Game Design Document
Game Design Document
Embedded Files
Title
Title
The Uni Circle.
Razor
Razor
Students have a hard time balancing their work-school-social life, but when they become too overwhelmed in any aspect of their lives, they can rely on (as well as help) the people around them so they can all reach graduation together.
Slogan
Slogan
You don’t have to go through university alone, we are all in this together.
Vision Statement & Top level summary of your game idea
Vision Statement & Top level summary of your game idea
Work is piling up, the final exam is around the corner, tuition is increasing, your stress levels are rising…. you don’t think you can handle it... until... you realize… you don’t have to battle uni alone. Uni Circle is a game about helping each other survive through the perils of university while being mindful of balancing your own health, grades, and emotions. Whether you decide to help others or focus on yourself is up to you, as you are in control of your own university life… although you have the power to make a difference. If you want to.
Player experience goal(s) + atmosphere users should experience
Player experience goal(s) + atmosphere users should experience
Items from Lazarro’s 4 Keys 2 Fun (2014):
Hard Fun: mastery, achievement, “fiero”):
not at all |-----------0----------------------X--------------| highly so
Easy Fun: Exploring, Imagination, Curiosity, Absorption
not at all |-------------------X---------------0-------------| highly so
Altered States (Purposeful/Serious Fun): Values & Meaning
not at all |---------------------------------X--0------------| highly so
People Fun: Relationships, social bonding etc.
not at all |---------------------------------0----------X----| highly so
The new and interesting aspect of our project is that our goals are for players to care about each other and not just their own success. Players have to care about each others’ well-being and actively strategize to help each other survive in order to make it to the end of the game. If you go rogue and only care about yourself, you may possibly survive but your chances are extremely low.
Our project is relevant because most often students go through hardships in life without seeking help. We want to show our players how they can support each other’s mental and social needs. The game provides a meaningful experience of going through life together by giving and receiving help for each other. The game is also relevant because receiving help from others can have long-term effects which they can apply to their real-life experiences.
Our main selling points: our game has loveable characters you can roleplay as, and gives you a perspective of what it’s like to either struggle by yourself or be supported by others when unexpected life events happen to you. The dynamic of the character creation creates a unique experience on nearly every playthrough of the game. You don’t have to struggle through university alone.
Introduction
Introduction
The premise of the game: Mika, Miky, Lin, and Dakota are current university students from all walks of life. Each character has a unique background that changes every time you play the game. They entered university and met during first-year orientation, then quickly became friends, despite being in different majors. Now, they are all in university together, going through mental, physical, and financial struggles on their journey towards graduation.
The setting of the game: the modern world in 2021, more specifically focused on a typical university that supports various majors.
The game objective: players must reach the end of the board in order to win.
Core gameplay for phase 1: reveal cards that alter each character’s stats, place help tokens.
Core gameplay for phase 2: roll die for movement or to see whether your stats go up or down when you land on certain spaces on the board (ie. mental health, physical health, finance), use friend tokens to help others, use help tokens to help yourself, pick up event cards for dilemmas that can affect you in various ways (ie. gain more friend tokens), roleplay as your character throughout the game.
Narrative/Story
Narrative/Story
Our game has a narrative that is more complicated than a premise. At the first stage of the game (at the very beginning) players are given a chance to randomly build a background story of each character. Players need to choose events to build a background story. In the second stage, players need to create their own stories when they need any help from other players. Also, we plan to add different stories which will include some reasons or events that explain why players can gain more friend tokens. All the stories are going to be related to university life, the characters’ lives themselves, or interactions between characters.
Game mechanics
Game mechanics
Core Mechanics:
rolling dice to move forward, rolling dice above or below a threshold, choosing to use help or friend tokens, drawing event cards
Secondary Mechanics:
form alliances with players/build trust between players
A number of players:
The current number of players for our game can be anywhere between 2-4 North American college or university students however we do plan on increasing this to 6 players once we have the time as our game is easily expandable.
Game setup:
In the center of the board, have all of the character cards face up in the center of the board. (regardless of the number of players)
Next to each character, shuffle and place their personalized deck’s face down next to their designated character sheet.
Each player receives 5 “Help Tokens”, 5 “Friend Tokens”, and 1 stat sheet.
Assign each player 4 color player pieces (each player has 1 color) and place one at the starting tile on the board.
Gameplay procedure:
Start with either all players collaboratively or just one player selecting the top card of each character deck and reading aloud the character event.
Each player then chooses one character to give a “Help Token” to.
Repeat those two steps above three times.
Temporarily set the face-up character events aside and turn face down the character cards.
Shuffle the character cards, then randomly distribute one to each player, and return the character events to their respective character.
Each player then adjusts their character sheet according to the event cards associated with that character.
The players then determine who among them woke up the earliest, as that will be the starting player.
After the starting player has been chosen, that character rolls a 6 sided dice and moves forward that many spaces.
The player then follows the instructions on the space they land on.
If the player had landed on a colored tile, then rolled a roll below the number indicated on it, the other players decide at this point whether they want to use one of their friend tokens to help out that player or not. The player himself/herself decides whether to use his/her help tokens to compensate for a bad roll.
After using an event card or having gone through a colored tile, the player then adjusts their stat sheet according to what had just occurred.
The next player takes his turn.
This repeats until all players are eliminated or have crossed the graduation line.
The basic idea of rules:
The game takes place in two phases, character creation, and a survival phase.
The player who woke up the earliest starts.
Players roll die in order to progress through the board.
Players must roll when they land on a numbered tile.
A player’s modifier from their stat sheet modifies their roll.
If a player rolls below the threshold they can use the tokens to modify their score.
Players can use more than 1 “Help Token” during one roll if needed.
If the player’s score, after modifiers, is above the threshold, then their stat increases and if it is below, then it decreases.
A player is eliminated when any stat falls below -2.
Play Matrix
Our game requires more chances than skills, which leaves our game to be plotted to the right side of the play matrix. For our players to successfully succeed in our game, they need to get the right dice rolls so that they can add the right amount of modifiers according to their stat sheets. Based on their dice rolls, it will determine if they need to lower or higher their mental, physical, or finance stats. This game involves both mental calculations and physical dexterity but our overall gameplay is centered around calculations based on the dice rolls so that players can add the modifier accordingly to their stat sheet. The physical dexterity in our game involves players rolling the dice and moving their player pieces on the board.
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