Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Social value in board game journal #3

I checked out Brenda Brathwaite's board game Train and the gamecrafter in the past two week.

I was supervised how well the "value" has been built into the Train game. Players don't realize how inhumanly they had treated the "passenger" until they flip the final card.

This inspired me to indirectly guide the player to experience the "challenge". For example, in my situational, players have to work in a bureaucratic way to win the game. In this way players will realize the good and bad side of the bureaucracy. Later in the game, they might be given chances to adjust their work flow so that they can win the game faster.

Here is a rough thought on the game background and mechanic.

Background: A apocalypse world. Civilization has been destroyed by war hundreds years ago. Players are in the same tribe. The tribe recently found a city, laid in ruins.

Goal: Find out the ancient knowledge buried in the city and bring the tribe back to civilization.

Mechanic: Player will be divided into 4 roles, Seeker, Transporter, Analyzer and the Chief. They work and communicate in a linear flow.
Every role, except the seeker, can give their junior tasks by cards.
Every round, the player do their job than pass their work to their superior.

Things I haven't work out yet:
1. My value "Access to knowledge" is a very vague idea. If the goal of my game is to gather knowledge. How could I represent the knowledge? How could I classify them?
2. I haven't built "breathe" into my game yet.
3. I want my game to be mean full but also simple and fun...

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