Month: November 2021

Scimatics Reflection

`At the beginning of this project we were given a driving question. How are thematic and mathematical elements used in game design?

To start we gathered information about plate tectonics as this is what we would base our game theme on. We did this by reading textbooks and answering comprehension questions in class and for homework. Here is an example of what we studied.

Following on from gathering this information we approached our first milestone. The first milestone was to come up with a small game idea based on other games that included information on plate tectonics . My partner Kai and I looked at the game Uno and decided to add in rules. We wrote these on a whiteboard and added diagrams. Here are the rules we added.

This was not a great game idea as it wasn’t very original and unfortunately we continued this project with the same narrow vision.

Our final game was a version of snakes and ladders. See here.

Rules

-board game.

-snakes and ladders  pretty much.

-Roll both dice and move the numbers on the die added together.

-If you encounter a square that has a tsunami 🌊 on it move forward the amount of the number in the middle. Another way to determine how many steps you need to take, is you’ll see 2 droplets of water, that’s where you stop.

-If you hit an earthquake square you drop to the square where the crack ends.

-If you roll a double thats higher than 3, the tectonic plate movement happens, which means you move to the highest numbered square of the row. If you get a double that is three or lower, you move to the lowest numbered square in the row.

-if you roll two numbers that add up to 6 (for example, 1 and 5, 2 and 4, 3 and 3), you must bring in the coloured die. The red side activates the volcanic eruption, and you have to miss your turn. The green side mean you can have 2 turns.

-First person to square 90

We then looked at probability of events happening in the game

Here is our game

My partner wanted to base our tectonic plates game on snakes and ladders and I said ok.
In retrospect this was a bad idea. Choosing snakes and ladders as a base for our game meant we could not be creative in producing our own game with different counters/ board and it meant our rules were limited and I think stopped us from using our imagination. I wish I hadn’t agreed as Overall I was not happy with the game we produced.
Here is the game we produced, the rules the board and the concept.

Next time I produce a game I think I would not base it on a game that already exists. I would try to be creative with the following rules and ideas to base it on.
I would have a board that was cracked in half and the aim of the game would be to win pieces to put the board back together and mend the crack.

I am currently working on this game as a home project. There are 2 teams the Mythical beans and the Humans, you play on one of the 2 teams. The Mythical beans aim is to destroy the earth / game board the humans aim is to repair the crack in the Earth’s crust. The board is made up of 3D jigsaw pieces that players can win and take in and out of the board. The Mythical beans can create earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other disasters the humans have to work to stop these happening. I will update this blog when i have more ideas.

Toodles.