Welcome back! Lately, me and my scimatics group have been hard at work with our latest project, Tectonic chances. In this project we have been using probability and Plate Tectonics to create an unique and fun game. Me and my group, Makai and Magnus (you can check out their blogs here. Makai Magnus), worked together to create Disaster Island.
How are thematic and mathematical elements used in game design? This has been our driving question throughout the project. To answer this question we dove into game design to see how it’s done. There have been many changes made to our game, I’ll talk about soon, and many things that still could use changing. To help with our understanding of probability we did a lot of work with dice and fractions.
To start off this project we had to start thinking of game ideas. For this one, our groups weren’t finalized so we also had Cameron B. Our original ideas were similar to later on but much too complex. In the original it was much too hard and time consuming to get the keys, the extra life, and the wheel spins. Another difference was that some things, like the wheel spin, were optional. This made it too easy because, unless you went for these things, you wouldn’t even have a chance of getting the bad option.
At the end of this project we started to finalize the game rules and then we had fun. We got to spend a bunch of time playing our game with other people, from our class and the other one, and we got to play other people’s games. This was a fun experience that further helped us understand how we can use thematic and mathematical elements in game design by seeing how other people did it.
Another important thing that we did was the mind map. We did a mind map at the start of the project to see some examples of what we know, think, wonder about, and some ideas for our games. As the project went on, we added more and more to it so we could see how far we came with our knowledge about plate tectonics, we also answered some of our questions.
Throughout this project we have learned a lot about game design and the effort that goes into it. We have done a lot of work with tectonic plates and how they work, with them moving on top of the mantle and causing many things to happen. We also did a lot of work with probably and fractions using dice rolls. So, how are thematic and mathematical elements used in game design? Well, many games use some form of mathematical equations to help determine the outcome. Sometimes it’s using probability with dice, cards, or a spinner, and other times it’s using simple math like adding/subtracting or dividing/multiplying. Some games, like Monopoly, will use multiple of these things to make the gameplay more exciting. In the end, this project has taught me a lot about how thematic and mathematical elements are used in game design.