Protype Game test Robert Lyles

Playtest 1 (in class)

 

Playtest 2 (at home)

Playtest 3 (in class)

For my prototype game, its mechanics were based on Push Your Luck. From there, my partner and me, at the time, thought of a simple game where players start with five tokens and a deck of cards; each player takes one card from the deck, and the person with the lowest number loses a token piece. The game continues until one of the player's token reach zero. The game was designed only to be a two-player game, so it could be easy to find someone to play with instead of finding a group. For the first playtest, my partner and me designed a simple game to understand and play; then, we got the idea of setting the rules of how to mess with your opponents. At first, we thought that if the player had 2 of the same number, they were allowed to get their token back from the grave. Then we add another rule: if they had three of the exact numbers, they are allowed to steal their opponents token. It was a good idea at the time. Still, as we kept testing the game out, we noticed that the players could stack each of the exact numbers multiple times because there was no rule that we made holding on to cards and using them numerous times. There was no straightforward way to limit it appropriately, so when class ended, we had to figure out how to fix it in our own way. But before we went our separate ways, we decided that the token number was too small, so we switched from five tokens to ten, so the game had a more extended playtime. 

In playtesting two, I had a family member help me test it out since it was just me. So after some thought on how to fix the stacking issue with the first test, I decided to add a turn counter for the new adjustment I made to the rules. Same as play test one, the objective is the same, but now a player who has two of the same number can either steal from their opponent or get their token back, and they can do this once every five turns. As for the two sets of cards that were used, they go to the used pile. Once there, they can't be used again by the players. When playtesting two ended, my mind thought of ways to improve the game better in playtesting two; it took me a while, but I had an idea thus began my third and final playtest. 

To start, I changed the deck of cards from one which didn't have kings and queens to one that did. The deck that had the ace, king, joker, and queen had me change the rules on how the game is played. The new regulations that were set that were different from test two is that instead of one win condition, there were two: players with zero token lose or the player who has the most token when the deck runs out wins. In addition to the new rules, the king, ace, joker, and queen had to have a purpose in this game. So the rule set from them was that kings could steal player tokens, an ace could get tokens back from the grave, the queen could get two tokens from the grave, and jokers could steal another player token from the grave; that way, both players have a way to stay in the game while also messing with each other.