Embedded Files
Monday:
Monday:
We had our weekly team meeting, we discussed our various projects and how far we had come along. Afterwards, I finalised the design for the 2mx2m board for Igor I sent him the prototypes and final design for the mountain centrepiece. I also had to prepare for the Faites Vos Oeufs (FOV) playtest the next day, Igor was sending me alone in order to test the game and get feedback. I made sure that the prototype we had was up to date, and had all the pieces. although it didn't have everything we had changed, it had the core mechanic and vital things we were testing, the objective of tomorrow's playtest is to see how easy it is for kids to pick up and play, and test if it is too complicated to understand. Finally, the most important part of the playtest will be asking the kids, do they want to play again!
Tuesday:
Tuesday:
Honorine, Emeline and I went to the local Écolothèque, we arrived over there at around 9:40, a good bit in advance, which allowed us time to talk to the people taking care of the kids and get set up.
Firstly I had a group of five kids and one adult, I explained the game to them, sat back, and let them play, I took notes of things I noticed and made sure to take down all feedback they mentioned.
afterwards, I made them fill out a questionnaire, and then they swapped places with Honorine's group, as they were testing another game, I had four more kids to test on and then, again repeated the explanations, play and notes.
here are my notes and findings on the first playtest:
Wednesday:
Wednesday:
Today I got to visit Graphot, I went with the communications Team, Jelana and Maylaes, and we picked up a journalist along the way as Jelana was doing a radio interview, it was super interesting seeing the media side of the company, as our new projects cant be mentioned, and the company has to make sure that nothing gets leaked. Maylaes and I were told to keep quiet and not mention any new projects, just already released ones.
at Graphot we met with the owner of the company Yvan, whom I met the week before. We had some lunch and then started our tour of the factory, We saw Bioviva's Defis Nature cards being printed and cut, which was an impressive sight.
It's important to mention that Bioviva is an ecologically aware company, and so is Graphot, so everything, from the cardboard to the ink is either natural or recycled, with no plastic being used, and that is even true in the factory, so to see a factory operating at such speed and efficiency is impressive. Personally, it made me wonder why we bother printing in places like China and Tawain, they are far away and not necessarily cheaper.
For example À LA FOLIE ! is sold at €16.99 with the following contents:
5 tuiles Repère
2 cœurs de marguerite À la folie
15 pétales À la folie
1 livret de règles
56 cartes illustrées recto/verso Aimes-tu ?
6 tuiles Cœurs de fleur choix
30 pétales choix
meanwhile, a game like Pigasus is sold at €15.95 with the following contents:
1 Rubber Pig
72 Cards
Game Rules
both are great games made by companies around the European region, but one is printed and packaged abroad, and noticeably smaller.
Thursday:
Thursday:
Today I had some work to catch up on, so I decided to finalize the design for the quadrant of the Escape. Igor was very pleased with the finished prototype, and now that we know its size and dimensions, we can start building puzzles for the game using it.
The only thing remaining was to do the star map to go with it, So I made it quickly using Illustrator. the design is similar to the first prototypes I developed, but many things have been refined and changed, I plan on making a page dedicated to the evolution of my prototypes. I will link it HERE once it is finished.
Today I also sat down with Igor and we discussed the playtest results for FOV. One of the biggest problems was how hectic things got with the cuckoo egg. So we decided to simplify it, here is the current flowchart for the Game.
Quadrant Final Proto
Star Map Final Proto
cutout for FVO tiles and stands
We also decided to reduce the number of players to 5 max, as at six it was too long and players were losing track of who was meant to be playing. so plenty of changes were made to FOV.
Tonight is also the night that the 2x2 board will be made and used, so there is some nervousness hoping that all was measured correctly and hopefully it will hold. Also tonight I'm meeting up with Push Start, a game dev organisation that holds events for game devs and designers to meet up and talk in the Occitanie region, I'm hoping to be able to make contacts with more people in the industry and learn some new things.
I also made up the cutout board for the factory of the tiles and their stands, it's not the finished cutout, but a template for the art and for us to start getting price estimates. it also allows us to easily get consistent measurements for making prototypes, which will prove useful for future prototypes.
push start
2m x 2m board game piece that i measured(only the centre piece)
2m x 2m board game piece that i measured(only the centre piece)
some of my one not work on the Escape
some of my one not work on the Escape
Friday:
Friday:
Today I received some images from Igor, it is the 2x2 mountain board that I designed! Later on, he brought it to the office which meant I could see it in person.
I also made contacts at the Push Start event last night, meeting other students and experienced game designers. I also tested some games and got added to some testing discords as they need English-speaking people to test their games.
I made some good progress on the Escape game, creating two more pages for my booklet, along with some concept art using Illustrator. I've now got 18 out of the 39 pages complete, meaning I'm just below 50% of the second booklet complete.
The tough part is that I have to remember and implement a difficulty curve, in video games it's easier to test and refine this curve in a game, but for the booklet, I must remember to check the complexity of each puzzle. for example, does it use maths, is it word heavy, is it creative? I keep track of everything in my OneNote file on the game, but now that file is a massive wall of text and hard to keep track of.
some of my one not work on the Escape
hours worked: 35
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