Another type of card that I signed up to make were the "game" cards also known as class cards in Munchkin. I haven't begun with those because I honestly feel like we need to cut our cards down a LOT or I'll be repeating what I've said already on the company cards. I'm honestly overwhelmed right now because our teammate who was originally the pro-Munchkin guy fell off the face of the earth because he happens to have two jobs and can never be at class anymore. At first I thought he was going to be able to keep up with us, but now I can see he isn't going to be holding up his end and if he stays with us we're basically giving him a free A in the class for doing very little work. I don't feel like that's fair for those of us who are showing up and doing our work.
For our board game, we needed to create 6 different company cards with various special abilities. I signed up to do this so I had to come up with different advantages for the varying companies. Something that is different between Munchkin and our game is that we have 6 different companies, whilst Munchkin has 3 different races. I found it quite challenging to make different advantages that were fair and equal for all 6 of the company cards. If when I play test the game, I notice discrepancies or it seems like too much, I may go back to the drawing board with the guys and talk about pairing it down.
The second part of the semester, each team is required to create a complete board game start to finish. There are a lot of directions we could go, but which way do we choose? I proposed an idea to create a board game called MerWorld. I based it off of Monopoly and Munchkin. The idea is to pull a card and move the number of spaces it says. Depending on the space you land on, you may have to fight a monster to win treasure, collect treasure, or lose everything. I don't know yet if we will continue with this idea but this is something I have wanted to make-- in video game form-- since this past summer.
Amnesia has some unique mechanics that make it different from other horror/survival games. Being able to open and close doors might not seem special at first but when it gives you the ability to peek out and see if there are any enemies nearby that makes it truly unique. It also allows you to hide, which increases the stealth factor. Another mechanic that is used heavily in this game is manipulation of the environment. This gives a whole new sense of challenge as you play through the game.
Amnesia has an extremely powerful immersion experience with the dynamic sound, spooky lighting, the way the environment can be manipulated by the player, and the incoherent story-telling. While going through the game it progressively makes you feel like you are losing your sanity.
In every video game, the makers tap into human psychology to supply fear, competition, and enjoyment, in order to make their video game stand out. Amnesia the Dark Descent takes human psychology and twists the player's brain to truly feel immersed. The game invokes terror, making you feel vulnerable, and powerless. It fills you with both confusion and wonder and truly makes you feel trapped in a nightmare.
Not all games provoke the amount of feelings that this game does, which makes it a true champion as the best game ever. Our class project is to form small groups and come up with what we believe is the "best game of all time". In our small group, we decided that the game Amnesia: The Dark Descent is what we consider to be the best. Now we are working on a presentation of why we think it is the best.
![]() Our assignment this week was to watch or play Journey, Minecraft, and Cursed Treasure. I took notes for each game and graded them based on what I thought. Journey is an exploring video game with an awesome soundtrack. The goal is to reach these mountains that you have a dream about. The game has zero talking and doesn't tell you what your tasks are or how to get there. If you don't mind figuring it out on your own then it can be a really great game. The fact that they made the game a judgement-free environment is truly eye opening. Here are the things I graded: Graphics: A (in the beginning it shows individual grains of sand, which means the developers probably spent hours to be so precise) Animation: A (I liked the look of the character and the environment) Story/Plot: B (I prefer a direct "to do" list, a questing arrow, etc... This game is quite vague in that department.) Over all grade: A- (good enough graphics and animation that the lack of direction in the plot is almost forgettable.) My next review is for Minecraft, a very popular game that I actually had never tried before. It's a great exploring and building game that allows you to do whatever you want without real tasks and quests. As for the look, it is very pixelated. Grades: Graphics: C (I don't like the pixel look.) Animation: B (character looked unique.) Story/Plot: C (there's not really a story line you have to follow, you can do whatever you want.) Over all grade: C (if you really like building and not having any rules, this is a good game for you, but it is definitely not one I'll be playing in the future.) Last but not least, Cursed Treasure, be an evil wizard and protect your gems! This game is a Tower Defence-style game, a strategy game along with a puzzle. Grades: Graphics: B (they were satisfactory for the type of game, but not exceptional.) Animation: B (again, satisfactory, but not amazing.) Story/Plot: A (this game has a very straightforward story line that is easy to follow with clear tasks and goals.) Over all grade: B+ (I liked the straightforward style of this game however the same tasks over and over again can get tiring.) ![]() Today we played more games in class today with the same objective of writing copious notes. Today our group played Settlers of Catan, Exploding Kittens, and Munchkin. Settlers of Catan reminded me a lot of Monopoly; it takes a long time to play the game and it involves conquering as much land as you can. There are many pieces to the game but some of the pieces stay on the board the whole time, which makes it easier. Depending on if you wheel and deal with your resources or not, it is easy for the game to go into financial ruin. Over all, I enjoyed the game especially the bartering features. Exploding Kittens is a fun card game to play. There are two options for card decks, either First Edition or NSFW. However when you are setting up they don't tell you that there is a nice version and a naughty version. Some other instructions aren't very clear either, but over all it's easy to come to an agreement about how to go about some of the patchiness. The final game we played was Munchkin. Munchkin is a monster-fighting game where you can team-up and conquer or sabotage each other all while trying to reach level 10 first. There are a variety of races, classes, treasure, and gear. There are many cards and ways to level up and it can be time-consuming, but over all it's a fun game.
![]() In Computer Simulation and Gaming-Design Class, we studied various types of games and how different games work as far as mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics. We started with the basics, which means we spent class time taking "copious notes" of both a card game, Cthulhu Gloom and a board game, Small Worlds. Cthulhu Gloom is a card game where you try to kill off your "family" when they have the most damage. Cards that you may have in your hand are either health cards, which you can use to heal your opponents' families, untimely death cards to kill off your family members after gathering as many negative health points as you can, and negative health cards, to cast on your own family members. My notes for the game: The instructions were hard to understand, it reminded me of playing Euchre, where you kind of have to do a practise round of the game in order to have a better understanding of it. There were a lot of symbols on the cards that had to be looked up throughout the game, there isn't any quick reward, and the recommended playing age is 13+. The game took over an hour to complete, normally when I am playing a card game I want it to be short and sweet, so I considered that to be a downside. Over all, once the game got going it started to look more fun and I think the players can also make the time spent playing the game more fun as well. Small World is a board game where you try to conquer the most lands. Immediately when you are setting up, not only do you have to choose between two different boards, but there is also an extremely large booklet to go through of instructions because the game is actually that complicated. On top of that, there are a lot of small pieces to keep track of. The game is time-consuming and the instructions have to be read over and over again. The race you choose to start with along with their ability is something you have to be aware of at all times. What makes this game even more complicated is that eventually you will want to send a race into decline and get a new one during the game, so the rules and the abilities all change when you do this. This game had too many pieces and too many things to worry about throughout so I didn't find it enjoyable. Over all, I found the game to be too complicated, which sucked all the fun out of it. |
AuthorLizzie lives in Brookfield, WI with her fiance, cat, and two guinea pigs. Archives
November 2015
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