Steffan Channer
During this week’s meeting, my team and I had each brought our game pieces and
components so that we could playtest the game's mechanics and how well they worked in a
practical playing environment. Rana brought the direction and item card sets, Ben and Eun
brought their prototype outer and inner game board pieces, which constitutes the playing field,
and I brought the player pieces and the apple piece, which represent the goal of the game. As
we tested the game, we found that the initial idea of the mechanics and the goal did work to
some degree, but of course we found certain practical issues with how we moved on the board.
At first we started the playtest by using two dice to determine the amount of space a player
could move, but found that to be too much and singled it out to one die. The professor then
gave us an idea; what if instead of dice, the direction card would determine the amount of space
we could move during our turn, as well as manipulate the position of the apple piece? We
decided that this was an excellent idea and incorporated it into our game’s mechanics. We also
made a number of smaller changes, such as how we could use the cards, and how we drew
more.
Here are examples of our changes:
● On your turn, you can use as many item and direction cards as you want, and you can
draw back as many direction card as you used from the card pile.
● Outer boundary, grass and trees, allows for you draw more resource cards.
● Direction cards dictate where you can move, and by how much.
● Low number direction cards may allow only for slight movement, but lets the player
move the apple a certain number of spaces.
● High number direction card may allow for far movement, but lets another player to move
the apple.
● When you reach the end of the board, you can either move to the opposite end of the
board, or move back the center(start) of the board. Moving to the opposite end let you
grab a resource, moving to the center lets you grab one of each.