Portfolio Posts

Overview

Task : Design a roll and write board game within assigned themes.

Assigned themes: Tracking, Ginger house making, Blacksmithing

Picked theme: Blacksmithing

Game: The player needs to roll the dice to get the metals and blacksmith them into the products. The dice amount also indicates how many steps should the player move forward. When the player lands on the block with items, they can sell them. There is mechanism that allows the player to melt the product into the metals and remake other products. But the player can only get half of the metals if they melt the product.

Rules: link

Inspiration: I was inspired by a video talking about what life was like as a medieval blacksmith.

Role:

Game Designer

Team Size:

Length:

3 week

Time:

Mar 2021

Programming Languages:

Platform:

UX Tool:

Design

Game board design

I want to have selling mechanism in my game. However, board games are not like video games that you can have the scene for customers coming over to buy the product. Thus, I used a linear path like Monopoly to replaced it. It is also a good way to rise the player’s interests. In addition, it also makes the player win the game not entirely dependent on luck: if you roll a small number, the metals the players get are less but they might land on a good position.

The first row: since the player might not fully understand the rules, I keep it simple for the player to get familiar with the game.

The 2,3,4 row: there are different product selling zones in order to make the game more strategic. For example, the player might think whether to sell horseshoes now or to gamble for landing on sword sale and melt the horseshoes.

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Math in the game

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The amount of the metals the player gets and the amount of metal needed to make the product is an even number. Because there is melting mechanism, even numbers make calculations easier for the player

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The value of each product are made by taking the melting mechanism into consideration.

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Iterations

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Iteration-3 to Iteration-4

Problem:

After the playtests, I found that the players did not try to consider different strategy because they did not have exceptions for landing on specific spot in the future. Main reason is because players can only sell one kind of product in a square. The possibility for landing on the specific square is too low.
Players’ interests reduce after several rounds of playing.
Since the UI of the board was improved after the previous playtests, it was more easy for the players to figure out the rules which made the game too short.

Redesign the game board:

Allow players to sell different product in a square.

Reasons:

Rise the possibility for selling the specific product.‍

Add some selling zones such as “sword sale”, “selling festival”, “steel product sale”, “iron product sale”.

Reasons:

UI design for the “zone” can get the players attention and possibly rise their interests.
When the players see different zones on the board, they might think different strategy during the gameplay.
Players for selling some products so that the player would not feel it is impossible.

Link to all change detail and playtest reports : Link

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Clank! Clank!

Short Demo Video