General Analysis and Explanation
The Blurb for the Board-game's Box;
Totems'n'Towers is the race to free your captured leader! Your chief and your sheriff have been taken captive and in order to save them you need to build your Totem Pole or Tower! Do you have what it takes to save them?
Information for the box:
http://gamification.org/wiki/Game_Mechanics
The above website was used as a guide for the kind of mechanics that can be applied to Totems and Towers. The explanation below is written by myself.
Achievements
These are represented in the physical reward of a totem pole/tower piece for successfully navigating the board so far. The finished totem pole or tower near the end of the game is also another physical indicator of a player's success at the game. Even if a child does not win the game out-rite they at least have achieved something by completing their totem/tower.
Combos
Combos are achievable in the way the game is played. For example a combination of progressing yourself forward with the roll of a dice, and the simultaneous sabotage of another player by moving them backward on a turntable would bring forth a great sense of achievement and a feeling of 'getting one over' on your fellow players. The game works in a way that rewards crafty usage of the tools at hand combined with good timing to create an interesting gameplay. This is what appealed to me most when play testing our game.
Lottery
This dynamic is used in the form of chance cards which have an equal chance of being positive as being negative. When playing the game I found picking up a chance card the most exciting point, bar the race to win after collecting my captive.
Progression
"A dynamic in which success is granularly displayed and measured through the process of completing itemised tasks."
This dynamic is our building of the defence towers in the game. All players can see their own progress as well as the progress of everyone else in the game. This inspires pride, urgency, competition and a feeling of ownership.
Vitality
A mechanic that means the game requires more than one person to play thus inspiring cooperation, competition and social interaction. That could mean a pair of players teaming up to sabotage one player who is far in front to even the playing field.
Although our game is entirely fictional and includes entirely fictional characters, Mark quite rightly mentioned that we still needed to be aware of our 'product image' when writing the game. Although our game is quite clearly Cowboys and Indians themed, the actual board-game is called Totems and Towers. Which means that our theme is implied but never literally mentioned.
I wanted to look into why such terms are seen as being incorrect and racist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_name_controversy
An interesting quote from this website is this;
"Other objections to "Native American," whether capitalized or not, include a concern that it is often understood to exclude American groups outside the continental U.S. (i.e., Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico), and indigenous groups in South America, Mexico and Canada. The word "American" is sometimes questioned because the peoples referred to resided in the Americas before they were so named, rendering the term a tautology.
As of 1995, according to the US Census Bureau, 50% of people who identified as indigenous preferred the term "American Indian," 37% preferred "Native American" and the remainder preferred other terms or had no preference.[15]"
According to the census there doesn't seem to be a large rejection to the term American Indian, so why is there such controversy in the press? As for the origin of the term 'Indian' there seems to be two schools of thought though neither is greatly proven or documented. One idea is that the word came from the Italian settlers use of the word indias.
Others believe that when Columbus discovered the Americas he used the term 'these are people of god' ("una gente in Dios") because of their welcoming nature to him. The term Dios later dropped the s to 'in Dio' and then through wording to indio, Indian.
If this latter idea is true, surely the term Indian comes from a complimentary term for their people.
As for the sexism issues, we should be wary of making our game overly masculine. One of our original ideas was to have a damsel in distress in the centre of the board to rescue. This was criticised for insinuating that women cannot fend for themselves, are weak and helpless and therefore require men to save them. We did not mean for this at all but it is true that whatever your intentions, the media will run with the worst case scenario.
We have adjusted our game's story to that of both groups' prominent figure within society ( sheriff and/or chief ) have been captured and the game is a race to save them. The guard towers/ totem poles help the group's defences and so you cannot rescue the captive until yours is built.
I hope that no one will object to such a story!
- The totems and towers to build provide a visual recognition of the achievement a player has in the game.
- The level of the tower denotes their progress in the game and also acts as a kind of reward for getting through the game so far.
- It provides an incentive to keep playing the game as it solidifies the task of needing to rescue your captive and bring them to safety.
- Such a dramatic narrative will keep children focused on why they are playing the game and also on why finishing is so important.
- I find if the goal of the game you are playing is not clear from the start, children quickly lose interest as they cannot see a purpose to playing any more.
- The board is designed so that each player has a choice to make, they can risk being turned back on themselves on a turn-table in order to take a shorter route, or they can play it slightly safer by taking a longer route without a turn-table, but with enemy squares which could potentially freeze your player for a turn.
- By giving players the choice of where they go it allows them to gently build strategy into the game. Will the risks they take pay off?
- By giving the board a sabotage element (via crafty usage of the turntables) it allows potentially lagging players which are a fair distance behind to even the playing field by sabotaging the player in the lead if they happen to be on a turn table. When we play tested the game I often used this technique if I kept rolling poor scores and managed to finish the game in second.
- Our chance cards add a comedic element to the game. Many negative chance cards describe some sort of folly whereby your player has messed up and you are moved back places etc. There are also positive chance cards which detail a triumph and you are awarded movement forward etc. all the cards are themed to the character you chose to play as so this solidifies your sense of 'being a cowboy' when you play the game. (as in Caillios' explanation of games; Mimicry).
- We have provided an illustrated manual on our game, with a pull out cheat sheet to allow players quick reference to rules mid-game. This cheat sheet was a personal idea of mine as I often find having to rifle through pages of writing to simply remember what a certain symbol on the board means very distracting and can easily lose the excitement of playing the game in hand. In Jane McGonigals book, I believe such a state of in-game excitement is called 'fiero'.
- The cartoony feel and style of the game is to emphasise its fictional plot and to make it quickly identifiable with our age range of 7+. Shaun's board artwork, Sophie's enemy squares, Kane's card artwork, George and Olive's manual artwork and Charlie's box artwork all come together and create a really cohesive and attractive style to our game in my opinion and I am very proud of what we have achieved as a team.
The Blurb for the Board-game's Box;
Totems'n'Towers is the race to free your captured leader! Your chief and your sheriff have been taken captive and in order to save them you need to build your Totem Pole or Tower! Do you have what it takes to save them?
Information for the box:
- 2-4 Players
- Ages 7+
- Dimensions of the board
Game Mechanics
http://gamification.org/wiki/Game_Mechanics
The above website was used as a guide for the kind of mechanics that can be applied to Totems and Towers. The explanation below is written by myself.
Achievements
These are represented in the physical reward of a totem pole/tower piece for successfully navigating the board so far. The finished totem pole or tower near the end of the game is also another physical indicator of a player's success at the game. Even if a child does not win the game out-rite they at least have achieved something by completing their totem/tower.
Combos
Combos are achievable in the way the game is played. For example a combination of progressing yourself forward with the roll of a dice, and the simultaneous sabotage of another player by moving them backward on a turntable would bring forth a great sense of achievement and a feeling of 'getting one over' on your fellow players. The game works in a way that rewards crafty usage of the tools at hand combined with good timing to create an interesting gameplay. This is what appealed to me most when play testing our game.
Lottery
This dynamic is used in the form of chance cards which have an equal chance of being positive as being negative. When playing the game I found picking up a chance card the most exciting point, bar the race to win after collecting my captive.
Progression
"A dynamic in which success is granularly displayed and measured through the process of completing itemised tasks."
This dynamic is our building of the defence towers in the game. All players can see their own progress as well as the progress of everyone else in the game. This inspires pride, urgency, competition and a feeling of ownership.
Vitality
A mechanic that means the game requires more than one person to play thus inspiring cooperation, competition and social interaction. That could mean a pair of players teaming up to sabotage one player who is far in front to even the playing field.
Ethical Issues of Game Design; Race and Gender
Although our game is entirely fictional and includes entirely fictional characters, Mark quite rightly mentioned that we still needed to be aware of our 'product image' when writing the game. Although our game is quite clearly Cowboys and Indians themed, the actual board-game is called Totems and Towers. Which means that our theme is implied but never literally mentioned.
I wanted to look into why such terms are seen as being incorrect and racist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_name_controversy
An interesting quote from this website is this;
"Other objections to "Native American," whether capitalized or not, include a concern that it is often understood to exclude American groups outside the continental U.S. (i.e., Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico), and indigenous groups in South America, Mexico and Canada. The word "American" is sometimes questioned because the peoples referred to resided in the Americas before they were so named, rendering the term a tautology.
As of 1995, according to the US Census Bureau, 50% of people who identified as indigenous preferred the term "American Indian," 37% preferred "Native American" and the remainder preferred other terms or had no preference.[15]"
According to the census there doesn't seem to be a large rejection to the term American Indian, so why is there such controversy in the press? As for the origin of the term 'Indian' there seems to be two schools of thought though neither is greatly proven or documented. One idea is that the word came from the Italian settlers use of the word indias.
Others believe that when Columbus discovered the Americas he used the term 'these are people of god' ("una gente in Dios") because of their welcoming nature to him. The term Dios later dropped the s to 'in Dio' and then through wording to indio, Indian.
If this latter idea is true, surely the term Indian comes from a complimentary term for their people.
As for the sexism issues, we should be wary of making our game overly masculine. One of our original ideas was to have a damsel in distress in the centre of the board to rescue. This was criticised for insinuating that women cannot fend for themselves, are weak and helpless and therefore require men to save them. We did not mean for this at all but it is true that whatever your intentions, the media will run with the worst case scenario.
We have adjusted our game's story to that of both groups' prominent figure within society ( sheriff and/or chief ) have been captured and the game is a race to save them. The guard towers/ totem poles help the group's defences and so you cannot rescue the captive until yours is built.
I hope that no one will object to such a story!
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