thing we could improve in the future is refining the description of the cards to make them more impactful and transformative for the player.

Playtesting was vital to our designing process, as our game relied heavily on well balanced event card choices. Playtesting allowed us to gauge how heavily event cards impacted the gameplay and the difficulty level of the game. If event cards were too overpowered, they would give the players huge advantages that made the game end too quickly, reducing the enjoyment of players. We needed multiple playtests and iterations to make the mechanics balanced as we would find mechanics that can break or destabilize the flow of the game each time. Taking down notes and gathering player feedback was crucial in helping the team understand the state of whichever game iteration was being tested. We were able to gather a variety of useful information, such as which game features the players enjoyed or disliked. We also planned out new features or possible changes while we observed the playtests, which greatly helped us plan out future tasks. Playing games that were similar to our game or were also transformative also helped us design a better game as they gave us inspiration and allowed us to think of additional ways we could impact players with our own game.

It was sometimes difficult to implement ideas that were given to us during critique due to how varied some of the feedback was. This however gave us more ideas on how to add mechanics into our game that would appeal to all types of players. For example, one critique we got was to add more player vs player elements into the game because the playtester was very fond of competing and beating other players. However, since our game was mainly focused on co-op elements, it was difficult for us to implement that feedback. What we did implement were event cards that had player vs player elements, such as allowing a player to "punish" or "attack" another player by targeting them with a negative effect.

When it was the day of the final showcase, our team got interviewed which gave us the opportunity to present our game to the class and the online Zoom audience. As a team, we were all able to answer the interview questions asked by the professor within the best of our abilities. Experiencing what it was like to be interviewed for the process of our game was a bit daunting at first, however, our team managed to answer the questions that were asked by the professor, and while we were watching the players play our game during the showcase, we felt as if we managed to fix some of the balancing issues we struggled with throughout the project. Overall, while there are more mechanics we would have liked to add to our project, the game itself was fully functional and adhered to the standards of a transformative game we had hoped to achieve and showcased to the best of our abilities.

Based on the information and suggestions stated in Chapter 12 of Game Design Workshop: Team Structures, one process that improved the way our team worked together was setting up weekly meetings to ensure that we have our overall goal for our work fulfilled. Meetings are/were a good way for our team to encourage discussions and brainstorming, especially when we knew what the meeting subject was. For instance, my team had created our own personal method of communication/server on Discord ever since the initial formation of our team a few months ago.

Essentially, our team created a separate Discord server in addition to the channel we were provided by the instructors. We separated our topics into different channels, having specific channels for planning and material relating to the assignments. We heavily utilized the pin function to keep track of our tasks and any vital information such as links to resources and any files we were working on. In addition, we made a channel for just general conversations unrelated to the project, which helped the team bond through shared interests. Moreover, we utilized this platform to plan ahead and set up meetings that worked with everyone’s schedule. By setting up meetings over voice call with everyone working on the project at the same time (hard to set up meetings in-person so remote meetings were our best choice), it allowed for a live collaborative effort from everyone and a space where we could all discuss our progress. This ultimately ensured that our work would be completed with maximum efficiency.