Control - Tic Tac Toe game

In this blog i will be outlining a new game where i was to take tic tac toe and alter it to make it more enjoyable to play for adults. I was also given the task of modifying an old game which could either be created by myself or another person in my 2012 game design class.

Control!

Concept

 Tic Tac Toe Control incorporates all of the original rules of the game as well as expanding on them to increase the need for strategy as well as the chance to have progressed hindered or sped up.

Original Game

Two players take turns placing x's and o's on a square 3x3 grid. The first person to make a line on the board is the winner.

Set Up

To begin a game two players take position on either side of the board and the deck of luck cards is shuffled. To determine who goes first a card is pulled from the deck by either player. The winner is the player with the best luck as indicated at the top of the card. The ordering for luck cards is (best) good luck, (middle) questionable luck, (worst) bad luck. If both players draw good luck cards the process is repeated until their is a decided victor.


Rules

Like original Tic Tac Toe players will take turns placing pieces on the 9x9 grid. Players cannot place pieces inside of the coloured squares unless a card indicates them to do so. If during a turn a player is able to complete a line or add to a line they will draw a luck card. These cards can be of three different types.

Bad Luck - Hinders the progress of a player who draws this card or helps the opponent to progress.

Questionable Luck - May help or hinder the progress of the player drawing the card.

Good Luck - helps the player who draws this card progress or hinders the opponent.

Players can only draw one card per turn no matter how many lines they complete or lines that they add on to. If a card is not able to be used at a given time it is placed back into the deck and the players turn is over.

Winning Conditions

The game is over when all of the white space on the board is filled. Similar to Tic Tac Toe players will count up how many pieces they have in the lines that they have created on the board and the player with the most pieces will be deemed the winner.

Castles (game redesigned)

Original Game

Castles is a game of deception where players attack enemy forces to try and gain position to assassinate another players king. Players will place pieces face down onto the board and build their defenses with a range of different types of forces. Players will also gain extra forces or abilities for winning battles. If a player is the last king standing on the board they are the winner! An entire outline of the rules is located in an earlier blog post titled "Castles - Territorial Aquisition Game".

Alterations to eliminate luck

To eliminate luck from the game it was very simple. In the game when players win battles they are given cards. These cards are extremely luck based as effects will vary from good or bad. By eliminating this function the game is purely a strategy game. It is all about how players place pieces and attack the other player rather than also relying on the card mechanic to produce luck in the game.

Final Thoughts

Tic Tac Toe seems like a primitive game and it is however it can be altered in many different ways to create interest. Also by playing with different aspects of luck and strategy games seem to have an entirely different feel than games where there is a balance of each. I also found it interesting to find that the modified game may be even more attractive than the original. All in all redesigning games is always an interesting experience.

Thanks for reading and happy gaming!

Liars Dice - Positive/Negative Feedback Loops

Positive/ Negative Feedback Loops

Positive - A positive feedback loop is defined as something that amplifies game play. The output of a positive feedback loop tends to destabilize the system of the game. A good example of a positive feedback loop is the runaway leader where a certain mechanic in the game causes on player to take and early insurmountable lead


Negative - A negative feedback loop is defined as something that diminishes game play. The output of a negative feedback loop tends to stabilize the system of the game. An example of this is a "take-that" mechanic giving trailing players the ability to slow down the leading players progress.

Positive and negative feedback loops essentially classify the different elements within a game as to gain more balance within a game. Today we will look at the relation between positive and negative feedback loops as they relate to the game Liar's Dice. Before i can explain how to relate this game to positive and negative feedback loops i will first have to explain what the game is itself. So that raises the question...

What is Liars Dice?

Liars dice is a game of deception played by two or more people. A round begins with each player rolling a cup full of five dice and placing the cup face down onto the table with the dice underneath it. There are many different variations of the game which will outlined below, as well as a few alterations made by the team MakeShift games. 

Equipment

All game variants of liars dice require the same equipment

• 5 dice per player
• 1 cup per player

Individual Hand

The "individual hand" version of liars dice is conventionally played between two players. To begin a round each player rolls a single die to determine who will be the first bidder. Each player will then roll their cup full of dice, place it face down on the table, and examine their hands to themselves (they do not show each other). After a bid is made by a player (a player declares what is in their hand), the other player may make another bid. The other player may also call their bid a lie, or re-roll some or all of their dice. If a player calls a bid untrue each player will show their hand to each other. If the accused holds the hand they called then they are the winner. If the caller of the bluff is correct and the accused does not hold the hand that they called, the caller of the bluff will be the winner.

An outline of the hands can be seen below:

• Five of a kind: e.g.,66666
• Four of a kind: e.g., 33338
• Full house: e.g., 66111
• High straight: 23456
• Low straight: 12345
• Three of a kind: e.g., 44432
• Two pair: e.g., 22551
• Pair: e.g., 66532
• Runt: e.g., 13456

Common Hand

The "common hand" version of liars dice is conventionally played with three or more players. At the beginning of a round each player in the circle will roll their full cup of dice and place it face down on the table, keeping it hidden from the other players. A player is chosen to begin play and that player begins bidding by declaring a face on the dice and the quantity of those faces that they decide are in play. In this variation 1's are generally wild and count as the face of the current bid.

During each turn a player can either choose to make another bid that is higher than the previous bid or challenge the previous bid. To place a higher bid it must consist of a quantity or face value or both that is greater than the previously declared values. If a player decides to challenge the current bid all dice in play are revealed to all of the players and a winner is determined.  If the bid placed by the player is valid and there are the amount of dice of the face value that they originally called, the bidder wins. However if there are not enough dice to make the players bid true, they will lose.

Disney Version

In the Disney version of Liar's Dice set in the film "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Mans Chest" you play the role of a pirate who is wagering his soul aboard Davey Jones' forsaken ship. The main difference from other variations is the fact that if you lose a challenge you will lose a dice.

Setup - Like the common hand variation this version of the game is played between three or more players. Each round begins with all of the players in the circles rolling their cup full of dice and placing it face down on the table over top of their dice. They examine their own dice and a person is chosen to begin the bidding.



 Game Play - After the first turn has passed the next player can call the previous player a liar, or place their own bid.If a player is called out as a liar and it is not true then the accuser will win and the accused will lose a dice, if the bid placed by the player is correct however the accuser will lose a dice.

 -

Winning Conditions - When all but one player runs out of dice the game is over and that player is declared the winner.
 

Positive and  Negative Feedback Loops - Relation to Liars Dice



Now that you know a little more about the game Liars Dice you can make your own assumptions about the positive and negative feedback loops within the game. Our team MakeShift Games play tested a version of Liar's Dice to try and decide on a few new mechanics that would eliminate some positive feedback loops from the game.

Play Test 1

The version of Liar's Dice that was play tested by MakeShift Games was the Disney version outlined above. We decided to play this version as it seemed to contain a considerable amount of positive feedback loops, which we are looking to eliminate from the game.

The main positive feedback loop that we found from play testing the game using this versions rules  was the fact that a player will lose a dice when they fail to succeed in a challenge. This mechanic allows other players to gain a drastic head start and eventually makes it nearly impossible for players to overcome the leader.

Also when a players is given many hands in a row that have little amounts of more than one dice with the same face it will be harder for them to make a convincing bluff. This is random however can be considered a positive feedback loop as players will have a chance of losing more quickly.

Variations on rules created by the team

Dylan Burnham
RULE 1:  There is an extra set of dice in the center of the table of which noone at the table knows the values of.

Eliminating Positive Feedback:  Since there is an extra set of dice in the center players will have a better chance of being correct as well as have a better chance of deceiving their opponents (especially in smaller groups). This will hopefully make the game more stable as players will be eliminated more randomly based on convincing or true calls.

Moazzan Pathan
RULE 2: If you have all 5 different dice, (or you can fake claim it) you are allowed to change one of your dice to whatever, you want (at the start of a round ONLY) A player can call you a liar when you make this claim.


Eliminating Positive Feedback: Players who have a smaller amount of dice can change their dice roll to something that is more helpful. This will hopefully make the game more stable as players have a better chance to make a more convincing or correct call.

Ahmed Al-Hulaibi

RULE 3: When you have only one dice left, It is counted as wild (Just for you)



Eliminating Positive Feedback: Just the same as the previous rule this will hopefully give losing players who have a smaller amount of dice can change their dice roll to something that is more helpful. This will again hopefully make the game more stable as players have a better chance to make a more convincing or correct call.

John Dambrauskas

RULE 4: Whoever loses challenge of being called a liar gives their dice to other player.



Eliminating Positive Feedback: This rule eliminates some of the negative feedback as players can win dice back rather than being forced to continuously eliminate their dice. This will hopefully stabilize that game as players will be able to increase their amount of dice and overcome the leading player in a different way than just eliminating dice from other players.

Play Test 2

After play testing the game again under our new rules and conditions I found that some positive feedback was eliminated, however some was amplified. Relation to positive and negative feedback and the implemented rules can be seen below.

RULE 1: Seemed to have little effect on the game in some cases however when it came down to a smaller amount of players it gave the losing players a chance to catch up to the leading player.

RULE 2: Helped players who had not the greatest of hands have a better chance of deceiving their opponents. Also helped players with smaller hands have a better chance of winning as they tend to roll less doubles. In some cases however the leading player was able to use this as well so it can be said that in some cases it does amplify positive feedback.

RULE 3: Since a player was able to change the face of their dice they seemed to advantage when the bidding was low. It seemingly helped players if they could call another out on a liar quickly however did not help them in cases where the bidding was high and they could be proven wrong easily.

RULE 4: The fact that the winner player gained the losing players dice seemed to amplify positive feedback as the winner of each round gained more dice to work with. This gives them a greater chance to deceive all other players in the game. It did however save players from elimination in some cases so it did serve some purpose of promoting negative feedback.


Final Thoughts

What i seemed to learn from this is that game mechanics are all about balance. If a mechanic is too overpowered it can decrease or increase the flow or interest of game play.

Thank you for reading and happy gaming!

Card Game - Atari's Paperboy

Cards designed for Paperboy card game.

Concept

The purpose of the game is to race to collect pairs of cards which are based on the Atari developed arcade game Paperboy.

Original Game

Ataris Paperboy was developed in 1984 and is a game in which players assume the role of a paperboy delivering newspapers to patrons along hectic suburban streets on their bicycle.The player will attempt to deliver papers to subscribing customers, attempt to vandalize non-subscribers homes and must dodge hazards placed in their way.

When the game begins a player will choose their difficulty level from three different types: Easy Street, Middle Road, and Hard Way. The objective of the game is to deliver all of the papers for an entire week to all of your subscribers without crashing. The game last for seven game timed days Monday - Friday.

Beginning A Game


To begin a game the deck is shuffled an each player receives four cards. The rest of the deck is set aside and a dealer is chosen by the players. The dealer has no extra power within the game however are there to make sure that the game will function correctly. The dealer will place four cards in the center of the circle face up. The dealer is also required to keep track of the amount of rounds that have happened in the current game.


Rules


Each round the dealer will place four cards from the deck face up in the center of the table. Once all of the cards have been placed players can begin to pick up cards, one at a time when the dealer says go. When a player picks up a card they must put down another that they hold in their hand. After ten seconds the cards in the center will be removed from play and placed into the trash deck. The trash deck is a designated pile where cards that have been removed from play will go to. Once a player has four cards of a set (which are outlined below) they can claim that set by showing their cards to the other players at the end of the round. The player will claim this set and place it aside in their own deck. However if another player has a trump card (which is the bike with an explosion behind it) they can use it when a player tries to claim a set. That player will not claim that set and all four cards that make the set as well as the trump card will be placed into the trash pile.

The different types of sets that you can make in the card game paperboy are outlined below. 

1. House, Bike, Paper, Fence.
2. Rock, Fire Hydrant, Dog, Old Man.
3. Window, Car, Tree, Mailbox

Winning Conditions

After the final round of the game each player will count up the number of sets that they were able to complete.The winner of the game is the player who is able to complete the most sets before the final round has been completed.

Collection In Games - Four Tile

Concept

Four Tile is a game where players race to collect four different colours of tokens. The First to collect all of the tokens of a set colour will win the game.

Beginning a game

Game Board.

Each player begins on one of the four corners of the board on one of the white squares marked with an X. It doesn't matter who chooses which corner as there is no real advantage to starting position in this game. Each player will roll a dice to decide who will begin first. Each player will then roll each dice four times as to indicate the amount of the four colours that they will need to win. 

Rules 

Players will take turns rolling the dice and will move around the board in a counter-clockwise direction. When a player lands on a coloured square they will gain one token of the indicated colour. However when one of the players lands on one of the eight special squares on the board they must do what is required of them. Requirements for special squares are written directly on the board and have arrows pointing to their corresponding squares. Players who land on the same square will stack on top of each-other. This means that two players can occupy the same space at the same time.

Winning Conditions

The game will be deemed over when a player is able to trade or collect their predetermined amount of pieces of each colour. If a person is able to do so they will be the winner of the game and all movement around the board will cease.