Design of the Game Manual

Illustrations for the Manual

These are the Illustrations that have drawn for the manual as I felt that a photograph would not give them enough justice.

Initial Manual Layouts

These are 2 of the backgrounds I created for the Manual using Olive's Background Artwork, and George's Title Artwork.

I had to tackle several obstacles when creating these pages; mainly getting George's Titles to fit the page, and look correct as they were very fuzzy in the files I was sent and subsequently I had to re-trace over the top of these to make them as vibrant as they should be. I really enjoyed making these pages, but I really went about it the wrong way with layering and have stupidly made more work than was necessary for myself! Lessons have been learned however which is the main point I suppose!

Developed Maunal;

I have had a lot of trouble piecing this manual together from everyone else's valuble contributions. I unsderstand someone needs to be there to hold everything together, and that person was me, but I did find it a very stressful task. The main problem I had was then when George sent me his titles to put in the manual, they were not very large in file size and so were very pixellated - despite the 300dpi suggestion made at the beginning at the project. I understand that George has had his challenges in this project and communication is a large factor in this - but it did mean that I had to effectively re-do his part in the manual so that they could be clearly seen.

After recieveing his numbering along with the same problems I decided I could not afford to re-do them to a larger dpi again, and so I have left them as they are as I feel that I cannot do everything!

I have had similar trials with this document (and the research document) to do with formatting and file size and quality. On several occasions I have had to edit, enhance, re-size and sometimes re-draw (in the case of the titles) peoples work/photographs they have sent me. It is a shame this happened the way it did as I feel that the time spent perfecting the boardgame project has somewhat sabotaged my Apple IOS Project - and was the last thing I wanted to happen.

All that needs doing now to the manual is inserting two photographs on page 9.

Content for Manual

The Cheat Sheet

The cheat sheet will have on one side a glossary of squares on the board and what you need to do if you land on them:

• Enemy Square: You're frozen there for a go while you battle the enemy!
• Reward Square: Pick up another Reward Card! Unless you already have 2.
• Chance Square: Pick up a card on your chance pile whether it be Cowboy or Tribesman.
• Piece Point: As you pass the piece point in game you will need to collect a piece for your totem/tower.

On the other side of the cheat sheet there will be a very quick set of rules.

• Roll 2 dice and move across the board.
• If you or another player lands on a turntable, a reward card can be used to turn the table to either better yourself, or sabotage the other player's game.
• A 'freeze turntable' reward card can be used by a player on a turntable (when it is not their turn) if they are going to be sabotaged, if one is in their possession.
• Once your totem/tower is complete, you may travel to the holding area and rescue your captive. When you have picked up your captive you may only roll one dice as they will slow you down.

Setting up the Board

1. Get your tools ready! First we need to lay out all the sections of the board so that the pictures line up.
2. Then we need to slot in the turntables which should have numbers on them. The number one turntable should be slotted into the number one hole and so on.
3. The captives need to be placed in the centre of the board in the 'holding area'.
4. Your Cowboys/Tribesmen need to be placed on the starting square.
5. Tower and Totem pieces should be divided correctly between the players. These will be colour coded to your player and you should have 4 pieces each.
6. As you play the game and collect your totem/tower pieces you will need to build them in your corner of the board. There is a small piece of Velcro on the board in that corner for you to start on and your pieces will be numbered so that you know the right order in which to build! Piece number one will form the base and so on.

Rules of Play

Choose your player wisely, as you can't change halfway through...do you want to be a courageous Cowboy, or a brave Tribesman?

Start by placing your player on the Starting Area and roll both of those dice to show how far you'll be travelling on that go.

If you land on a treacherous turntable you can do one of two things, you can stay put and hope no other player decides to turn you back the way you came...

...Or you can use one of your reward cards to turn the table in your favour so that the next time you roll you're off it that much quicker!

If you're confronted by an enemy, you stay frozen for a go whilst you fight off your attacker!

If you fall into a trap, you stay frozen for a go whilst you wriggle your way out of it!

Once you've navigated your way around the board twice; you have enough experience of the land, and a strong enough defence (your totem or tower's complete) to be able to successfully rescue your captive!

But Wait! You're not the hero just yet! You need to make your way back safely to the start with your captive before you can be crowned winner. Your captive is so weak, you have to carry them back, meaning you can only roll one dice per go, slowing you down.

The first player back to camp with their Chief or Sheriff wins the game, but the game doesn't finish until all captives are home safe.

Analysis and Explanation

General Analysis and Explanation

• 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!

Extended Resarch

Caillios

I have posted some of Caillios' work for reference to my own analysis of our board game. My own notes will be in Asterisks.

Fundamental Categories of Games set out by Caillois Caillois defines two ‘attitudes of play’

• Paedia (from the Greek for children), which describes a ‘power of improvisation and joy’.

• This is allied to Ludus, which describes the rule-bound nature of games.

In Caillois’ view, games can be examined under these definitions on a kind of scale, ranging from spontaneous play with few if any rules, to heavily formalised games with complex rules.

Wherever a game may be on this scale, games are played with a spirit of ‘paedia’ or of pleasure in play and are freely played for the enjoyment that they give the player(s).



DEFINITIONS OF GAMES

Agôn (a conflict, especially one between the main characters in a drama or other work of literature)
This is a category of competitive games, based on rivalry, in which the winner appears to be better than the loser in a certain category of exploits.

Alea (chance)
These are games of chance, in which the player negates will, and surrenders to destiny.
Some games that he cites, such as dominoes, backgammon, and most card games, combine agôn and alea.

Mimicry (the imitating of other people’s voices, gestures, or appearance..)
Games in this category feature incessant invention. They do not have the rule systems of agôn or alea, instead they have one rule: that the player must ‘fascinate the spectator’, and not fall into behaviour that will break the spell.
‘The spectator must lend himself to the illusion without first challenging the décor, mask or artifice which for a given time he is asked to believe in more than reality itself.’


Ilinx (vertigo, from the Greek for whirlpool)
These are games in which the player deliberately brings on a sense of vertigo, they ‘consist of an attempt to momentarily destroy the stability of perception and inflict a kind of voluptuous panic upon an otherwise lucid mind.’ (p.23)
Caillios also identifies a kind of vertigo of moral order, a desire for disorder and destruction, a drive which is normally repressed.
Caillois cites fairground rides, fast cars, motorbikes, skiing as bringing on this kind of what he calls a ‘pleasurable shock’.
The experience that brings on vertigo is ‘often sought out for its own sake’.

* * * *

Totems and Towers

Our game uses a subtle combination of Agôn and Alea. The dice used in the game provide the chance element (Alea) and the turn tables give the game the element of competition and rivalry (Agôn).

Mimicry is in place by the way of you taking on the role of a Cowboy or a Tribesman in order to play the game. Although this merely dictates your chance cards and whether you produce a totem or tower, a lot mor can be added to the role via the imagination. You yourself become the cowboy or the tribesman in your playing of the game.

However that all said our game does not contain Ilinx and I would not reasonably expect any board game to include such a feeling!


1950's American Culture


http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade50.html
This website looks at a brig overview of the time period. I chose to look at the fifties because so many other games I found when researching competitors were produced in the early fifties and I wanted to look deeper into why this was. From this website I found a link to some information on Hopalong Cassidy, a fictional western character which was very popular with children at the time. Could he have been a contributing factor to why western themed boardgames were so popular?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopalong_Cassidy

Looking further into Cassidy I found that he was a fictional character first seen in short stories in the 1930s, but later through feature film success in the 1940s became a television star in one of the first Western Television Series.

Another prominent character was 'Kid Colt' which had his own series of comics as well as featuring in the Annual 'Western Winners'. "Kid Colt" boasts the title of longest running western comic character in Marvel Comics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kid_Colt

With such a wave of enthusiasm for the 'Western Way' in the early 1950s there's no doubt as to why there were so many successful Western themed boardgames at the time. Our challenge as a group is to try and be just as successful with a generation which seemingly has no Cowboy appeal, not counting of course the recently released remake of Cowboys and Aliens film!

Images taken from;
Enochsemporium.co.uk
Revealing-revelations.net
Comicvine.com
Cactuscreekdaily.com
http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=691097

The Lone Ranger

Hi-Ho Silver, Away!

Nerdreactor.com

Flicksnews.net

Telegraph.co.uk

Research and Practice of Rule-Writing

In order to write the rules for our board game, I felt the need to be able to look at it objectively and removed from my previous familiarity in order to write the rules so that anyone could play the game, without further instruction.

When we play tested the game with another group they found the rules easy to follow but our team leader jess was on hand to help if they ever got stuck. Obviously in real life when children lift our game out of the box they won't have such instruction, they will only have the game manual so it needs to be concise, easy to read and visually attractive so children would want to pick it up and read it.

Chess

Chess has a simple goal and reasonably simple rules, it is the way in which players chose to play the game which makes it more complex and intellectually stimulating.

One player plays with all the white pieces, the other with the black pieces.

Each piece on the board has its own set way of moving;

Pawns make up the front line of defence and can only be moved one square at a time in a forwards direction. The only exception to this is on the first move of a pawn in the game can be two squares forward if the player so decides. Pawns are taken diagonally.

Castles can move forwards and backwards in any amount. They can move sideways in any amount but they cannot move diagonally across the board.

Knights can move in a set pattern much like an L shape. They can move three squares forward and two to the side (right or left) or two squares forward and three to the side, etc.

Bishops can only move diagonally but they can move any amount of squares forwards or backwards in a diagonal direction.

The Queen can move in any direction any number of squares and so by default she is the worst piece to use bar The King.

The King can move in any direction but only one square at a time.


The aim of the game is to defeat your opponent by placing their king piece in 'Check Mate'. This means that if they move their King piece in any direction it will result in it being taken by the oppositions piece. You can place a player in 'Check' by threatening their King piece by it being in danger of being taken by one of your pieces unless they move their King to safety. The usual nature of the game is that a players defences are dwindled by gameplay (through each of their pieces being taken) until the King piece becomes vulnerable and then the player will attempt to place said piece in Check Mate.

Snap

Snap is also a game for two players. The rules are extremely simple. A deck of cards is split evenly in two so that each player has half of the pack.

One after the other, players draw one card and place it in the space between them. The drawn cards are laid down on top of each other in a pile.

The aim of the game is the shout "Snap" and slam your hand on top of the middle pile before the other player, when two matching cards are drawn.

For example a 2 of hearts is drawn and a 2 of clubs is then placed on top of it, that would be a place where someone should shout "Snap!"

When the person has won the middle pile by correctly shouting snap first, they claim the pile and add it to their original half of the deck. The process of drawing cards then starts again until one player runs out of cards.

When a player has run out of cards, they have lost the game.

My writing of the rules to these two games just goes to show that even the simplest of games such as Snap take quite a while to explain completely without someone being there for you to show practically.

I now hope to be able to write a complete version of the rules for Totems and Towers.

Work on Totem Poles

Here are some images I have looked at for inspiration for totempole designs, along with the meanings of the animals displayed.

http://www.gullitotempoles.com/TotemPoleSymbols.html

• Raven - The mercurial trickster of Northwest Coast Native lore. Curious and mischievious, often misbehaving but never boring.
• Sea Turtle - This totem is representative of Mother Earth.
• Thunderbird - A mythological bird known to manifest the rolling of thunder while beating its wings and creating lightening when blinking it's eyes. Known to kill whales.
• Eagle - Intelligent and resourceful. He rules the sky and is able to transform himself into a human.
• Wolf - Very powerful totem who can help people that are sick or in need.
• Bear - A teacher symbol as it is believed that Bear taught the People to catch salmon and pick berries.
• Frog - Known for bringing wealth and is associated with Copper Woman. In another myth, frog was held down in fire, when it burst lava flowed and engulfed an entire village.
• Otter - The otter is a mischievous creature that is also a symbol of laughter, curiosity, grace, and empathy.
• Salmon - The salmon symbolizes instinct, persistence, and determination.
• Owl - The owl is a very respected animal and is thought to symbolize the souls of the departed.
• Killer Whale - Whales are honored as strong and brave fish. The mythology of the killer whale is that is will bring food and assistance to a chief or other important person lying helpless and/or wounded.

http://laniermybook.wikispaces.com/file/view/totem.jpg/116446275/totem.jpg
http://islandnet.com/~hjrice/Orillia.jpg

Playtesting

First Full Game - Our team playing

Although we have been play testing our board in parts, we tested the board for the first time today with everything present; chance cards, dice, reward cards, and pieces to collect for the towers and totems. For the most part our game worked well and we all enjoyed playing it.

    The turntables are a great addition to the board as they keep the playing field even so that even though you might be far behind on your first lap of the board, with good use of the turntables to sabotage people in front, you can reach at least second place by your second lap of the board. This keeps our game interesting - you do not lose hope when someone jets off on the first go with a 12 on the die, and you only score 2, because you have a certain amount of control over what happens next.

   Some points we found when playing were that the reward cards were a little complicated with 3 different types; "Move any turntable", "Reverse any turntable move" and "Freeze any turntable on your turn".

    The reverse card meant that the players had to remember where they had been prior to them being moved on a turntable - we decided that the children playing either would not be able to remember or would not bother to remember their original position, and it would unnecessarily complicate the game play. So we decided to scrap the reverse cards and just keep to the turning and freezing cards.

    We also decided that the freeze card would be used by a player if held by them, to counter-act another player's attempts to turn the table they were currently on. This can happen outside of the threatened player's go, and will use up both the attacking and defending player's reward cards in the process. A player can hold as many reward cards as they like, but only one card can be used per go, and all players start with only one at the beginning of the game. It is up to whether a player lands on a reward card space as to whether they have more cards. Because of this change, we will probably put a lot less reward spaces on the board, but may increase the number of chnce spaces as these added interest and sometimes hilarity to the gameplay.

   Enemy squares on the board will freeze a player who lands on them for a go, and will be decorated with 3D cutouts that might slot into the board, as the squares themselves will be too small to fit artwork and writing on them.

All in all, I was very pleased with the first full run-through. The game works well with four players. We all have a better vision of how our game will turn out now which has reignighted our enthusiasm! Hopefully we will have a working (and good-looking) board to play with by thursday next week!

Playtesting  - Another team playing

Monday we had the opportunity to play-test with another group, and we tested their board. The key feedback we received was that the rules were easy to understand, the game play fun and interesting, and the theme was appealing. Just what we wanted to hear!

Market Analysis

Market Analysis

My SWOT analysis was as follows;

STRENGTHS

·         There are no other recently released (within the last 5 years) board games aimed at our age group with the cowboys and Indians theme – yet our theme is time-less. Everyone knows the story of cowboys and Indians which means that the game is immediately identifiable with what children already know. If a child is already familiar with the story of the game, they are less likely to get bored learning the rules as it is not a barrage of new information to them.

·         The game is very tactile, involving 3D totems and towers to build, and areas of the board to turn.

WEAKNESSES

·         The game does include chance cards and a dice which takes some focus off the element of strategy in the game.

·         7 and 8 year olds are at a pivotal stage of development meaning that although two children are the same age, one could be more mature than the other mentally.

·         There are no ‘playable’ female characters in the game meaning that girls might not find the board game as appealing as boys.

OPPORTUNITIES

·         Similar games created for adults with a tribal theme have been very popular. Our design for a younger audience fills a current gap in the market.

·         Parents can identify with the story of the game, meaning they may prefer to purchase it over a game about ‘war-hammer’. This gives us a competitive edge over who will actually be purchasing our game.

THREATS

·         Whilst our board game design might seem fresh at the moment, it could easily be copied if not patent protected properly.

·         Existing successful board game companies such as the new Lego line might decide to mimic our theme and thus usurp our sales because their brand image and name will be better known than ours. Thus we would need to produce other games with similar themes alongside this initial game such as Cops and Robbers, Vikings and Saxons, Witches and Wizards…the list goes on.

When I actually spoke to the class about my analysis, I tried to give a more informal feel - but keep the important information clear. I then went on to speak about similar games that had been produced to ours and how that would affect our releasing the game.

Cowboys and Indians (1954)

A spin and move track game that was a food premium mail in game. The game came in an envelope from Ellis Canning and featured a growth chart on the back.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/46652/cowboys-indians

Giant Wheel Cowboys and Indians (1955)

Game features a giant wheel that looks somewhat like a large gambling wheel, and a giant gameboard. Simple game of spin the wheel and move along the gameboard, first to finish wins the game. Ages 6 - 12, 2-4 Players.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28320/giant-wheel-cowboys-indians

Cowboys and Indians (1958)

COWBOYS AND INDIANS board game for young players. Build a Corral, Capture a Pony. The directions are 2,3, or 4 may play, each playing from a Cowboy or Indian "corral" as selected, with colored sticks to match. Each player spins in turn. The first player spins the arrow. It if points to a pony, the player places a pony in his own corral. If the arrow points to a color, the player holding sticks of that color, places one stick in his own corral, no matter who did the spinning. This continues in turn until one corral has been completely fenced in. Then all the players count their ponies and the one having the most is the winner.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/15416/cowboys-and-indians 

 Cowboys and Indians (2001)

An entry in the 2001 About.com 8x8 Game Design Competition. Ages 10+

You need:

* An 8x8 Checker/Chess board
* 15 cowboys or U.S. Calvary circa 1800s; 10-15 mounted on horseback
* 15 Indians; 5-10 mounted on horseback
* 2 six-sided dice

This game is designed to utilize those plastic cowboy and Indians lying around your house and put them to use in an entry-level wargame.

Goal: Capture your opponent's Fort or Village.

http://boardgames.about.com/od/free8x8games/a/cowboys_indians.htm

Mark made a very good point (but not entirely relevant in my opinion) to the possible racial issues surrounding the use of terms such as "Indian" in our game. We have decided against the 'historically linked' idea for the game, and based it on more of a fantastical 'childhood story' type of style. I believe our theme is timeless and ageless, but I plan on doing a quick survey of friends and family to gain more insight into this.

Initial Artwork

These are some of my original concept drawings for our native indian theme, I thought that they were too serious for our age range, and not comedic enough for them to be considered cartoony so decided to leave them simply as concepts.

Initial Game Design Research

We have a title, we have 2 board designs (that we will probably merge together), We have a solid set of rules and a method of game-play, we have settled on the theme, we have researched and can you believe it play-tested one of the boards on our focus group! Nigel was glad that we had progressed well this last week and could see where the game was headed now which was a great relief. Half of me was expecting him to say "Why are you still going on with the cowboys and indians idea!?".
Our team has been very fortunate in that although some members have been absent from over half the group meetings, we all seem very involved and committed as we have been in university at 11am every day last week and probably every day this week too, to give each other updates and feedback on how we are progressing with the project. Jess has proven herself to be a natural leader and general go-to-gal for sorting out all of our queries!

Over the weekend I looked further into the theory of play and fun, I am reading a book by Jane McGonigal (http://www.amazon.com/Reality-Broken-Games-Better-Change/dp/1594202850) which looks into the 4 key areas to fun. A topic which is also keenly researched by Nicole Lazzaro, which led me to this interesting article by her which shows in a clear diagram the 4 areas concerned.
(http://xeodesign.com/whyweplaygames.html)

As I was reading this 'poster' a checklist formed in my head. Board games can provide all four areas of fun as I shall now explain;

SERIOUS FUN: "Purposeful Play" - The purpose of the game is to out-smart the other players. Your damsel is in danger and you must use a combination of sabotage and strategy to rebuild your tower/totem and defeat the enemy!

PEOPLE FUN: "Provides the excuse to hand out with friends" - In McGonigal's book she refers to the teasing and banter between players of a game to help create new friendships, and strengthen exsisting ones. Our game is competitive, and the two opposing factions are well known to children. This familiarity I feel will be key to our sucess - we dont have to bore the children with a lengthy back story - they already understand that the cowboys are against the indians! From our initial testing of the game, the children wanted to play the game again - another excuse to play with friends!

HARD FUN: "Provides the excuse for challenge, mastery and feelings of accomplishment" - Our game encourages the player to build a tower. This visual representation of the position within the game is far more powerful and satisfying than a mere numerical score. In Sophie's play-test with her cousins, the building aspect stood out as one of their favourite parts of the game.

EASY FUN: "Inspires exploration and role-play" - Our theme of cowboys and indians alone inspires role play amongst children, add to that our "Howler" and "Yee-Ha!" squares and the hilarity of the game increases. Children can laugh at each other and their parents making the 'silly noises' the game demands and inspires. Combine this easy silly fun with the challenge of the strategy of the game and hopefully we will find success!

Totem Pole Research

Here are some images I have looked at for inspiration for Totem Pole designs, along with the meanings of the animals displayed.

http://www.gullitotempoles.com/TotemPoleSymbols.html

• Raven - The mercurial trickster of Northwest Coast Native lore. Curious and mischievious, often misbehaving but never boring.
• Sea Turtle - This totem is representative of Mother Earth.
• Thunderbird - A mythological bird known to manifest the rolling of thunder while beating its wings and creating lightening when blinking it's eyes. Known to kill whales.
• Eagle - Intelligent and resourceful. He rules the sky and is able to transform himself into a human.
• Wolf - Very powerful totem who can help people that are sick or in need.
• Bear - A teacher symbol as it is believed that Bear taught the People to catch salmon and pick berries.
• Frog - Known for bringing wealth and is associated with Copper Woman. In another myth, frog was held down in fire, when it burst lava flowed and engulfed an entire village.
• Otter - The otter is a mischievous creature that is also a symbol of laughter, curiosity, grace, and empathy.
• Salmon - The salmon symbolizes instinct, persistence, and determination.
• Owl - The owl is a very respected animal and is thought to symbolize the souls of the departed.
• Killer Whale - Whales are honored as strong and brave fish. The mythology of the killer whale is that is will bring food and assistance to a chief or other important person lying helpless and/or wounded.

http://laniermybook.wikispaces.com/file/view/totem.jpg/116446275/totem.jpg
http://islandnet.com/~hjrice/Orillia.jpg

Idea-Peer Review

On Tuesday afternoon our team had a group crit with Nigel and went from being optimistic and excited to confused and demotivated!
Nigel made some very good points:

• We were trying to please too many audiences with our game and were subsequently sabotaging our chances at being truly successful with any of them. So we needed to be firm in our choice of age-range and our reasons for choosing them.
• If we wanted to aim our game at adults we would need to justify our theme (and probably scrap it) and if we wanted to aim our game at young children we would need to do a lot of research into child psychology.

An annoying problem we have had as a team since this meeting is that we seem to have a 'viscious circle' if you will over our content level. We know we want to produce this board game for 7/8+ year old children, but we don't know how complex or simple we should adjust our game to be for this age range. The circle looks something like this.


After much deliberation we have decided to go with our original Idea to run with and are looking more in depth into board game designs and the creative possibilities available to us.

Initial Concepts, Ideas and Development

Today we began our Board game project by deciding what important qualities the game needed to have in order to be successful. Instead of jumping right into a plot, we wanted to decide who the game was for, how old they were, how the rules would be presented, and the kind of style we wanted to create a game within. By the end of the afternoon we decided that the game would be;

• Aimed at families, with an age suggestion of 7 years +
• Have a Manual which has a brief history background
• Also have a Cheat Sheet which has a simple to follow list of rules and key information.
• Each 'chance' (the name will later be changed to something more suitable) card will have the plot change (eg; a member of your tribe has been captured) but will also have a snippet of history or trivia which will allow the game to be as complex and informative as the player want.
• We would like the game to have an educational element, but not make it too complex hence the information being an optional element to the game that the parents could discuss with their children for example. After all a good board game gives families an easy and enjoyable way to interact with each other giving a loose structure to their social time spent together.
• Another use of board games that we discussed was that they are used by parents or carers to 'occupy' children, so the game needs to be simple enough that after playing once or twice with an adult, they can play it by themselves.

Other topics we covered were;

• Looked at the game 'Cranium' in Langley's Games Shop in Norwich
  http://www.langleystoys.com/
• The printing options we have available to us at the College with regards to making game cards, the box cover and construction, making the manual into a working A6 booklet, and the board itself.
• We discussed favourite board games played when we were younger; trivial pursuit, 13 dead end drive, flux - their good and bad points were also discussed.
• Would the board be created as you played the game - so it was different every time, or would it be pre-determined. Something I plan to look up tonight is games which use both, and the game 'Labyrinth' which is a mix of both.
• We have initially decided on a theme of native indian tribes. Four tribes which will battle to complete the construction of their 'camp' before the other teams, this idea originated from wanting to have a game which used cards and also construction.
• Before we decided on the native indian theme we discussed a 'pokemon-like' board game which used cards to level up characters with different skills before a final battle between two players to decide the winner. This idea began to get far too complicated and we decided it would not be suitable for our age range, and not possible to successfully complete within the given time of 3 weeks! For this idea we considered building robots, or fantasy animals, or tribal factions.
• On our visit to Langley's I also looked at games such as Chalenj; http://www.chalenj.com/
• Top Trumps (for stats ideas and card-battle style games) http://www.toptrumps.com/
• Kaboodl Card Game for their simple designs of characters and game play; http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/16860/kaboodl
• I looked at the card game 'Killer Bunnies' too which was exactly NOT what we wanted to do with our game which was to over complicate things unecessarily! http://killerbunnies.com/

We have decided to research tonight;

• Native Inidan Tribe terminology and history
• Indian Tribal Camps for ideas of what to include in your camp (eg what you will need to build)
• The style/topics of our chance cards
• The 'Plains' where the game might be set
• Flags for the 4 Tribes
• Make 2 initial chance cards, one positive, one negative.
• Look at tribal games such as 'Settlers', 'Populous', 'Black and White'
  thesettlers.uk.ubi.com, popre.net, lionhead.com/bw2

The initial names for the four tribes are as follows; OLD CROW, CRAZY HORSE, SITTING BULL, WILD TURKEY. I will do some thumbnail sketches for each style the tribes could have including a colour assigned to each (red blue green yellow).


Chance Cards - Initial Ideas

After looking at these two websites;

http://pbskids.org/stantonanthony/nativeam_boy_1a.html

http://nativeamericans.mrdonn.org/plains/teepees.html

I have decided my negative chance card could read:

"YOU DON'T HAVE ENOUGH HIDES TO TRADE FOR TEEPEE POLES; YOU CANNOT BUILD FOR ONE TURN"

~
and my positive chance card could read:

"YOUR TRIBES CHIEF LIKES THE PAINTINGS YOU DECORATED YOUR TEEPEE WITH, PROGRESS ANOTHER SPACE"

Initial Prototype BoardGame

My initial board - with howler squares and enemy squares!