Student Area

One-Button Game: Follow Me (Work in progress)

Premise:

Follow Me is a platformer that requires two players to work together to traverse obstacles and avoid dangerous environmental elements. The players move and act as a unit and start off in a cave environment. The goal is to escape the cave together without getting killed. As the game progresses, the levels could get more fast-paced and harder, requiring engagement from both player and agreement on which actions to perform.

Interface:

The interface for this game is touch. Using a MakeyMakey, two players must step on aluminum foil leads. They are able to press the “button” in the game by holding hands (long press), tapping once, tapping twice, or tapping each other repeatedly.

Mechanics:

Walking animation example:

Mac OSX + source code

Other Notes:

I wanted to create a one-button game that involved some type of teamwork and utilized a novel interface that took advantage of the Makey Makey such as a “dunk-tank switch” or involving a chain of people creating a conductive link.

One Button Ball Battle (Mark Strelow)

This is my prototype for a one button game (but it’s actually 2-player, so uses two buttons). The two important buttons are the ‘a’ key and the space bar.

 

Moving makes your ball bigger, staying still makes you smaller. If you are bigger than your opponent when you run into them, they will shrink and you will grow a bit. Additionally, being bigger gives you greater velocity, so you can hit harder, but have to be a little more careful.

If you become too small or fall off the platform, you lose. Try to stay moving and hit your opponent at the right times!

 

The application and source code is available here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/44eun20xse92a9f/OneButtonBattle.zip

One Button Idea(s)

Pinata Farm взять займ 30000 рублей на карту

You raise pinatas on a farm by feeding them candy. The type and size of candy determines how long and in what intervals you have to press the button. For larger candies, you have to wait longer for them to digest it, and for chewy candies you have to hold the button longer. If you mess up, the pinata gets nauseous and can’t eat for a second.

Here is a bad prototype: http://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/109757

I plan to use AS3 for the ‘full’ version and will have randomly generated candy names, colors, designs, 10+ types, 3 sizes, different pinata types, new pinata states (like nausea, contentment), and a way to spend your score. It might also have an ironic element where the farm is advertised as “free-range” and the pinatas are well taken care of, even though their purpose in life is to get brutally slaughtered by children who eat their internal organs.

And here’s some other ideas I was thinking of:

http://gamestormers.wordpress.com/2013/09/13/41/

One button idea: Flatland Terrors

Premise

You’re a simple character living in the simple x-y plane of Flatland. You can move anywhere on the x-y plane but have no inkling of any other dimensions. One day, some 3D fucker lifts you out of your plane and drops you onto a different one. You must traverse back through the sheaf of 2D planes to return to your home plane. Better hurry, though. There’s something terribly… wrong… with these ones.

Mechanics:

Your character keeps going forward until the button is pressed. As long as you are holding down that button, you will stop moving forward and spin in place. Upon releasing the button, you keep going forward in the direction that you are facing.

You emit a light and can see everything immediately around you–everything else is dark. The camera is centered above you looking down and follows you on your journey.

There are portals? gateways? friendly 3D’ers? that can help you travel to the next dimension down. They also emit a light.

There are terrors in the darkness–they do not take kindly to strangers in their midst and will destroy you if you let them get too close.

No Tech Game: Kraus Campo Checkers

by Mark Strelow, Luo Yi Tan, and Collin Burger

What you need to play:

  • up to 5 teams with 2 people on each
  • a beanbag (or other small, throwable item) for each team

(It is more convenient with more beanbags, but only 1 beanbag is necessary to play.)

Basic idea:

Each team designates one member to stand on the board (player A), while the other member traverses the orange tiles of the garden’s pathways (player B). Teams take turns, with player A from each team throwing their beanbag onto the board. Whatever number it lands on is the number of spaces player B must move. If a player B from one Team X lands on a space occupied by Team Y’s player B, Team Y is knocked out.

How it works:

  1. Each team designates a member to be player A, and the other is player B.
  2. Teams throw their beanbags onto the board, and the team that gets the highest number gets to go first.
  3. Player B from each team disperses to separate corners of the garden’s orange pathways, and chooses a starting space and a direction to start moving in.
    • The ‘spaces’ that player B moves on are dictated by the small grooves in the orange pathways.
    • For the start of the game, none of these players should be within 10 spaces of another, which should not be a problem if they are well spread out.
  4. Player A from the first team throws his or her beanbag onto the board.
    • The players from the other teams can attempt to block the throw, as long as they do not leave their spaces.
    • Player A moves to stand on the board tile that his or her beanbag lands on.
  5. Player B moves forward according to the number player A’s beanbag landed on.
    • Any 9 or 6 should be regarded as a 6.
    • A zero causes player B to turn around.
  6. If player B lands on a different team’s player B, the player that was landed on is knocked out.
  7. Repeat steps 4 through 6 for the next team, and so on. Continue until there is one player remaining.

Description:

This game is meant to make full use of the garden, and create a communication between the player on the board and the player on the pathways. From the board, it is difficult to see exactly where people on the pathways are, or how far away from each other they are. Thus, player A might need player B’s help determining what number to aim for. At the same time, the nature of what player A is doing makes it a game of skill to get the desired number. So the teams need to use skill, planning, and cooperation to try to win.

 

Courtyard game!

So the idea is that its basically a fusion of the game 24, twister, and the courtyard. After a set interval of time, players must use all 4 appendages to mark 4 squares – all oriented the same way (as in vertical or horizontal) – and make sure they add up to a target number, which changes upon each time interval.

City of Play Report

(Meant to be posted earlier, but since my login wouldn’t work..)

 

I went to the City of Play during the hours when the Social Games were active and played every game available there (Weenis Wars, Bottleneck, Stealth and Searchlight). My favorite was definitely Stealth, with Searchlight coming in at a close second.

 

Stealth utilized the Playstation Move and 4 Move controllers to create a simple game of tag. When the lights on the Move controller came on, you couldn’t move. The light colors had different indications: Yellow was safe, Blue was kill, and Red was out. When the lights went out, you had to move slowly to tag the person with the blue light before the lights came on again. If you got tagged or moved to quickly, your Move controller would turn red and you were out of that round. In a couple rounds that I played, the game glitched and started out one of the controllers as out every turn.

 

Though the concept was relatively simple, people tended to move when they weren’t supposed to. Sometimes this resulted in them getting themselves out. Otherwise, and it was good practice in seeing if you could keep yourself from jerking to tag someone or jerking your Move controller away.

 

Video! http://youtu.be/PsH8sMJYD_c

 

 

As a whole, I was pretty impressed at how relatively simple the (Social) games were. They were super fun and entertaining with a distinct lack of any sort of complexity.

MonsterFeeding_Game MOD

Press”P” to change the perspective and “S’for speedup, “D”for speed down. The “monster” will eat and grow larger and faster. When it grow larger than the screen window, it will end up with a”Game Over”.

Modified the collision function and create a following camera.

MacOSX version with source code : here

Undercover

Premise:

Win the game, but don’t get caught trying.

Necessities:

  • A stack of game cards (easily printed out)
  • Paper balls (easily crumpled)
  • The Number Garden
  • 10+ Players

Setup:

  • Give each player a game card
  • Players are to keep their cards secret!
  • The game card will give the player’s role

Player Roles:

  • For Race: either Robot or Human
  • For Stealth: either Robot, Assassin or Officer

Example Game Cards:

Game Variations:

Race:

The Rules:

All players are given a game card and a paper ball (if enough players then two paper balls).

Players are to keep their cards secret!

All players start at one side of the tile platform.

Robots:

Move number of tiles as instructed on their cards. Robots NEVER move backwards. If a robots card produces a negative or 0 number of tiles to move the robot is to stay still on this turn (move 0 tiles) and then as there next turn move forward 1 tile.

Once Robot has moved, they should wait the number of seconds specified on their cards before taking their next move.

While robots do carry paper balls, they are NOT allowed to throw them. It is best for robots to act as if they are thinking about throwing their paper ball though, so it is not obvious they are a robot.

If a robot is struck with a paper ball, they should walk backwards slowly to the start line.

Humans:

Must move forward in straight line; (can stay still on tiles).

If a human suspects another player to be a human, they throw a paper ball at them.

If a human is struck with a paper ball, they should walk backwards slowly to the start line.

End Game:

The first player to the other side of the number tile platform wins.

 

Stealth (Cooperative):

The Rules:

All players are given a game card.

Players are to keep their cards secret!

All robots & assassins start random positions on number tile platform.

Robots:

Move number of tiles as instructed on their cards. Robots NEVER move backwards. If a robots card produces a negative or 0 number of tiles to move the robot is to stay still on this turn (move 0 tiles) and then as there next turn move forward 1 tile. Robots should turn as their cards instruct. Robots should never move off of the number tile platform. If an edge is reached the robot should look at the tile they are currently on and turn in correct direction depending on the [current tile #]’s parity (odd or even).

Once Robot has moved, they should begin their next move (there is no waiting in this mode).

If a Robot comes within a three tile proximity to another player they should shake hands with the player. If the Robot is killed during the handshake, they should NOT react in any way and should continue moving as before. The Robot is now “Dead”.

If a Robot is asked by an Officer, “Are you alive?”. The Robot should say “Yes” if they have never be killed via a handshake during this game, and should say “No” if they have been killed via a handshake during this game. If the Robot says “No” they should walk backwards slowly to an edge of the number tile platform and then carefully exit.

If a Robot is struck with a paper ball, they should walk backwards slowly to an edge of the number tile platform and then carefully exit. The player should announce their role.

Assassins:

Assassins cans move as they wish. Their goal is to kill as many robots as possible before being killed or before the Officers use up all of their paper balls.

If an Assassin comes within a three tile proximity to another player they should shake hands with the player. If they wish to kill the player, the should tap the players wrist with a finger mid-handshake. If the Assassin is attacked by another Assassin during the handshake, they should NOT react in any way and should continue moving as before. Assassins can NOT be killed by other Assassins.

In this game mode, Assassins are acting as a giant team and are trying to kill as many robots as they can collectively.

If an Assassin is asked by an Officer, “Are you alive?”. The Assassin should say “Yes”.

If an Assassin is struck with a paper ball, they should walk backwards slowly to an edge of the number tile platform and then carefully exit. The player should announce their role.

Officers:

Officers cans move as they wish. Their goal is to kill the Assassins as quick as possible, which will in turn protect the robots.

Officers start the game with (2-4) paper balls depending on the number of Officers & Assassins in game at the moment.

If an Officer suspects a player of being an Assassin, they can throw a paper ball at them.

End Game:

Officers win if at least 50% of the Robots are alive. (Percentage alive can be changed to balance game)

Otherwise the Assassins win.

 

Stealth (Competitive):

The Rules:

All players are given a game card.

Players are to keep their cards secret!

All robots & assassins start random positions on number tile platform.

Robots:

Move number of tiles as instructed on their cards. Robots NEVER move backwards. If a robots card produces a negative or 0 number of tiles to move the robot is to stay still on this turn (move 0 tiles) and then as there next turn move forward 1 tile. Robots should turn as their cards instruct. Robots should never move off of the number tile platform. If an edge is reached the robot should look at the tile they are currently on and turn in correct direction depending on the [current tile #]’s parity (odd or even).

Once Robot has moved, they should begin their next move (there is no waiting in this mode).

If a Robot comes within a three tile proximity to another player they should shake hands with the player. If the Robot is killed during the handshake, they should NOT react in any way and should continue moving as before. The Robot is now “Dead”.

If a Robot is asked by an Officer, “Are you alive?”. The Robot should say “Yes” if they have never be killed via a handshake during this game, and should say “No” if they have been killed via a handshake during this game. If the Robot says “No” they should walk backwards slowly to an edge of the number tile platform and then carefully exit.

If a Robot is struck with a paper ball, they should walk backwards slowly to an edge of the number tile platform and then carefully exit. The player should announce their role.

Assassins:

Assassins cans move as they wish. Their goal is to kill as many robots as possible before being killed or before the Officers use up all of their paper balls.

If an Assassin comes within a three tile proximity to another player they should shake hands with the player. If they wish to kill the player, the should tap the players wrist with a finger mid-handshake. If the Assassin is attacked by another Assassin during the handshake, they should NOT react in any way and should continue moving as before. Assassins can NOT be killed by other Assassins.

In this game mode, Assassins are part of the team specified on their game card. Their team is trying to kill more robots collectively, than the other Assassin team.

If an Assassin is asked by an Officer, “Are you alive?”. The Assassin should say “Yes”.

If an Assassin is struck with a paper ball, they should walk backwards slowly to an edge of the number tile platform and then carefully exit. The player should announce their role.

Officers:

Officers cans move as they wish. Their goal is to kill the Assassins as quick as possible, which will in turn protect the robots.

Officers start the game with (2-4) paper balls depending on the number of Officers & Assassins in game at the moment.

If an Officer suspects a player of being an Assassin, they can throw a paper ball at them.

 

End Game:

Officers win if at least 50% of the Robots are alive. (Percentage alive can be changed to balance game)

Otherwise the Assassin team with the most kills win.

Breakout – Cubing Breakout

Here’s my breaking breakout assignment. I made a cube that has the game screen on all six sides, and changed the way the bricks are arranged and the number of balls, which makes for an interesting visual experience. You can also interact with the cube by using the mouse.

Download it here. The Mac application is in the application.macosx folder

 

 

The Kraus Campo Game

A playground game for people of different disciplines to communicate and play cooperatively

Designer: Shine Li

Goal:
A game lets players from different disciplines encounter and work cooperatively. Core elements aiming for are excitement, surprise, highly engagement, competition and cooperation.

Idea comes from:

“I imagined a place where walking and getting lost in conversation could become an active rather than a passive pleasure; a place to meet friends and colleagues, or encounter strangers from other disciplines…a literal marketplace of ideas.”

–Mel Bochner

Place required:

The Kraus Campo, Carnegie Mellon University

Preparation:

Five minutes

Equipment:

  1. Dozens of paper with letters which comes from the quotation on the wall
  2. Several colored bands
  3. Several colored paper board, the color matches the ones on the bands

Number of players:

Two or four teams of 2 or 3 players each, but the amount of players should be equal for each team.

Time required:

Less than 20 minutes.

Gameplay and Rules:

  1. Each team should have at least 2 people participating. One stands on the status and focus on the arithmetical problem, while the other contributes physically.
  2. The one stands on the statue should finish 3 “24 Game” to achieve the goal. He/ she should manipulate the 4 integers he stands on with any operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division) to get the end result as 24. After finished one game, he/ she should move to another area which has different numbers with the previous squares. It is permitted to move to a different spot if the player feels the numbers around him is too hard to solve, but the integers he/she uses should be different each time.
  3. The physical one should collect the paper with letters that has distributed randomly on the orange road in the garden. The time limit based on the speed of the opposite team solving 24 Game. He/ she should stop collecting at the time the opposite team finish the 3 24 Game.
  4. After the game stops, both teams should use the letters they collected to form words which shows on the wall. The more words one can form, the higher score he gets, but one letter can be used only once.

Additional rules:

  1. The math ones will be handed out the colored paper board, which has the color of their opposite team. After they finished solving the 24 Games, they should raise up the boards, and the ones with band of the same color should stop collecting immediately.
  2. If there will be more than 2 teams participating, they will be divided as groups of 2 teams, and teams compete with the one in their group. They will get certain colors to distinguish with others.
  3. If there will be 3 people involved in each team, the extra one should inspect the other team to make sure the 24 Game has been played properly.

PDF: The Kraus Campo Game

No-Tech Game: Angry Mob

Requirements:

  • 1 Moderator
  • 6+ Players
  • Open Space to jump around

Description

Angry Mob is a turn-based strategy combat game inspired by Ninja. Players begin as Civilians in a circle standing at arms length, then take turns attempting to to tag other players’ hands in order to build their Mob. Civilians that tag other Civilians become Mob Leaders. Civilians that have been tagged become Rioters and must follow the Mob Leader’s orders. The goal of the game is to be the sole Mob Leader and control everyone

Player Types


The Civilian

  • Vulnerable to all other players
  • Can attack Mob Leaders and other Civilians
  • Cannot attack Rioters

 

 

 

The Rioter

  • Crazed Citizens that have been persuaded to follow the orders of a Mob Leader
  • Is invulnerable to Citizens and Mob Leaders
  • Is vulnerable to enemy Rioters

 

 

 

The Mob Leader

  • Converts Civilians into Rioters by tagging them
  • Converts Mobs by tagging their Mob Leader
  • Controls Rioters by giving verbal commands on his/her turn
  • Is afraid of enemy Rioters and cannot attack them directly
  • If Mob Leader is tagged, he loses his Rioters to the attacker, becomes a Civilian and is allowed 2 moves to run away (no attacking).

 

Gameplay

  1. Players begin in a circle each standing at arm’s length away from each other
  2. A random person is chosen by the Moderator to begin, and turns go clockwise around the circle
  3. On their turn, each Civilian or Mob Leader is allowed to make one attack. This can involve the whole body.
  4. Convert Civilians into your Rioters by slapping their hands. You must hold your position at the end of your movement.
  5. Mob Leaders can also designate one person as a target for their Mob to attack on their turn. Civilians and Rioters tagged by Rioters are “jumped in” to the Mob Leader’s gang.
  6. If you are attacked by another player, you may dodge (even if you’re a Rioter) but you cant move your feet.
  7. As a Civilian (with no followers), if you’re tagged by another person, you become their Rioter. You can still dodge if attacked.
  8. As a Mob Leader (with followers), if you’re tagged by another person, you lose all of your Rioters to the Attacking Mob and become a Civilian again. At that moment, you are allowed two consecutive moves to flee, but you cannot attack.
  9. The game ends when all players are following one Mob Leader.

 

Play Testing

After playing Ninja last week, I was really inspired by the simplicity of the game mechanics, but was a little disappointed to see some players get knocked out of the game at the early stages. This idea played with the Power/Politics theme we were given last Wednesday and the game mechanics of Ninja. The overall goal was to add the element of totalitarianism to the game and to have players still be involved after being tagged.

We tested this game with 6 players on the grass on campus. Some early concepts had players mirror or shadow their leader’s movements from where they were standing, but with everyone in different positions it quickly became frustrating to execute the same movements in a timely manner. It was also frustrating to people that they didn’t have any choice points as a follower. After loosening up the constraints and simply having the leader designate a target, we allowed the followers to attack the target however they wished. This increased engagement and made the game much more fun for everyone.

 

 

Aurora Breakout

I based my design off of the screen-saver from DVD players, where a colored square bounces and everyone always wants it to get in the corner of the screen.  Aurora Breakout is about planning bounces in the late game (bonuses are given for hitting multiple blocks in a row), while clicking lets you teleport the ball at the cost of points.  I modified a perlin noise smoke algorithm to create the glowing particle effects.

Windows 32bit Download

Windows 64bit Download 

Mac OSX

Linux 32 and 64 available on request.

Source

Draw!

The Premise:

This is a creativity battle game. You must defend your territory against the other players by drawing the items from the cards in your hand on the board. Last territory standing wins!

Materials:

  • Pack of object and modifier cards
  • A whiteboard
  • Whiteboard markers; preferably one color per player

The Rules:

Setup:

Draw a series of circles in a circle, one for each player. Each player chooses a circle to defend as their “territory”. Each player should write their name or otherwise mark their territory using their marker.

When all players have chosen a territory, shuffle the deck and deal a hand of five cards to each player. The players may look at their own hands.

The object of the game is to take turns to try and erase other peoples’ drawings to ensure that you are the last person on the board with any drawings remaining.

Types of Cards

There are currently two types of cards: object cards and modifier cards.

Object cards are composed of four elements:

  • an object to draw
  • the object’s attack power
  • the object’s size ruler
  • the object’s range ruler
To play an object card, the player first uses the size ruler at the bottom of the card to measure how much space they can draw in on the whiteboard. They can then draw the item on the card within that space. The attack power is indicated in the upper right of the card and indicates how much power the object can attack with. The range ruler is in the upper left and can be used to measure how far the object can attack from its borders. Once the player has drawn their item, they should also add a line to the top of their drawing to indicate what the range of the object is and write the attack power next to that line.

Modifier Cards allow the player to enhance the abilities of their previously drawn objects. Most modifiers add attack power or range; when played, the player should update their drawing as indicated by the card and update the range or attack power of that object.

One Turn

This game is played in turns. On a player’s turn, they draw once, DRAW once, and attack once.

Draw once: Draw a card from the deck

DRAW once: Pick an object card from your hand and draw it on the board OR pick a modifier and add it to an object that you already drew on the board.

Attack once: Choose one enemy object to attack. You may attack it with of your objects that have a range greater than or equal to the distance to that enemy object. If the combined force of your attacking objects’ attack power is greater than the enemy’s attack power, then that object is erased.

The game continues with players taking turns until only one person has anything on the board. If you no longer have anything on the board, you’re out.

Playtester Feedback:

The playtesters had some good suggestions for improvements to the game:

Instant attacks/defenses  or other quickplay cards: The playtesters noted that it was disappointing to see their objects erased when there was nothing that they could do about it. They suggested having instant-play cards that they could play if they were attacked to increase defense.

Grid system: It was sometimes difficult to measure the distance between objects; one way to solve this might be to implement a grid system to determine distance. The downside to this is an extra constraint on creativity and added setup at the beginning of the game.

Smaller drawing range: The larger items have a huge advantage–they can span enormous areas much faster than a large ranged object can. The playtesters suggested having a smaller variance on the drawing ranges to combat this.

Specify how far apart territories are: If the territories are too close it can have a big impact on the game’s pacing; in this instance items were destroyed very quickly after being drawn. It would probably be advantageous to test several ranges to find a good balance.

Multiple modifiers: The players wanted to be able to use modifiers on the same turn as placing a objects–they found that they were often stuck drawing objects every turn to defend themselves and had no time to add any modifiers before their new drawings were erased.

What happens if hand is empty?: A question that follows the preceding suggestion is what to do if the player plays all the cards in their hand. How do they replenish it?

Trading system for points a la MTG so that the loser can have reprisal: If one player has an overly powerful object, it can become impossible to destroy. One suggestion is that the object has hit points that are diminished by the loser’s attack points if the object wins.

Object movement: The players expressed interest in being able to move their objects once drawn. Some investigation into this mechanic might be interesting.

Future Improvements

There are certainly a lot of balance issues in this first round of playtesting: the overpowered larger objects and the inability to defend out of turn especially need to be addressed. Overall, though, the playtesters showed interest in the game and agreed that it was a fun idea.

TURN STOP GO

Turn Stop Go! срочный займ на карту ночью

A fun game for children ages 5-8

Introduction

Turn Stop Go! is a dynamic and educational game designed to teach kids about the importance of numbers and Machiavellian cunning. This infectious little game will make them want to play at home, at school, anywhere! (But they can’t, because it requires the Number Garden.) Parental supervision is advised in case a child slips or feels emotionally neglected.

Players move around the Number Statue and try to knock each other out by occupying the same spaces as their opponents. The last player on the Statue wins.

 

Rules

First, choose an adult to moderate the game. They’ll yell the directions for each round, and will need a stop watch (or an iPhone). Each player chooses a “1” tile on the Number Statue and stands on it. No two players can choose the same tile.

Turn Stop Go! is played in rounds, which each consist of three phases.

1) Turn phase – The moderator shouts “Turn!”. They start the stop watch. Players have 5 seconds to turn in any direction (but don’t move out of their tile). They choose one of the four sides of their tile and stand facing that way.

2) Stop phase – After 5 seconds, the moderator shouts “Stop!”. Players have to stop turning no matter what way they’re facing. Turning again is a big no no and gets them out automatically. Each player holds their hands out and uses their fingers to show the number of the space they’re on (like if they’re on a “1” tile, they hold up one finger).

3) Go phase – The moderator shouts “Go!”. Players walk the direction they are facing (while keeping their hands up). The number of the tile they were on determines on how far they walk – if they were on a “3”, for example, they move three tiles forward. If two players stop moving on the same tile, they compare the number of fingers they’re holding up. Whoever’s holding the lower number is (gasp!) out. If a player walks onto an incomplete tile or off the Statue entirely, they’re also out.

Once one round finishes, the next begins immediately. Keep going until one lucky player is left.

 

More Rules

  • If a player lands on a “0” tile, treat it as a 10. If a player lands on a “6/9” tile, treat it as a 6.
  • Once the number of players dwindle, it becomes more difficult to get each other out. To maintain the level of franticness, the moderator reduces the number of seconds in each Turn phase as the game goes on. Divide the number of players by 5. Every time that many players go out, reduce the Turn phase by 1 second. So once there’s only 1/5th of the players remaining, they would only have 1 second per Turn phase.
  • An optional rule for the moderator, if they feel there isn’t enough interaction, is to call out “Ten” instead of “Go”. Players must move 10 spaces instead of their original amount during that Go Phase. This encourages players to stay near the middle of the number structure rather than camp its edges, because they’ll have more options when the moderator calls Ten.

 

Pictures

Above: A picture of a child.

More pictures coming soon.

Next Generation Game

Process:
  • Two teams of around 5 (up to 9) players.
  • Each team stands on either side of the number platform.
  • Each team starts out with 100 health.
  • Choose Team Captain for each team.
  • Everyone stretches:
  1. Arms: Triceps stretch and deltoid stretch
  2. Legs: Quads stretch and hamstring stretch
  3. Abdominal stretch
  • Decide team that goes first (coin toss, rock paper scissors).
  • Let’s say Team A goes first:
  • The Workout cycle is 1) Push-ups, 2) Sit-ups, 3) Squats
  • Each member of Team A does as many Push-ups as he/she can, one at a time. The total number of pushups from the team is their Defense for the turn. (i.e., each member does 10 push-ups, 10×5 = 50 DEF)
  • Team A Captain throws *object* into the squared-off number zone. Whichever number the *object* falls on will be the number of players of Team B that can attack in Team B’s turn (if the number is higher than the total number of people in Team B, then all Team B members can attack).
  • Team B Captain chooses the team members that will participate in the attack (him/herself included–the captain always is part of the attack). One at a time, the members of Team B do as many push-ups as they can. The total number of push-ups will be Team B’s Attack. If Team B’s ATK is higher than Team A’s DEF, then Team A loses the difference (DEF – ATK) in their health.
  • Now it’s Team B’s turn to defend. The next exercise in the cycle is Sit-ups, so each member in Team B’s team does as many Sit-ups as they can, one at a time. The total number of Sit-ups is Team B’s Defense. Team B Captain throws *object* to determine how many of Team A will be able to attack.
  • The gameplay continues in this pattern, cycling between the three exercises, until one team is out of health.
  • *object* is TBA. It could be a shoe, coin, book, whatever.
The goal of this game is to 1) get a good workout and 2) to support your team. When your teammates are working hard, be sure to encourage them and cheer them on. Apathetic and non-supportive teams will eventually lose the game.
Ideally, each team should be in the same level of physical strength, so the teams will be split up accordingly. 
What constitutes as a “push-up”?
One push-up is having your chin touch the ground in the “down” position, and your arms fully extended in the “up” position. Make sure not to bang your chin on the ground when coming down.
What constitutes as a “sit-up”?
One sit-up is having your head barely touching the ground in the “down” position, and having your elbows touch your knees in the “up” position.
What constitutes as a “squat”?
One squat is bending your knees all the way in the “down” position, and straightening your legs in the “up” position.
It is recommended to bring something to hydrate yourself. Breaks are allowed between exercise cycles (at the end of an attack) to get hydrated. If players become too tired, a “benchwarmer” system can be implemented, using classmates who are not currently playing the game.
Materials:
  • ~10 Players
  • Tape to make zones
  • *object* to throw
  • Pen and paper to keep track of health

Breakout: Icebreaker

I wanted to experiment with a 3D version of Breakout. The most interesting problem in a 3D version of a 2D game is how to handle the camera as well as the movement controls. I chose to try a version in which the player can control both the camera and the movement of the platform–the arrow keys move the platform on a 2D plane, the “A” and “D” keys move the camera in a circular path around the play area, and the “W” and “S” keys maneuver the camera up and down while focusing on the middle of the play space. If the ball gets stuck in one spot or you wish to reset, press the “c” key.

The platform has an arrow on the top to show the player which way the platform will move when the up arrow key is pressed. It became evident during testing that it is nearly impossible to remember which direction the platform moves in when the camera is rotated so this visual cue helps to serve as a reminder. The physics and controls are not smooth; more tweaking is necessary before the game is enjoyable to play. It might also be interesting to be able to move the platform up and down; it might be difficult to fit that into the existing controls, however.

To play the game, click on the download link below:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/913804/Marlena-Icebreaker.zip

The source code is available here:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/913804/Marlena-Icebreaker-source.zip

Breakout: Depth of Field (aka SUPERFARTS)

The rules are similar to Breakout, in which you must get rid of bricks (in blue), but it is more of a visual experience than a game.

Make sure to press COMMAND-SHIFT-R to make the game full screen.

Optional game: press any key to “reset” the trails left behind. If there aren’t any blue bricks left, you win. The faster you achieve this, the better, but you only get one try.

Code package: https://www.dropbox.com/s/m8qig1geusvsb8a/tyler_porten_depth_of_field.zip (fixed–it has both the source code and the mac app)

Tyler Porten

Dat Best Games Fest – Luke Schenker

Getting off the bus my mind filled with wonder; what wonders could the Games Fest hold? Could it be a giant life size pong interface, or perhaps a virtual reality simulator? Since I didn’t read the schedule of events, it was up to my imagination…

That is until I arrived, upon which time I got a free shirt and wristband that entitled me to a fraction of a keg to be tapped later on. The day was looking bright, until we formed teams with… strangers! To summarize, it was a strange group. Luckily I had my two fine gentlemen Alex and Mark from Alternative interfaces to back me up!

For the next two hours we wandered around the city doing their revolutionary twitter idea. The idea was simple: put posters up around the city that told people to take a picture of themselves with the poster and tag it “Pgh1” through “Pgh5”, each being one of 5 locations. They had hoped this would cause a trend of people all taking their pictures at the sites and that it would expand to more sites. This was a good opportunity to analyze the downfall of the teams idea, because it had several problems…

First, people passing have little to no incentive to take their picture with it because all it offers is that they took their picture with a sign that is advertising for something they don’t recognize; very few people would stop for this. Second, if they wanted to take a picture anyways, why use a tag that they don’t know what it is. It is for all these reasons that near the end of our putting up signs that Alex and I bailed on the group to see the fountain. It was awesome.

Then we played a game called “Wandering Gnomes”, the idea was simple: everyone gets a card with a phrase to decode and a few decoded words. To decode your instructions you had to ask around if people had the decoded words in your phrase. It was an interesting idea, and if it hadn’t whittled my self-respect down to a nub by the thousandth time I asked if anyone knew “Wishy-washy-woo-tittle-tee” it definitely would have had some promise. However my dignity could handle no more of the game, and the keg was nowhere in sight, so me and Alex left Mark to play with the gnomes.

Joel City of Play report.

The city of play festival was an interesting experiment in group organized games amongst strangers. I  only played about 4 games while I was there, yet two of them seemed to fall under a very similar category. One was roaming gnomes, a game where about two dozen uniquely painted gnomes are placed are the ground, evenly distributed across a large area. Every player is handed a card which has a direction, in gnomish of course, and some translations for another direction. Players must seek the person who has the translation for his/her direction, find the translation then do it. For instance, move the candy cane colored gnome to the green tile. Another similar one was a group game where every player had a card with a type and a few goals. Players must create groups that had no two of the same type and all had a common goal and then do this as many times as possible. The obvious result from trying these types of games with a group of players is mostly every standing in a clump yelling out at one another. Eventually, through sheer dedication you will eventually find someone you are looking for through brute force. I did not find this a very compelling type of game for group play. So why was this? firstly, I just outright did not find it very fun. In addition to the annoying yelling in my ears from every direction, it felt more like a task than an actual game. None of the ‘objectives’ really took much skill to do or were very rewarding to complete. I think it was more the experience of being in a crowd of people yelling silly things that made it an arguably fun experience for others.

Chaos Theory

The breakout mod I created starts with a single white ball bouncing around the screen. As it hits a brick, it spawns another ball and inherits the brick color. The brick then dies and becomes a mini ghost brick that follows the paddle around and haunts it. If the ball hits the paddle, it loses its color and turns white as it bounces back. The bricks eventually regenerate with a random color and after a few seconds, there are so many balls on screen that it turns into a piece of generative art.

Source Code and OSX App

 

THE CITY OF PLAY FESTIVAL

After an half-day-trip to FallingWater, I rushed to Arcade Theater; although I only have chance to take part in the social and street games, I still had a great time the whole afternoon.

SOCIAL GAMES

  • Weenis Wars 

 

It was the first game I played there, and its rules is quite simple. Similar to other “Attack & Defense”  games, everyone protects his/her own weenis which attached to his/her elbows and at the same time tries to grab the enemies’ weenis.

It is actually   a “War” game because every player must pay attention to both defense and attack (so reaction speed is most important), and if you want to play well, some strategy such as team play should be considered.

It’s really fun except for some scratches on my arms. LOL

  • Bottleneck

It’s a matching games and reminds me some part of “D&D” (online?) role play games —-the player in the inn who has a list of requests try to find the other players which have the same request and different professions to form a team.  What we need to do is just SHOUT out our requests and occupation. 

The vehicle rule add some difficulties.

  • Searchlight

It’s a cool game not only because it use digital tools to detect the players action, but also because it’s a teamwork game actually even it looks like a competition between two players. 

Hi fellows~ let us mission impossible~

 

STREET GAMES

  • Zombie Ward!!

Zombies!It’s my favorite~ a real space SRPG. Turn & kill, survive & feast, tools & stories~

It’s interesting that after two round, the zombies seems to get intelligence and surrounded the human who had the anecdote to blcok the way of the other humans.

But I still don’t get it how to define when the humans win or the zombies.

 

  • Witness Protection 


My role is a townspeople, but because I didn’t know the rules of the whole game ( I did’t even know all the role types), I just kept searching for the hidden “witness”. Till after the game, I started to figure out the rules and stories. =_=

 

What I got from the festival was:

  •  some tips to make a good game
    • clear rules
    • interaction between players
    •  challenges
  • some exercise 
  • a not-so-bad free T-shirt 
  • found a nice pixel art when I went home

 

City of Play Report – Luo Yi Tan

I attended the City of Play event on Saturday from 4 – 8pm, during the social games session. It was interesting to see all the different types of games being played, but the game that interested me the most was Witness Protection Program.

The game is sort of a Werewolf/Hide and Seek hybrid meant for 5-25 people, where each person have different goals depending on what character they are. Before the game starts,  we are dealt cards that determine our role. You cannot reveal your role to another person unless you have a specific ability that lets you do so. It is best played in huge space with lots of good hiding spots, like a park, because being able to hide well is a pretty major part of the game. There are three main groups in the game: Townspeople, murderers and law enforcers. The main character is the witness, which must be kept hidden in order for the townspeople and law enforcers to win. When game begins, the law enforcers will get together in a group and decide where to hide the witness, while the townspeople were led away to wait until the witness is hidden.

Goals:

If you’re a townsperson: Find the witness and hide with him

If you’re the murderer: Murder the witness.

If you’re a law enforcer: Protect the witness

There are a few conditions for the game to end:

If 1/3rds of the townspeople manage to find and hide with the witness, or if the time limit(10 minutes or so depending on how many people are playing) runs out, then the townspeople and law enforcers win.

If the witness get killed by a murderer, the murderer wins.

There were about 30 people playing in my game, and we played it in a park somewhere in town. I wasn’t in a very exciting role even though I was part of the law enforcers, I was a dependent, which meant that my so called special ability was if I ever ended up alone I die. I wasn’t really sure what “alone” specifically meant, did it mean I should keep like least 5 feet from somebody else? I just ended up sticking to anybody that walked past me, which probably looked a little silly to them.

So as the law enforcers, we split our group into half, one half would hide the witness, and the other half would pretend to be hiding the witness somewhere else.

Some interesting things that happened during the game were:

One character, called the Kamikaze, had the ability to kill somebody else and himself by hugging them. He used this to kill the Traitor, and the Doctor(who had the ability to heal people) revived both of them. The Traitor had the ability to kill people who revealed their identity to him, and so used this to kill the doctor. The witness himself hid pretty well, one person one townperson managed to find and hide with him, he still got found by a murderer in the end.

It was pretty funny watching everyone trying to roleplay, staring at each other suspiciously and trying to look innocent, although we fumbled through it a bit because the rules weren’t made very clear in the beginning. It could be a pretty fun game for older kids if the rules were refined more.

City of Play

I was in a workshop organizing for Power Shift all day on Saturday so I was unable to enjoy the large majority of activities held at city of play. However, I was able to make it to the free after party where I got to drink my fill of beer and play this fun ninja game.

NINJA GAME:

I can’t remember what it was called, but it had an interesting and simple mix between computer and body.

Description

On the screen there is a randomly generated board set to parameters based on height and width as well as number of teams.

The teams are composed of ninja and sensei. The ninja is blindfolded while the sensei gives orders based off of the computer generated map.

The computer generated map is meant to mirror a grid of carpet samples laid out on the floor. The samples are spaced with a 6″ margin approximately. The ninja must peek out of the bottom of it’s blind fold in an attempt to avoid stepping on the carpet samples.

The PA system screams “MOVE” every few seconds at which point all the ninjas can take one step of whatever distance they want.

The goal of this game is for the sensei to give effective vocal orders to it’s corresponding ninja to guid the ninja to coordinates of their team color as represented on the computer generated map. Each appropriate color coordinate reached gains the team one point. However, the more common path to victory is to be the last man standing. Each ninja has a foam sword with which it can slash the legs of the other ninjas with the help of it’s sinsei’s guiding voice. It is either by having ones legs slashed or stepping on a carpet sample that one may be removed from the game.

The game was somewhat enjoyable but could be too fast paced. Perhaps a larger scale board would have made things more interesting.

City of Play – Mark Strelow

Play Your City Challenge:

My experience with the City of Play was rather interesting. I began by doing the Play Your City challenge, which started off very interesting. We first got into groups, and then held a brainstorming session to come up with a way to make the city “playable.” There were some really interesting ideas generated from our brainstorm, however most would require much more time and resources than we had at our disposal. I felt like we settled with a “doable” idea because we wanted to get something done in the couple of hours that we had, rather than exploring the really cool ideas more thoroughly. We ended up putting posters in certain locations that encouraged people to take a picture and tag it with a certain hashtag on twitter. The idea was to get people involved with the city and with other people that might visit the same places, but there was no real incentive to taking a picture and I don’t think anyone actually did.

Other Games:

After this, I played a few other games, but the one I found most interesting was the “Witness Protection” game. In this game, cards were handed out to a large group of people, and each person was assigned a role depending on what card they received. There was one witness, which happened to be me when I played, as well as a group of people trying to protect the witness, and a group of townspeople. Hidden among the townspeople was a murderer. It was the job of the witness protection group to hide me and keep the murderer from finding me. If 1/3 of the townspeople found me and hid with me, the game would be won, but if the murderer found me we would lose.

It seemed like a similar game to “mafia” (which is, if you don’t know it, a spoken-word game played in a turn based manner, where the hidden mafia try to kill the townspeople without being killed themselves). However, because this Witness Protection game was not turned based and involved a physical space, it seemed to have the potential to be more exciting.

Unfortunately, the game was rather boring for me as the witness. I hid in the bushes for a while, joined by one member of the townspeople before the murderer eventually found us. I think the other players of the game were a bit reluctant in some ways, due to the rules of the game not being very well explained. I think, if the person in charge of running the game had known the rules very well, instead of being a bit confused like the players, the game might have been very fun and strategically interesting.

I think the small problems I noticed were not with the game necessarily, but with the planning. And I noticed this with the various other games I played as well. As a fun experiment I think the games were great and I had a lot of fun trying them out. On the other hand I think the organization could be improved to provide a more satisfying overall experience. One example is the Roaming Gnomes game, which I thought was a very cool social game, requiring people to interact and talk to each other to translate their directions. While the game was fun, the process of checking whether or not the players had succeeded was a bit slow and, at the end of one game, was entirely off. Apparently the answer key for this particular game had been lost or incorrectly printed. Playing through an entire round, only to be told that you “probably” did well was a bit unsatisfying.

Overall, it was cool to experience new games with strangers. Usually, when playing a game (especially one where social aspects such as talking or strategizing are the focus), I am at least a little familiar with the people that I am playing with. Being unfamiliar with the people as well as the games made for an interesting experience, and I enjoyed it.

City of Play Report

I attended the discussion and several social games like ninja training, zombie ward, which are really fun.
The discussion is a group activity in which people has been divided into different teams and talk about ideas to make Pittsburgh a better place and more fun. We had a conclusion that waiting for the buses can be less boring through playing games, so we head to this direction and developed the idea further more. I came up with the idea that it should be group activity like the digital game Curiosity.  It should be cooperative and bring people more chances to communicate. Then we keep digging on this idea, and came up with the bus waiting game as showed in the following picture.

The rules would be:

1. People waiting for the bus make the heat bar go higher by touching the heat-sensitive bus signpost. The more people get involved, the bar should go higher to trigger an event.

2. The heat bar has three phases, after reaches the second one, there gives “bee bee bee” sound and the camera will take a 360 degree picture. So people touches the signpost will all be included into the picture.

3. There will be a bigger digital screen aside on the wall records pictures has been taken. After reaching certain amount, the previous ones may be ripped to give space for new ones. People can check if their photos still there at the bus stop or not. If not, they would more likely to take pictures again.

4. After the bar line reaches the third phase, the slot machine works, and will rain coupons or bucks ($1) randomly, and the companies which the coupons belongs to, should be the main sponsors for the construction of the bus waiting game system.

Social games:

Ninja training should be my favorite, since I played before in the global game jam when it had 7 controllers ran in a wider space. But this time, due to some technical issues and the space limitation, they just provided 4 controllers and ran in a pretty small area. These limitations did affect the user experience in certain degree.  Other than this, it is still an interesting game which attracted lots of people participated.

People getting crazy in Ninja training…

Zombie ward is a tag game with special items. We played in a group of more than 20 people. It is not that special, since we have played lots of tag games when we were young, but it was really fun to play with a bunch of grown-up strangers. Also with the items, and the randomness of the places and the orders we have to command, the fun increases.

Trying to find a place to play zombie ward.

Other games i played:

This game is about figuring out the unknown words on your cards by using the hints shows on other people’s cards. Then follow the command showed on cards. This game really need people to communicate, which brings lots of fun.

This game is about getting bricks of your own color without getting caught by the light. It is a cooperative game, and two people should work together to make the time as short as possible. I like this game, but i wish this could be played on table instead of the ground. That way might be more comfortable to play, so we can more concentrate on the game.

Things I got:

1) Two friends, each of whom has a broken leg and comes from totally different background

2) Great ideas about making the city a better place, and i am happy that i can participate in such activities to contribute something

3) Communication with strangers is not that hard, and playing games like a child is pretty enjoyable

4) A free T-shirt which is pretty ugly…

City of Play

Playscaping Challenge (a.k.a. Play Your City)

“Use elements of play to design, implement, and document a project that makes the city a  better place”

This was an interesting experience! It proceed as following:

  1. Meet people in room by “blind” drawing portraits of them
  2. Putting on race bib numbers (“to look officially part of something”)
  3. Splitting up into teams
  4. Given theme, “Change Direction”
  5. Each team give special prompt item (mine was a rubber-duck)
  6. Mind-Hurricaning (a.k.a. Brainstorming) for 15 mins
  7. Consolidating down to 1 idea in 10 mins
  8. Implementing the idea in the city in less than 1.5 hrs
  9. Watching people in downtown Pittsburgh stare at your project with a “What the f*ck is this?” face and then walk away
  10. Documenting of project

The best part of this would probably be the Brainstorming phase where we came up with a lot of great ideas that would truly make the city a better place.

Then in the next phase we through out all of the best ideas because they weren’t feasible with our time & money constraints and came up with an okay idea (Giant color-by-numbers posters at bus stops that were pieces of a larger photo that could only be put together by visiting multiple bus stops, thus encouraging people to go other stops than their normal).

Next we went about implementing our idea. I was in charge of creating the color-by-number poster, which involved drawing long straight lines (wooooo art degree being put to use!). While I was creating the poster, the rest of the team was debating about what picture should the color-by-numbers be of. During this debate the decided that “we weren’t letting people be creative enough” so it turned into a color-by-number picture where certain squares had random pictures drawn or made-up stories written.

The simple-ish idea we had come up with became a confusing uncentered mess and mostly ended in sadness that made me question if people in downtown Pittsburgh actually want their day brightened or if they would prefer to stand there dispirited & undisturbed.

That said I think the Playscaping Challenge was an overall good idea, but could have used a judge panel to make sure ideas were kept simple and centered.

Roaming Gnomes

Welcome to the intersection of Gmane Street and Gninth Avenue, the most trafficked area of Gnometopolis… during the lunchtime rush… on the busiest Gnome holiday of the year, Gnu Years Eve. Your team’s job is to get the Gnomes and their things to exactly where they need to be as quickly as possible – unfortunately, everything is written in Gnomish. Can your team make all the right moves before time runs out?”

The game worked in the following way:

  1. 30 gnomes are placed at 30 different locations and some are holding one of 8 cups
  2. Each player is given 1-2 cards. A card has two things on it: a player objective – what the player must do, which involved moving a gnome or cup to a location (written in Gnomish a.k.a. gibberish) & a translation of 2-3 Gnomish words (most of which weren’t in your objective)
  3. Either with or without a time limit the players must rush around to translate their objective to english so that they can complete it
  4. The game master would check the end result against their insane spreadsheet to determine if the players moved everything to where it needed to go

This was a great game! A much needed pick-me-up after the Playscaping Challenge! It required communication between a large group of people, but it avoided most of the shouting problems of Bottleneck due to the fact that everything was in Gnomish which is so difficult to speak that few could shout it. Roaming Gnomes would be a delightful party game! The gnomes were beautifully made and added to the cheery & goofy ambience the game created as you said gibberish to each other.

 

City of Play Report – Social Games!

I attended the City of Play on Saturday,  from 4pm – 5pm which happened to be the social games session. It was quite funny for people were so quiet and “non-socializing” before the game started, but then it got really heated up once the staff set off the games.

Weenis Wars

If it dangles, grab it! Weenis Wars is a fast-paced game where opponents have 15 seconds to grab as many “Dangles” off their opponents’ weenises as they can.

I like this game for its simplicity yet lots of fun. By trying to grab your opponents’  “Dangles” while keeping your foot unmoved, you’re automatically doing funny choreography, and somewhat have to interact with your opponents physically, serving the job for social purpose. Everyone, the participants and people like me watching, was laughing so hard during and after the game. You just can’t stop watching!

Bottleneck

A chaotic game about traffic jams, car wrecks, and dinner parties. The game of Bottleneck is fast-paced and high-stakes, as players rush around, yell out silly phrases, and link arms…but some of them might wreck if they don’t pay attention!

The game’s rules are simple:

  • form a group of four
  • find common things you can do
  • card colors should be different
  • the vehicles should not crash
  • collect 4 winner cards to win!

You’re given an occupation card where lists three things you should do to accomplish one round and get a winner card. Here comes the social part, you cannot win by playing alone, for each thing you’ll need to find 3 other players to claim the winner card with you.

I joined the first round and was so lucky to be the winner for the first round! I was a patient who got cured by the doctor, an artist who threw a dinner party, open an Etsy shop, went to gallery opening.  The fun part of playing this game is that you’re learning by playing and in order to do win, you have to shout out your needs, as opposed to being a quiet person sitting in the corner – no one would find you if you don’t speak out. All those involve social activities.

Breakout: Trapped in My Mind

You are surrounded by blocks. You can only destroy blocks of the same color as your ball, change the ball color by hitting it with a different side of the paddle. Protect your “health blocks” that are in the center of the screen. Lose them all and you fall back a level.

Cheats:

L” – Go forward a level
“K” – Go back a level
[UP] – Create a ball
[DOWN] – Delete a ball
“F” – Toggle fire mode

Play Game

Download Game

Download Code

City of Play Report

I spent about half my time doing the Play Your City challenge, in which I and a group of people roamed several blocks of the city and attempted to make small “games” in public environments that bystanders could participate in. I thought the initial brainstorming session was the most productive part of this experiment, as we explored a variety of topics and referenced many past projects that I found exciting. взять займ на карту 18 лет

Of the games I did play, one I found interesting was a quick party game in which players are given Character cards with an Occupation, Vehicle, and three Hobbies. You must find three other people who share a Hobby with you, and go as a group to the moderator in order to receive a Point card as well as a new Character card. All the members in your group must have different Occupations in order to receive a Point. You also can’t score if two members in your group own a Vehicle that matches the current “Danger” Vehicles held up by the moderator. You play until someone gets 4 points.

I felt engaged by this game because of its simplicity and the cute card design. You can learn it in a minute and complete a round in 15 minutes. The game doesn’t require expensive materials or a large space. There’s a small element of negotiation, because you want to convince groups of two or three to stick together while they search for their final potential members, rather than breaking apart to try to match other Hobbies.

I felt some aspects of the game weren’t as polished and/or cohesive as they could be. The scoring mechanic, for example, led to an anticlimactic victory because no one knew how many points other players had. It was like a time bomb that could go off at any moment, but I didn’t get a sense of urgency because it was so abstract and removed from the rest of the game. One solution might be to give players all four Character cards at once, so that other players can directly see how many Characters you have left, and refuse to trade with you (although this would lead to other complications). I feel a sense of escalation is important to a game like this because the core gameplay is so repetitive.

The Vehicles felt extraneous. I never felt they were relevant because 1) they were on the backs of the cards, which no one bothered to look at, and 2) the person holding up the vehicle cards wasn’t near the moderator you had to find in order to score, so you forgot about them. The layer of complexity they added was also unnecessary, because they made the “core” matching gameplay more difficult, which was already at a good balance, rather than opening up new decisionmaking space.

I’d like to see the game expand upon the idea of negotiating with other players. Currently there is no incentive for players to form groups other than to match Characters. Having the ability to form more defined groups with a penalty for leaving could create an interesting new dynamic.

City of Play Festival 2013: Zombie Ward

Over this last weekend, I attended the City of Play Festival in downtown Pittsburgh. The festival included games of all types, ranging from physical games played on the streets to social games played with PS3 Move controllers.

My favorite of the games that I played was Zombie Ward.

Zombie Ward is a turn-based tag game played outside in an open area like a park. Scattered about are bags containing various power-ups.

Power-ups:

  • Zombie Gun – An elastic band that is a one-time-use zombie killer. A zombie hit by one of these is permanently dead.
  • Antidote – A ball which makes the owner immune to zombie attacks. As a an immune carrier, it is your responsibility to find the “secret lab” to mass produce a cure.

As a human, the goal of the game is to avoid zombies, find the “antidote” and bring it to the “secret lab.” As a zombie, your goal is expand your zombie army by tagging humans.

This game turned out so much more fun than I had initially thought it would be. We played with a group of about 35 people. The games started everyone in a circle with the moderator randomly choosing one person to be the first zombie.

From there the moderator calls out humans and zombies to take turns taking 1-2 steps (at the moderator’s discretion). This is where things get interesting. A degree of strategy is required to navigate the landscape without getting tagged (as a human) or letting any humans get away (as a zombie).

Things get really interesting towards the end of the game when the secret lab is found and everyone is making a mad dash for the lab with a horde of 30 zombies on their tail.

Being a game played in real life, it was much more thrilling to experience than a zombie video game. Best of all, because there isn’t any blood and gore, people of all ages can play. I would definitely play this game again.

City of Play: Kill Him and You Will Be Famous

I ended up playing quite a few games at City of Play but the one that stuck with me was a field game called Kill Him and You Will Be Famous.

Kill Him and You Will Be Famous

The Rules

The rules are fairly simple: at the start of the game, an Honorable Master is chosen. The Honorable Master, in the style of many kung-fu movies, is surrounded by the other players and must defend him or herself against their attacks. The object of the game is to kill the Honorable Master.

Materials:

  • a large open space
  • several dozen small, throwable foam balls
  • two larger foam balls
  • a backpack or container with open top
  • note cards numbered from 1 to n where n is the number of players

First things first: Everyone picks a note card. The number on their note card denotes the order in which they get to attack the Honorable Master. Next, everyone picks up two of the small foam balls, or Energy Orbs. The rest of the balls are strewn around the playing area.

Next, an Honorable Master must be chosen. At this point the person explaining the game will traditionally ask the assembled players if they know the origin of the name of the game (it’s a line from Naussica and the Valley of the Wind). The first person to guess gets to be the Honorable Master; if no person can guess, the Honorable Master is chosen by the game master.

The Honorable Master is then equipped with two larger, hand-sized foam balls and an open container strapped to his back. The other players form a circle and the Honorable Master stands in the center. The Honorable Master states his name to which the other players yell “Prepare to die, Master <name>!”, signaling the beginning of the game.

The game master will now begin calling out the numbers assigned to the players starting at the beginning. When a ninja’s number is called, she will step into the ring and have 15 seconds to defeat the Honorable Master. The game master will count down from 15 and announce when her time is up. If she can get one of her foam balls into the container on the Honorable Master’s back without it bouncing out, she has killed the Honorable Master and thus becomes  the new Honorable Master. As long as she has a ball in each hand, she is invulnerable and cannot be killed by the Honorable Master. If she throws one or both of her balls, however, she can be tagged by the Honorable Master. The Honorable Master may only tag with his foam balls; he cannot throw them.

If the ninja is tagged by the Honorable Master and she does not have a ball in each hand, she is dead. Additionally, if the ninja does not have a ball in her hand, she cannot use that hand to defend herself against the Honorable Master; the only thing she can do with that hand is pick up another ball from the ground. The ninja is also dead if she flees outside the circle before her 15 seconds are up; her fellow ninjas will kill her for cowardice. At the end of her 15 seconds, if the ninja has failed to kill the Honorable Master she must drop both of her Energy Orbs and flee to the safety of the circle of ninjas within 3 seconds or she is dead.

The game continues until all ninjas are dead or the Honorable Master has been killed. The game restarts with either of these events.

My Experience

I had a ton of fun with this game; it was fairly simple but a lot of fun. It succeeded in keeping people engaged even when they weren’t actively participating as the current Honorable Master or ninja; watching the bouts was fun. The matches were both long enough to give the ninja a fighting chance and short enough to keep the game going and keep everyone engaged.

I got to be the Honorable Master three times–once when I guessed the origin of the name, once from skill, and once from trickery. Another ninja from across the circle pretended to be getting ready to jump in on my turn and I was able to sneak up behind the Honorable Master without him seeing and drop my Energy Orb in his backpack. I found it to be a lot of fun and also quickly exhausting; each time I had to fight against a fresh ninja I got more out of breath.

Since this game has such a solid base, it presents a great opportunity to expand upon it and add new game modes. For example, a friend who was playing with me noted that the game is more difficult for shorter people. A fun potential augmentation to the game might be that if any ninja is nose-height or shorter than the Honorable Master, she may choose a Ninja Companion. When either ninja’s number is called, they both get to attack the Honorable Master at once. The addition of different kinds of orbs, tag-team Honorable Masters, or differently terrained play environments could all make the game more interesting in later rounds.

Anyway, this game was great. I highly recommend it and would play it again.

Hey this is a post about City of Play

I don’t know where I’m posting this so if it’s in a weird place on the site I’ll move it away later.

So there were a couple things I learned from playing games at City of Play. After playing/observing games like Bottleneck, Searchlight, Weenis Wars, and whatever that gnome game was, I understood that:

  1. Fewer rules or simple rules make games flow better with players unfamiliar with the game. Having too many rules creates a lot of awkward “you’re doing it wrong” “am I doing it wrong” “yes you’re doing it wrong stop” moments. Although games that have complex rules are fun to play and offer more, when you’re introducing your game to people who have no idea what you’re going on about, it’s probably a better idea to have only a few rules to the game. Weenis Wars did a good job with just “don’t move your feet” “grab other people’s weenises” as the rules for the game.
  2. Don’t assume your players are smart/motivated to play your game. I saw that there were games that required thinking but involved people who couldn’t or didn’t want to, which ended up with a lot of complaining, discomfort, and confusion. Some people just ignore rules or don’t understand how they work, and messes up the entire gameplay for other people. So I guess this means either to 1) only introduce your game to devoted people you know will play it correctly or 2) make your game look interesting enough and debrief the hell out of the players so they know what they are doing and will continue to play as they should. It’s easy for a creator to say “oh, they don’t understand it because they’re stupid” “jesus can you be any stupider” “god why is everybody so dumbbbbb” but in actuality it’s probably the fact that since you made the game you think it’s easy to play (because you know all of the rules, or rather you think you know all of the rules but end up slightly changing them over time to make the game better). We need to understand that people who play a game for the first time each have different experiences with playing games and making a game without considering how players will learn to play it will probably cause unpleasantness when you start to implement it. The problem with the City of Play was that it was mostly impossible to have something like a tutorial and most game creators explained all of the rules at once before letting anyone do anything so when people started to play the game, unless they memorized every word the creator said, they probably don’t know exactly what’s going on.
  3. Don’t make games that go along the lines of “the louder you are, the easier it is for you to advance in the game” that aren’t games related to sound/music. E.g. Bottleneck required very quick communication between a large group of players, so what people ended up doing was SHOUT WHAT THEY NEEDED ALL THE TIME SO THE ROOM WAS SO FUCKING LOUD YOU CAN’T HEAR YOURSELF THINK. That’s not very nice, is it? I’m sure it depends on the game’s rules that makes this eventually happen, but it would be a good idea to rehearse your game to yourself before you move on to each stage, because a concept always sounds good, but games almost never go the way you want them to when you have random people play it.

I’m sure there are other things I probably learned, but I can’t remember it right now. One thing I did enjoy about the chaos that came with using so many random people to play your game was the social interaction and awkwardness that comes with it. The pure ridiculousness of what the game required people to do made me LOL sometimes. I think when user-created chaos is properly addressed and implemented in games, it can show good results.

Lastly, here are some pictures I took (for bonus, of course):

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Weenis Wars

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omg a video (http://www.flickr.com/photos/87831442@N04/9650744462/)
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Searchlight

Video (http://www.flickr.com/photos/87831442@N04/9650638002/)

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[censored]

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Gnome game
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That’s it!! Thanks for reading!!!!!!