End Game

     This was the final week of game design. During this class, we met with several professional game designers who critiqued and gave feedback on our games. I stayed behind in order to supervise and assess the gameplay. On the first go around through the game, everything went smoothly and the game was significantly faster paced because of the new rules that we had integrated after playtesting. The only problem that was addressed during the assessment of the game was that there had been some minor confusion with the cards. There were one or two answers that could have been interpreted differently for players. In addition, I was surprised to note that many people seemed to horde the social chips that we had created. Previously, during the playtests players had been asking to use them throughout the gameplay.       
    Once people switched and a new group of people came to play the game, I encountered different feedback. On the second run through, I was told that the loans seemed a little clunky. In addition, I was told that the social chips might serve better if the amount of social chips correlated to the exact number of spaces. This idea was plausible, however, I was uncertain of the benefits to this idea, as there were so many social chips to be accumulated. The constructive criticism, however, was no less appreciated, because it was a teaching mechanism for how to accept and address commentary on our project. In addition, I was also given some minor suggestions about the cards, in regards to a typo that was seen on a few cards.
    Overall, the gaming experience proved to be a positive one. Both parties that experimented with the game asserted that they had a fun time playing the game and that they thought the game was fun. They enjoyed the sense of player to player interaction that we implemented. In addition, they also liked the sense of realism that pervaded through the game, seen in the loans, and the experiences that the players went through on the spaces of the board, the Tutors and Temptations cards, as well as the exam cards.
    Not only was this the last time that we would run through our games, but it was also our last Collaborative Writing class. As seen through these blog postings and from the feedback that we received today, we learned how to cope with problems that we face not only in the classroom setting, but in the world beyond, in our careers and futures. Collaborative Writing taught us the benefits of working in group settings, and the value of relying on one another in order to accomplish a common goal. We hope to further utilize the skills that we have developed in this class in our future plans, whatever they may be.


-Rose LiCausi