Group Members:

  • Anastasia Pomelova
  • Eugene Ghanizadeh Khoub
  • Mert Ülker
  • Shyam Rangarajan

Milestone 1: Game Idea Pitch (19.04.2021)




Milestone 2: Game Prototype (03.05.2021)


Prototype Video:

https://youtu.be/XUm4CT4Mnhg


Milestone 3: Interim Report (24.05.2021)



Milestone 4: Alpha Release (14.06.2021)




Milestone 5: Playtesting (28.06.2021)


Milestone 6: Final Release (12.07.2021)



Trailer


Source Code:

GoogleDrive


Builds:

WindowsBuild.zipLinuxBuild.zip

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21 Kommentare

  1. Unbekannter Benutzer (ga48jer) sagt:

    There are lots of things I like about your pitch: Turning the simple idea of a queue into a game, the order a queue represents and how chaos arises when people don't abide by its rules and the combination of a cooperative goal with competition due to selfish interests. So as long as you manage to design basic mechanics that consistently lead to those intriguing situations described in the pitch, it sounds like a fun time with friends.

  2. Unbekannter Benutzer (ge69rom) sagt:

    G'Day to y'all!

    1.) What I like:

    I am very curious about how your game project will come out! The reason is mainly that from your design paper I already get this board game feeling and this strong aim you are going for as a team. The game board sketch in your design document looks promising too! I think it is an excellent idea for a semester worth of time!

    2.) What I find problematic:

    There is one major thing I want to write about and that is session time: While some board games can take quite some hours to come to a conclusion I do not know if people are willing to spend the same amount of time in front of a screen. You do not sit together with your mates personally after all. I haven't found a specification on how long you plan a session to last so maybe this is a good thing to think about at least once...

    3.) Improvements:

    I think an easy way to solve this issue with session time is by incorporating some kind of playtime threshold a session usually does not pass. Of course, if players still want to continue, they can just start a new round. The game itself already runs in turns due to its nature of being a board game so I do not think it will be difficult to regulate this. In your design document you wrote that the player with most influence wins so you could also offer different playtimes depending on how much prestige a player's guild needs to achieve.

  3. Unbekannter Benutzer (ga87haf) sagt:

    Nice Idea! During the presentation I got the impression you guys knew exactly what you were planning for, so I'm pretty confident this game will turn out well.

    Just be careful to focus on the basic mechanics as well as balancing it. Board games must be fair

  4. Unbekannter Benutzer (ga48lep) sagt:

    Board games live off of the spirit of sitting together and enjoying the game together. While board games can be competitve, you don't need to focus on the exact balancing etc. It's more important that you focus on interactions between players and force them in the funny situations that we love about board games. But I think your game has the potential to do that if well executed! GL

  5. Unbekannter Benutzer (ga58kal) sagt:

    It seems, you already know exactly what you want your game to be and set high goals for yourselves; I like it! I also like that you seem to leave the players a lot of freedom about /how/ they want to play the game.  While I am typically the guy who reinvents the wheel for the 10th time (writing own engine btw) I would recommend you, not to do this for your ambitions goals! 


  6. What is your favorite aspect of the proposed game? Why?
    I can't really pinpoint a specific aspect of the game, but I can definitely say that while listening to your presentation and also while reading the formal proposal, I constantly had the feeling that I was listening to or reading an introduction to a board game rather than a video game. The setting, objectives and the tools available to the player are very board-game-like as a whole, which is great considering that is what you are aiming for. I have had my share experience with board games myself so I can see your experience with them in the proposed idea too.

    What is your least favorite aspect? Why?
    The scale of the honor system. Looking at figure 6 in the documentation, it is a one-dimensional scale with positive and negative numbers, representing positive and negative honor, which is fine in itself. However, naming the negative portion of the scale "disgrace" does not make sense considering it would be negative disgrace, which is honor. Overall having two words for the same concept seems a little redundant. If you really want to go with disgrace and honor, I would suggest making it a positive scale in both directions. Alternatively, I think having positive and negative honor without calling it disgrace is fine too.

    Which single change or addition would you suggest to most improve the game?
    Like you said, board games live from the experience of playing together. I think a big part of creating that feeling is also physically moving the pieces, rolling dice and so on. This might be the reason why tabletop simulator is so successful, because they have a proper physics engine simulating pieces on the top of a table. So I suggest some kind of physics engine or at least some kind of freedom for the player to play around in the environment. I do realize however that this is probably something that should be considered in the hight target or maybe even later. Depending on how deep you want to go into this, it could also be considered a technical achievement.

    Additional feedback:

    • It's hard to give good feedback when the game idea itself is so complex already. Even though I read the document, I still have questions about how certain aspects of the game play out.
    • It seems way easier to gain disgrace than to gain honor. Especially the "riot" option on the action mat comes to mind, as it seems like the only option in the game that can change the honor status by more than one step.
    • If I was on your team I would be scared that we might have taken on too big of a task for the context of this practical course. Looking at your development schedule, your whole game logic is in functional minimum, which seems unrealistic to me. Implementing a game with as many detailed rules as yours should not be underestimated and I would at least break it down more so it can be spread across the low and desired target as well.
  7. Unbekannter Benutzer (ga86jah) sagt:

    I LIKE the whole idea of implementing a board game and I believe you, with your experience, can develop a fair, balanced and entertaining system, rules and logic behind the scenes. Do not disappoint me!

    I FEAR the pacing could be to slow for a multiplayer over the internet. Turn based games tend to be boring when the opponent takes too much time to make a move and there is nothing else to do than wait.

    MAYBE if you could enable some minor activity possible to do while waiting for the second player you could minimize drawback mentioned above. I could think of some storytelling maybe. If the people who stand in the queue had something to tell the player could hear them out and laugh about some funny quotes or learn more about the world the game is placed in. Something like: “Old woman: My poor Daisy didn’t come back home yesterday. I hope she was not eaten by the giants… Sir guard! Please tell me, do giants eat cats?”

  8. Overall, this sounds like a fun board game with a well thought out design and a very fitting narrative frame.

    I think the honor/disgrace system is a nice narrative touch, but from a gameplay perspective it doesn’t really seem to be contributing all that much to the game, because in the end it just gets converted to influence points anyway. At least that is how I understood it.

    Maybe you could gate certain actions or objectives behind a certain honor/disgrace rating to give the system a little more weight and meaning. This is probably a little bit out of scope for the course and might even make the game way too complex: You could also lean further into the guild idea and have every player not just play a guild, but assign them a specific guild which influences playstyle and how they relate to the honor/digrace system. Alternatively, you could probably just remove the honor/disgrace system and award/subtract influence points right away. The game would probably be played the same, but with a little less complexity.

  9. As a big board game fan i really like your idea and the proposed game mechanics. I hope it turns out as good as i imagine.
    Despite your detailed game proposal document i still could not grasp all mechanics, so i dont know if it is already planned, but i would introduce some mechanic that differentiates the gameplay for each player.
    To me it sounds like everyone has the same objectives which could lead to some kind of "meta" being formed for every turn. 
    Personally i would lay more focus on the strategic action-reaction part of the game. Maybe introduce villagers belonging to each guild. E.g. smiths which provide bonus ip to the smith guild if rescued.
    This would force/encourage the players to strategically plan their moves around special gamepieces and reorder the queue accordingly.

    Also a fun gamemode could be, that all players need to plan their moves before the start of the round. so the outcome is dependant on what your opponents do and how well one can predict this. I imagine this as veryy chaotic and thus a ton of fun. Maybe something you want to think about after the semester.
    Also i hope that i can purchase your game as an actual board game someday.

  10. Lucas Leder sagt:

    What do I like the most?
    I think it's an interesting concept to actually create a (digital) board game in this course.
    The rules seem well thought out, with a compelling twist based on morality, which is likely a lot of fun when playing with friends.

    What do I like the least?
    At first glance the rules seem somewhat lengthy and complicated, which might scare off people.
    I'm not sure how you plan to introduce the rules to new players, but putting everything into something like a short tutorial might be overwhelming.
    Maybe a "manual", which can always be looked up, would be better.

    What change would I suggest?
    Regarding the development structure I'd suggest to move the game lobbies from extras to either desired or high target unless you plan on integrating it anyway, as I think this game could work pretty well on e.g. a LAN party.
    If multiple games are being played/set up concurrently, a game lobby feature might be necessary to provide easy access to your friends' games.

    Overall I'm really interested in this game and would like to try it out someday myself!

  11. Board games are probably one of my favorite games to play with a group, which is why I look very much forward to it. I think that if the game is well balanced and fair (board games get really competitive, at least in my experience) it can be a fun experience. I think it could also be fun to add a couple luck based elements to the game, because they tend to fend the competitive spirit due to their unforeseeable nature and heighten the emotions while playing. 

  12. Felix Kosian sagt:

    1. Playing boardgames together without needing to be at the same place, I like it.
    2. Use the potential of a digital version like look, animation and AI.
    3. The rules and game mechanics seem to be quite complex for beginners so an ingame tutorial would be great.
  13. Unbekannter Benutzer (ga42mud) sagt:

    I like the option to do more chaotic things. That alone will be a lot of fun when playing with friends.

    As intriguing as the morality aspect of your game is, your glory tracker doesn't seem to influence the game much. Perhaps I missed it but it would be cool if your reputation also influences your available options.

  14. Unbekannter Benutzer (ga63nes) sagt:

    This is an interesting interpretation of chaos and order, seeing it as dynamics between people.
    I think you did a good job estimating what is possible in this limited time.
    Maybe maximize the visuals and animations of the game to get an edge over other haptic board games.
    Overall, I'm excited to play it.

  15. Unbekannter Benutzer (ga63luv) sagt:

    1. I really like the idea of an online board game so that you can play without meeting at the same place. And I think your interpretation of chaos and order is really interesting.
    2. As software from competitors like tabletop simulator for board games exists, I think you should try to make the game look appealing and outstanding compared to analogue board games.
    3. Your game looks quite complex so I think a good tutorial would be great.
  16. I really like the idea of an online board game. Seems promising and you have a loot planned.

    However, turn based games online are tricky, make sure a round doesnt take too long (the longest rounds ive seen are around 1,5h) and make sure you have enough time for balancing and playtesting

  17. Albert Zach sagt:

    Favorite aspect: Board game aesthetic. Boardgames are fun and have a strong aura of nostalgia for many people.

    Least favorite aspect: Rules are convoluted. The game seems rather hard to play for beginners and should be well explained.

    Single change: Add things to do for players during other peoples turns. It's the worst the have to wait a whole turn cycle and just sitting there until it's your turn again.

  18. What is your favorite aspect of the proposed game? Why?
    I really like the general concept of the game. I am a fan of board games with more complex rules and that are more strategic than luck-based, so I'm looking forward to your game!

    What is your least favorite aspect? Why?
    Many digital board games are extremely bad implemented (I'm looking at you, Uno). Soo...just take care to make it stable.
    Jokes aside, it's not really clear to me yet, how the Giants come into play and how that part of the game works. It's still in early development, so you might not be sure how it'll work either, just take care not to neglect that part.

    Which single change or addition would you suggest to most improve the game?
    Use the possibilities a digital board game gives you to explain how it works. Tutorials, ingame rule book you can open at any time, explanation texts when hovering over figures etc. You have many possibilities to teach players a rather complex set of rules!

    Additional feedback:
    If you find yourself with too much time left at the end of the day, think about giving players something to do during the turns of other people. Think Hearthstone-like interactions with the map.



  19. Oliver Jung sagt:

    What is your favorite aspect of the proposed game? Why?
    The idea of creating an online board game is great (espacially in times of corona). And I like how you applied the theme "Order and Chaos".

    What is your least favorite aspect? Why?
    As much I like board games I also dislike the rather long breaks caused by the round based game system in which you possibly won't even see the interactions of the other players.

    Which single change or addition would you suggest to most improve the game?
    Maybe you could somehow show the interactions of the other players during their turn so the inactive players are still included during the break.

  20. Unbekannter Benutzer (ga87jun) sagt:

    I like the fact that you went for the boardgame theme. This enables the use of simple 3 models for the characters which gives it a nice feel as well as keeping it simple. 

    I feel waiting for other people might be annoying for many so maybe some kind of simultaenous actions may work?

  21. Philipp Holl sagt:

    Here's one anonymous comment:
    I think that you have done an incredible job at formulating the theme
    into a boardgame concept. The mechanics you want to develop look like
    they will provide good gameplay depth and the "asynchrous style" action
    and reset turns feel very modern. Some of the mechanics seem a little
    bit convoluted to me like the FIFO system but I think thats mainly
    because I havent seen the gameplay in action yet. I didnt quite
    understand the reward for the Honor system.