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CSG131 Blog 16

For our last week of class, Garrett and I met up before class on Monday to play our game again. The week before hand, was our test day to play our board game, and I was the one who stayed behind to watch over our game. Since Garret and Dalton went to play everyone else’s games, I could watch people play our game and also take notes for what to improve. After writing down notes for the whole class period, I showed them to Garret and Dalton for what we need to change for next week’s final. This past Monday, for our finals week Garret Dalton and I met up in the library to play with the new rules we made.

We thought the game was more balanced now, and would be more fair for each player. One of the things we changed was the amount of turns there are total in the game, so we reduced it from 15 turns to 12. We then also changed how much the Black Market cards costed, so the game wouldn’t just rely on combat or getting T Chips per round. With changing these two things, we thought the game would be more fun for each player, as well as making the game more interesting as a whole. Lastly, one of the other things we changed was that the police can “lock down” tiles as well. So, instead of only being able to attack them, they can counter you and take your hex for a turn so you don’t generate t chips. If the player does beat the police, then they get 15 t chips. Because of this, there is a huge reward for beating the cops, or a huge consequence for losing

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CSG 110 Blog 16

meme

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CSG 110 Blog 15

For class today, the whole group of our game went over the slide show as a whole team. It was super nice to finally all work on it together to make sure everything was done correctly to present later. We all went over our own slides that we have been working on, and did this for about twenty minutes. We then waited to present while the other team was presenting in the classroom down the hall. After finishing up what I could on my slides, I then checked out everyone else's to see if there were any other issues that they needed help on before our presentation. 

After the other group came back, we then went over to the presentation room and got ready. I was the note taker of the presentation of the group. This was important because I knew that our “audience” would have a lot of notes someone had to take record of. Our audience were just other teachers and other upper classmen in the same program. Dan and Avery started presenting and I even started writing down some of my own notes as well, before the audience did. They let us present the full slideshow for our game, then at the end we went over it slide by slide with the audience. The point of this was for the audience to hear how we would pitch our game, then we would all talk over each slide together as a game team with the audience.

I wrote down a few lines of notes for each slide, and still continued to add my own. Some of the things I added was just etiquette of how Dan and Avery were presenting, and suggestions for what else they should’ve been saying. Some of the notes I wrote down from hearing our audience were mostly about grammar and how the slides were laid out. There were some spelling mistakes, and some slides had different things capitalized, and didn’t make sense because of the inconsistency. Some other things we had to change was that we should’ve combined some slides as well. We thought that some of the slides had to be seperate, but we didn’t know we should’ve combined them. This included some of our slides about our sales and some other financial aspects. After our presentation we went back to our class room and divided up the tasks and got started right away.

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CSG 131 Blog 14

.When class started today, Garret and I started talking about the rules immediately. We had a good idea of the rules already, but we wanted to sit down and confirm everything one more time. There were some things we agreed that were unanswered. We also had to go over some of the cards to decide if they were 100% done too or not. After finishing up the rules, Dalton then joined us as well. One of the things we wanted to finish talking about was how combat was going to work. In most games, an enemy can only attack another player if they have more units than the enemies tile. We didn’t know if we wanted that to be an automatic win, or if the players would roll the dice to see who wins. Or, if we wanted both aspects of that.

Another important thing we had to all talk over was how many rounds the game would have. Some games run out on their own, like Scrabble, which ends when there are no more letters. But, some other games have a confirmed amount of rounds, such as the game will automatically end at round 10, or 15, or any other round. After discussion, we agreed that the game could keep going until one player controls a majority of the map, but we also considered that the game would just keep going. It also might be a reason for players not to want to play the game. We then decided that the game should end at round 15. At this point, if no one has won the game, the person with the most hexes/tiles controled wins, if it is a tie, then the person with the most gold will win.

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CSG 131 Blog 15

For class today, Dalton Garret and I started class by picking up our board game. We knew it would be done by now, so we just had to pick it up and bring it back to class. Today was our play test day, which meant people in our class could play it finally, and could give us the most feedback we needed. We were super excited to have people finally play our game, and couldn’t wait to unbox our own game. We immediately decided that the next game we make, we will need to change some of the dimensions of our cards. Our gang leader cards and effect cards were super small, and didn’t compare to the rest of our pieces.

After setting up the game, I stayed back at our table to watch over our game as people played it. This also gave me the chance to spectate people playing and help them out, as well as write notes down of what we need to change. Joell, Miguel, Gregg, played the game and seemed to be confused at first with the rules and set up. After explaining things to them and their gang leader cards, they seemed to get the hang of it finally. I was writing down some of the things we had to change, and get ready for our final play test day. We as a team had to go over the rules and elaborate them more, as well as explain them more clearly.

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CSG 110 Blog 14

At the beginning of class today, I started working with Dan right away for our presentation. Him and I both started working on the slides I was assigned and have been working on for the past few weeks. I explained how to find the Serviceable Obtainable Market for our game. I also explained to Dan that I wanted to go over the work with him to make sure we both were right for our slides. Dan and I both went over the numbers that have been on the slides to triple check them. We went over the formula to find the Serviceable Obtainable Market(SOM) together right away.

Dan and I both went over the Total Addressable Market together, which was for Steam, which was our release platform. There was no need to check other platforms because the data would not be relevant at all. We had to go over the numbers for Steam to see how many people used Steam daily, weekly, and monthly. We had to use the data to add up how many players use Steam a month, and then calculate that to see how many play a year. 

After that, we checked to see how many games on Steam were in our genre category. Since games have various genres and sub genres, figuring this out would help out immensely for our data. After finding how many games on Steam are in the “Metroidvania” category, there were 682 results. After noting this, we found the total amount of games total on Steam was last recorded at 30,000 games total. So, to finally find the SOM, we divided 682 by 30,000 games and our result was 2.27%. So, our game took up a total of 2.27% on Steam under the genre of Metroidvania.

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CSG 110 Blog 13

For class I worked on our slide again that will be presented. I went back over notes from last week and our slide. I thought it would of been valuable to go over our other slides, such as our target customer types. I thought that this would of given me some more insight to figure out the TAM, SAM, and SOM for our game. I found that our target customers tied directly into our release platform. Because of this, it was easier to figure our our TAM. 

Some of the TAM, SAM, and SOM were already figured out and left on the slide, so I just had to check it. The TAM for Steam being out release platform, averages 90 million monthly users. This made it easy for us to figure out how big our audience would be, and how many people specifically we would be marketing too. After we did that, we could use this information to get our SAM. After researching, we found out that our SAM is about 2-3 million users for Metroidvania type games. That was a great start for us. We then found out that our Serviceable Obtainable Market would be a minimum of 75,000 units sold, but at a high end of 100,000 units total. 

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CSG 110 Blog 12

For class today, my group and I talked more about what had to be done. Everyone that was in class went over our group Trello board. We all discussed more about what was in each section for our game that had to be worked on. I added what I was doing, which was finding the Serviceable Obtainable Market of our game. I created the post on Trello, added my name to it and started working on it. It was hard to figure out at first, because I haven’t heard of it. I had to do some research to find it, and all of the other descriptions for it. 

Serviceable Obtainable Market included other formulas with it. Serviceable Obtainable Market was the final result from finding Total Addressable Market, and Serviceable Available Market. After finding those two, you’d find the Serviceable Obtainable Market. To find the first thing in order of this formula was to identify the Total Addressable Market(TAM), which meant game consoles. The second thing to find about the Serviceable Addressable Market(SAM), was where our game fit into the specific genres of the TAM. Then to find the third thing, which was the end goal, was the Serviceable Obtainable Market(SOM). 

After writing down these notes, I started my week’s homework for the class. Since all of the chapters we have been reading eventually lead up to being relevant to our project, I went ahead and did them. The chapter was about Marketing, and ways to promote our game to every market and audience we could. I thought that this was more important than finding the SOM for the time being. I figured that while learning about Marketing for a game, it would help make finding the TAM, SAM, and SOM even easier.

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CSG 131Blog 13

In class today, Dalton, Garret and I immediately started talking about our game and where to start for the game. We already have done a lot of work for our game, but still had some stuff we could finish today in class. We al divided up again to split the work and made it even for everyone. Dalton worked on some more designs for the gang leaders and tokens for us to use. After Dalton finished another design, he sent it to Garret to complete after adding more details to it. I thought this was a really good start for our class.

I worked more on our Black Market cards for the game. These cards are our effect cards, which add more elements to the game. These are cards that will give advantages or disadvantages to players. Some will benefit the player drawing the card, such as getting more currency in the game. They can also be used to give you more henchmen, move the police in the game, and more. These will add the most angles in the game. With some of the cards we are going to use, they will make the game more interesting, which will make the players be just as important to defeat as well as the cops. 

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CSG 131 Blog 12

When Dalton, and Garrett and I met up again for class today, we immediately started talking about our designs we had to do. We already finished oneof the designs for our player cards, which were called our Mob Boss cards. Another card we had done was one of our henchmen cards. But, we didn’t have the templates made for how the cards would be laid out, we only had the images. I asked them what they wanted me to do today in class, and we all agreed that I should do the card template lay outs. That meant  had to create drawings for each of our cards, and write out the effects and text to finish the card.

After understanding this, we all came to a conclusion that for reference, we should use Magic The Gathering cards. The Magic The Gathering cards included the text, image, and header on their cards, and also looked the best. I started by drawing up the edges/perimeter of the card, then adding the bios of each character. There were some things we didn’t get an answer for from brainstorming, such as the details for some cards. We decided that we should all come back and talk about the last details and mechanics after we get a majority of the designs made first. 

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CSG 131 Blog 11

For class today Dalton, Garret and I talked more about our board size and hex sizes again. We started measuring pieces and comparing different sizes online for most games. We thought that having pieces be about an inch and a half would be a good start, but wanted to see what other games blueprints usually were. We found out that the size of a Monopoly board was 20x20 inches. I was surprised because I thought it was bigger, but it gave us a good idea of how to scale our board.

After looking more into it, we also found out that some games are also 12x8 inches, or higher up to 34x22 inches. I thought about having the board be in the middle maybe, or at least around the size of the Monopoly board. I also thought we should talk more about some of the effects the game will have, such as the effect cards, and the player’s effects on the board. I didn’t want to make the game have such a surplus of mechanics though, so I thought I would brainstorm. But, I did think it would be cool for the game to have some rules that made the player’s decisions even more important.

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CSG 131 Blog 10

For class today, my group and I talked more about our board game, and what we all wanted to do with it. Dalton started drawing up some sketches for the different factions in the game. The group and I liked all of the sketches he made. He was drawing the icon for the faction, and their symbol/logo. We all agreed that all factions should have both, so they can be recognized easier. We also agreed that we should have at least more than four or five factions, to add more versatility and strategy to the game. 

After drawing up some of the icons for the game, we all talked about the board for the game. We had to consider how many tiles/hexes the board should have for the game to be fair, and also not too big that it didn’t ,make the game so slow. If we limited the turns for the players with a big board, then the game would take a long time to finish. Or, if the board was small, the game would be harder and also faster to finish. It was hard to find a perfect medium. But, we thought of having a decent medium size board game, about the size of Smallworld’s map. We thought that if we had something this size, the game would be able to be played for the same duration, which was about 45 minutes, still being able to be played with 4 or 5 players.

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CSG 110 Blog 11

In class today after talking about the chapter we did notes on, the group and I got started on some math for our game. We had to figure our the expenses for our game company. All of us had to figure out a number of expenses that some of us didn’t even expect we had to count for. We had to figure out how much it would cost for our company to continue in a location, including expenses, a staff, and utilities. We didn’t expect it to cost so much.

Some of the bills we had to include were wifi, water, electric, heating, and then calculate how much it would be both monthly and yearly. We then had to compare different providers and how much their plans were both monthly and yearly. After wards, we had to figure out basic office expenses besides our utilities. Mason, Dan and I checked out computer prices, and program prices. Most laptops or desktops that we would get for our staff would be at a minimum, one thousand dollars. That raised the question if we had to include mouses and mousepads or not, etc. We then checked out how much ti would be to get photoshop for our staff. Prices were very different with each plan. The cheapest one was for students, which is around 20/21$ a month with their school email used for an educational purpose discount. 

With most of the bills and expenses we had to consider, the prices were very different for individuals and groups or companies. Photoshop for example was cheap for an individual, and was a great price, but went up drastically for a company. Same went for our business location, which required us to spend more money because of how much space we needed as a company.

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CSG 131 Blog 9

Today for class I met up with Dalton and Garret again to start our next project. This was that we had to brainstorm ideas for us to make a board game for the class. We were all excited. We started talking about what the game would be about, and the plot. After discussing some possible ideas we agreed on a futuristic sci fi game with cops and gangs. It would play like Munchkin and Smallworld, in ways that everyone gets a turn and has different things to do each turn, and would be on a hex board. We thought that it would be super cool for the game to be played as the different gangs or crime bosses, similar to Smallworld where you play as several different factions. The in game enemy besides other players would be the cops. We thought this would also be interesting to faction in, but didn’t want to make them too powerful.

After deciding that we wanted gangs and cops, we then started talking about different bosses. We wanted to figure out creative ideas, but not to make gang bosses too powerful over each other, so we had to balance it out. One of my ideas was that we should add someone like Mr. Fisk from Batman. Mr. Fisk has always been a strong villain, and has had ties to the police force, which would be super cool to add to the game’s strategy. Mr. Fisk in games and comics is also guarded by bodyguards and henchmen, would be another cool aspect to add to his play style. Soon after we agreed that cops should have more of an in game presence on the map. I thought it would be cool for the cops to be almost as strong as the other players on the map.

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CSG 131 Blog 8

When my group and I got to class, we all got ready to present our Halo 2 slide. When presenting we realized that we could’ve improved some of our slide’s content. We had some of the same pros and cons for each slides which sort of contradicted each other after explaining to the class. Since Dalton was not present for our presentation, it was a disadvantage for us to present. Dalton knew Halo 2 the most out of all of us, and has said that he has played the game over 20 times. Since he was not with us to present, it was also harder for us to explain some parts of our slides because he was so passionate about the game.

After our presentation, Garret and I sat down and watched our other classmates present what they thought the best game ever was. I agreed with one of the other groups presenting that Minecraft is one of the best games ever made. Minecraft has won countless awards, and was similar to Halo 2 in a way. The ADM’s of Halo 2 were similar to those in Minecraft, which was cool to see. For example one of the similar aesthetics was that you could play both games either leisurely or intensely if the player chose to. I think that is something cool that games should try and have more of. Another aesthetic that appears in both games is the huge aspect of Discovery. In Minecraft, you are able to discover endless biomes, cave systems, villages, and even more. This is similar to Halo 2 because you discover new planets and areas throughout playing.

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CSG 131 Blog 7

Today in class Dalton, Garret and I talked more about what we thought the greatest game ever is. Thankfully, I was able to join their group in time, and also agreed with the game they already picked, which was Halo 2. It was very nice to be able to talk about one of my favorite games from my childhood. After joining, we all divided up the presentation and talked about who should do what kind of work for it. All of us went over the requirements for the presentation, and then assigned a different amount of slides to each other. I chose to do the A’s of the game, which stands for Aesthetics, which si a part of the Dynamics, and Mechanics. I was very excited I was able to get started on this.

While looking in to our book to re-read what the ADMs are, I found doing these slides were going to be easy. While doing the Aesthetics, I re watched gameplay of Halo 2 with my book open. One of the biggest aesthetics of the game was the feeling of sensation, and fantasy. Sensation is how the player feels when defeating enemies, which allows the player to feel good when defeating strong bosses in Halo 2. For fantasy, that is the ability to play as someone or something else in a different world, who is Master Chief. Another strong aesthetic in the game is the feeling of fellowship and competition. Fellowship is when the game has aspects of playing with other players, which immediately ties in with competition, since players can play online together in player versus player modes. Another two aesthetics that go together is Discovery and the Narrative. Discovery is simply being allowed to discover and being able to learn more in the game, which is allowed by narrative which is the strong story of the game. Lastly, Halo 2 can be enjoyed through the aesthetic of Abnegation. Abnegation is the ability to play a game either leisurely or more actively, which is incredibly easy to do since the game has so many features both online and offline.

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CSG 110 Blog 10

For class today, we started talking together about our presentation again. Dan read over our list of what we should either change, add, or get rid of. We all listened, and all agreed on most of the points he made. For example, we all agreed that we should change the layout of the slides, and possibly the order of them. All of us also went over the presentation again and brought up new things we all should change. Some of the slides were too long, and some were too short. This is a problem because for us to sell this game when we present, we don’t want it to seem like we don’t know enough about it having so many facts on the slides. It won’t look well rehearsed or practiced, which would make us seem unprofessional to sell a video game. But, was also a good thing that we had so many notes on the slide, because it meant that we knew enough about our topic, but we should put it on a notecard or memorize it instead.

Another thing we went over for the slides was what we should re do, or add to. For our slide about Serviceable Obtainable Market, Dan suggested Edgar and I work more on it. He recommended that we have more facts about it, and anything else we could add that would ultimately add to us selling the game when we present. Another thing that Dan suggested we do is that the CFO (Chief Financial Officer) should work more on our game for sales and projected costs for a number of things. For example, the CFO should figure out how much our game should cost, and how much the customer might want to spend on our game as well.

Lastly, at the end of the class I began and finished chapter tens notes, and did the video notes for the week. I thought the chapter’s notes were interesting because I had no idea how many roles and responsibilities were in each video game company, and its possible third party companies. There were at least 20 different roles, if not more. Every aspect of the game has a department for it, as well as different positions. From sound, to mechanics, to visuals, to interfaces, to everything else, it made game companies seem ginormous. For the video notes, I also really enjoyed. It was about why the first five minutes of gameplay are so important for every single game. The first five minutes of the game are meant to interest players and bring them in, and also set the mood for the whole game. Most games try to use three main aspects, such as narrative, mystery, and spectacle, which all can be combined in various ways.