We have an icon! It suits perfectly with this game’s story: Under space war time, we are trying to identify the hidden enemy. It feels cold because every player can be the betrayer. But during gameplay and playtesting, what we heard the most is people laughing. It feels fun to combine these elements.

In this week we discussed a lot about the new character “Monkey”. It starts with that during our playtest, the win rate of human side is much higher than alien side. So we’ll either nerf the human players or buff the the alien side.

Another thing is that if there is too many human players with the same job, they might use up all the ideas. It is also frustrating. So we have to limit some human players’ access to the secret message by giving them a category of words instead of detail. Let the human side also take part in guessing instead of observing.

Here goes our “Monkey”, this character will receive limited information and might mislead humans. Firstly we only tried it with conditions, like 6 players can have one monkey player but 7 players should not have one.

Soon I realize that it’s not a competitive game after all. Monkey did raise alien side’s win rate effectively and it is fun to watch. And alien might feel that they have a company on guessing things. It’s a win-win strategy. So let it appear in every game is acceptable.

So objectives and aims should not easily change unless there is enough reason. Party game is to make people compete and laugh together.

Will information games combine well with party games? Somehow it reminds me of Overcooked. There are also games like the Cooking Simulator to give the player a chance to destroy the kitchen. Cooking meals for customer needs collaboration and accuracy. And games can make it fun by setting barriers and traps. With conversations and rhetoric, a spy can get enough info, but we deprive it of players. These are the barriers alike to cooking games.

Once in our class, Prof. King showed us a way to make good games: change only one rules with a classic genre. This is really helpful in our development. We didn’t start with this idea, but it suits well with our game.

This week we have done another playtesting, and finish our example of play video.

In an information game, important information is hidden from some or all players and must be discovered over the course of the game. [1] On Spyfall, players discover each other’s identity by conversations. And in our game, player will use postures instead. Rhetoric cannot be used as before in our game which lower the depth of game can reach but also make it easier to play.

During the making of the video, I am granted a precious chance to look back at the whole game and how to explain it within 3 minutes.

Firstly we were going to make a spy game, but soon we realized that it should not be that suspicious and tense during Covid time. This should be a silly party game that make friends and colleagues more familiar with each other. The core mechanism is to use your gestures to express yourself and discuss viral memes or classic ones.

Given that fundamental thinking, I start to make this video, and it went smoothly. Being a dubber is something I never tried before, but I manage it with Adobe Premiere’s help by cutting out the stammering sentences. At the same time, we still discussed each detail till the last minute. It feels really good to corporate with reliable teammates and face these problems together.

Many thanks to my buddy Zhuo and Yanci! And guidance from Prof. King is truly helpful.

[1]Foasberg, N. M. (2017). Spyfall: Information games and scholarly conversation.

We made it! Now it’s a playable 18-card game.

The final rule link:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jRZryJ5_2V7hrNvwyZp771_QTSlCPHW6PKRKy9lvYT8/edit?usp=sharing

And we name it as Holmgang : the hidden!

Holmgang is a duel practiced by early medieval Scandinavians. It was a legally recognized way to settle disputes.[1]

I wish to address some changes during the development period.

1.Magic Shield card now has a new name “Magic Protection” to distinguish from Shield Attack.

2. No in-hand card for Judge

Solution:  Draw a card from the discard pile

3. Strike-Back card is now a Defense card

• Cast each card’s function in a new sequence

Magic Shield → Mist → Thunder → Shield Attack → Ragnorok → Basic Attack → Strike-back

I sincerely wish to thank my partner Yanci for walking with me down this path and making this silly idea a playable game. Many thanks to Prof. King, and lovely playtesters Linda Chen and Steven Fang.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmgang

playingcards.io & Hero design & more literature research

Finally, we got our game on playingcards.io!

Come and play with your friend! Link:https://playingcards.io/fvjzgn

This week I want to address our hero design. Like Hearthstone and other Collectible Card Games (CCGs), our game had a figure, a background story and an ability. And we will discuss with two parts: hero background and ability balancing

In my primitive thinking of these three heroes, I thought about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a famous novel in China. There are three leaders and can each representing a power. Their story is well-known across asia.

Another possible solution is cute animals fight. A cat will fight with a doggy and cute bear. I thought of this is because our course mates are really like cute pets and I love them too.

But our skill cards are mostly about sword and magic. So eventually, we choose Nordic mythology. Thor is the god of thunder, which suit perfectly with our cards. Another reason is that my partner Yanci really enjoys Nordic myth, and can create great artworks with this theme. If Thor is our chosen one, then Odin and Loki become great matches.

In order of conbining Nordic myths with our hero’s ability, our plan iterates several times. The first Three Kingdom version is like below.

Sun Quan: Discard one card, restore 2 shields.

Liu Bei: Discard one card, restore 1 health.

Cao Cao: Discard one card, each control card will deal 1 damage.

Let alone the background story, the first two heroes’ abilities are much alike. Also after playtesting, “Discard a card” to use this ability is not acceptable for players. In some games, both players refuse to use their ability throughout the game. And in solving all that, there’s the second version.

Odin: Restore 1 health. If health is full, restore 1 shield instead.

Loki: Discard 1 card on board, cast any card’s function once.

Thor: Caster’s Thunder & Mist card deal 1 damage.

This one is way better and well combined with the hero’s background (Loki is the God of Mischief).

Then we playtested our game in Playingcards.io. It had a pace problem that would make this game boring once you master it.

So I went search for papers, the funny fact is that I find something useful out of a paper around basketball games. In this research, the authors examined the relationship between game duration, game pace and decision making. A reduced duration slowed game pace and increased offensive efficiency, possibly due to greater maintenance of defensive pressure slowing opposition transitions and promoting controlled offensive structures.[1]

Magically, in our game, it happened exactly as this conclusion. When we change the round amount from 5 to 4. Both players play their hand more aggressively and think more about combos. 6 cards in 4 rounds require at least 2 combos and each one have a counter hand you don’t want to meet. It requires more thinking during the game, which makes it strategic and fun after the first few games.

After more playtesting, we decided to decrease 5 rounds into 4. That’s almost our final rules.

[1]Scanlan, T. A., Teramoto, M., Delforce, M., & Dalbo, J. V. (2016). Do better things come in smaller packages? Reducing game duration slows game pace and alters statistics associated with winning in basketball. International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, 16(1), 157-170.

After sharing the first version of our game, Professor King and course mates gave us plenty of feedbacks which is really helpful. And this week I had my first playtest with my partner.

Furthermore, I’ve read some of papers relating to game balancing and deck building.

To start with, changes on the rules. It seems that all course mate doesn’t really like the Rock Paper Scissors (RPS) game within. We may need an alternative plan to ensure randomness. And method of drawing cards is also a key adjustment to our rule.

In replacement of the RPS game, we choose a really easy one. And luckily it’s totally accessible and random. It will be played with back side of the cards which is same for all. Back side is divided evenly into two different parts. If players shows with the same end, this game is successful as below.

In the way of drawing cards, Prof. King suggested to use “pick one and swap the hand” in gameplay, while I thought it may be fun just draw randomly. It need more playtest to figure out.

During our playtest, some occasions raised my concern. First of all is that it might need clearer rules in step 4 Cast each skill card’s function with sequence: Control>Defense>Attack. When 2-4 cards interact with each other and the board suddenly turned into a mess for beginners. As a designer, it should not be this confusing. So in later version I will clarify exact sequence of implementing card’s function.

Also, in drawing cards, I once draw so many control card that makes me really passive in playing. It feel bad when you can only deal with opponent’s attack and cannot fight back. Firstly I wish to buff the control card in situation like this (Mist card: IF PLAYER HAVE NO ATTACK CARD IN HAND, Judge only once). But when we tried the “pick one and switch hands” way, it soon became fun to play because both of us can feel that we’re stealing the limited resource. And this is way more strategic considering the hero ability.

In all, this method gives players a way of building their deck. Deckbuilding is a challenge that involves a big and rugged search space, with different and unpredictable behaviour after simple card changes and even hidden information [1]. In Hearthstone, the player will choose 30 cards out of more than 600 cards, and in Mahlmann, Togelius & Yannakakis’s research of the game Dominion, they chose 10 cards out of 25 to balance the game [2]. 18 cards game may not be that complicated, but also need game balancing considering building decks. For example, there’s a Ragnorok card in our game which is only one in pile and seemly stronger than other attack cards, will it be the winning hand? Need more playtesting on this.

[1]García-Sánchez, P., Tonda, A., Squillero, G., Mora, A., & Merelo, J. J. (2016, September). Evolutionary deckbuilding in hearthstone. In 2016 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG) (pp. 1-8). IEEE.

[2]Mahlmann, T., Togelius, J., & Yannakakis, G. N. (2012, June). Evolving card sets towards balancing dominion. In 2012 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (pp. 1-8). IEEE.

First edition of Rules

Before we wrote the 1^st version of rules, I changed a very critical part: draw 6 cards instead of 5.

The reason is mostly around the number of rounds in each game, and how many cards you can use within this round. I wish my players to use card combo or even countering card combo and I’ve tried my best to adjust the rules for it. If a player can only use 5 cards in 5 rounds, they will tend to use 1 card each round so that the deck are available at all rounds. So 1 more card for my players.

Goal

To defeat your opponent with champion ability and cards with different functions

Setup

1. Put all cards on the table with face down.

2. Divide cards by 3 “champion” and 15 “skill card”

2. Put 3 health and 3 shields in front of each player.

3. Players randomly choose 1 champion out of the deck with face up.

4. Players randomly draw 6 skill cards out of the deck to start the game

 (To be decided) Afterwards, one of the 3 skill cards deck will be revealed to all

Rounds

1.There are 5 rounds of each game

(To be decided) Before the first round, players can discuss to exchange card (s)

2.In each round, every player should simultaneously put 0-2 card(s) on the board and then decide whether he/she will use the champion ability

3.After the cards on the table and champion ability cast, both players should reveal their card(s)

4.Cast each skill card’s function with the sequence: Control>Defense>Attack

5.Discard all skill cards on the board. Switch back to step 2.

End of the game

Compare each player’s health, less one loses.

If health’s equal, compare each player’s shield, less one loses.

If shield’s equal, compare each player’s hand, less one loses.

If all are equal, it’s a draw game.

Skill Cards (just pick 2 out of 7 for demostration)

Numbers in the bracket show each kind of card’s amount

Control

(2)Thunder:

If caster’s opponent have attack card(s) on board, play Rock Paper Scissors once. If caster wins, invalidate opponent’s attack card(s).

Defense

(2)Magic Shield

If caster’s opponent have control card(s) on board, invalidate it (them).

If caster’s opponent wins all the Rock Paper Scissor caster will restore 1 health.

How to design a 2 page game with limited cards? I haven’t really had enough experience to distinguish it from a normal 2-page game. So I used an idea that firstly designed for an autochess game. Firstly I had some case study on League of Legends, a 5v5 MOBA game that seems totally irrelevant with card games. Because I quite enjoy the feeling of countering your enemy with a certain character.

In League, Picking countering character against your enemy requires that enough experience of each character’s strength and weakness and its mechanics. Besides, blind luck is also helpful because if you pick earlier than your opponent, you’re the one who will be countered. And the sequence is random. Once I win a game with a counter pick, I feel that there’s a strategy part in this victory. And it’s satisfying.

So let’s come back to the idea: counterplay between players. This concept occurred in almost every game. For instance, the basic Rock Paper Scissors game we have been playing since childhood. But it relies mostly on randomness. I’ll add some strategic decision making in it.

Then the first two cards came to my mind: Thunder and Mist. It occurs almost instantly. These two cards have the effect that disables the enemy’s attack – Mist can do some extra(let the attack cards backfire your enemy).

Then which cards to use against Thunder and Mist (T&M) ? The third one just came: Magic Shield. It can invalidate 2 cards above. What about a more positive function? So let’s add a healing function. Then a prototype just starts to form up. A 1v1 dual game with attack cards, control cards(T&M), and a Magic Shield card. That’s basic Rock Paper Scissors loop in my game.

And another case study I cannot ignore is Hearthstone by Blizzard. It is also a 1v1 duel game consisted of cards. In HearthStone, deckbuilding is further constrained by the Hero the player chooses: each Hero features a special power that can be activated during the game and exclusive cards that can only be used for that Hero.[1]

Then the structure is set within minutes of my walking after dinner. 2 heroes out of 3 and 10 skill cards out of 15, is basically how this setup will be. And in each turn, both players must simultaneously choose cards and then reveal them (like Hearthstone’s deck building before each game). And the in-game part I decided to use Rock-Paper-Scissors (RPS) to give it some randomness to make it fun.

Coming next week: the first edition of rules XD

[1]García-Sánchez, P., Tonda, A., Squillero, G., Mora, A., & Merelo, J. J. (2016, September). Evolutionary deckbuilding in hearthstone. In 2016 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG) (pp. 1-8). IEEE.

After discussing and playtesting, a good story came to my mind. The spy story is never cool enough, what about alien invaders?

So here we go defending human race with performing 😀

Background Story(Skip it if you like)

In 2077, A war was raised between planets. Aliens were brutal and sneaky. Human race defended themselves till the very last man and we won with an unacceptable cost. Alien invaders, as known as “LoWans”, refused to retreat from earth. What’s left of them sneaked and transformed their body into our kind. They were hard to recognize till “Magic Ink” was invented, which is only visible to mankind. Now, all of you are gathered for this experiment. One(or two) of you are alien(s). If you let alien get away, the earth step nearer towards destrcution. Each of you will get a secret message written by Magic Ink, and to perform it WITHOUT words or sentences. Then we’ll know who is the Alien.

(Advanced)Unfortunately, Alien can secretly transform one citizen into a monkey, making them hard to understand the secret message.

Numbers of players: 5 – 9 players

Length of playtime: Normally 1-3 minutes each round

Designers: Zhuo ZHU, Yanci “Yanis” ZHANG, Bangguo “Samual” LI.

Goal:

Setup:

1. One player has to be a host of this game.
2. The host randomly chooses one(or two) player as alien and send them “You’re the alien”.
3. The host thinks or chooses a secret message and send it individually to other players except alien&monkey.
4. The secret message should normally be a noun or a name and well-known among players. (We strongly recommend you to use the words we provide in first 3 rounds)
5. (Advanced)The host send monkey a word to decrible the secret message(Normally category of it).

Turns:

1. Host should randomly decide the sequence of player’s performing.
2. Host will start perform the message first, and In that order, each player should act out the secret message.
3. During performing, it should not contain any meanful word or sentence. Only gestures and mimicked sound is allowed.
4. Citizens and alien can comment on each other’s performance afterwards but should not interrupt it.
5. Imitating other player is not allowed.
6. After all performances, there is a vote. Except the host, each player should vote the alien they think simultaneously.

End of the game:

If any alien get the most vote(draw not included), he/she will get chance to guess the secret message. If the guessing is right, ALIEN WINS. Otherwise, CITIZENS WIN.

If anyone else except the alien get the most vote or it’s a draw, ALIEN WINS.

Credits:

Professor David King for many advices on rules.

Ziqi Wang, Zhijian Jiang and Chenge Yang are our lovely playtesters.

Secret message pool(Only Visible to the host):

Avengers(Superhero);Micheal Jackson(Celebrity);Elon Musk(Celebrity);

PUBG(Game);Tetris(Game);Popcorn(Food);Beer(Drink);007(Movie);Olympic Games(Activity);Donald Trump(Celebrity);

Coka Cola(Drink);Pokemon(Game);Pizza(Food);Witcher(Game);SuperMario(Game);The Legend of Zelda(Game)

Words in brackets are for the monkey.

Thank you for viewing all the way here. If you want to be our playtester, Just message and we’ll arrange everything else. 😛