Improving Playfulness
Choose a game from the list below and analyze why it doesn’t contain enough playfulness. Look at the six heuristics for good rules and see where they are lacking.
Design new situations to improve the games. Do your best to keep the new rules in spirit with the original game, think about how you can incorporate the player’s experience [quick gameplay, a little skill and a little luck, etc] into your new situations.
Games to choose from:
- War: the traditional card game
- Rock-Paper-Scissors: the classic hand gesture folk game
- The Dice Game: roll a die, add the number to your total, and pass it to your left – the first player to 20 points wins
- The Number Guessing Game: think of a number from 1 to 100 – someone else tries to guess it – if they guess wrong, they lose
- Matching Pennies two players each have a penny, and choose either heads or tails – both players reveal their pennies simultaneously – if they match, player A wins – otherwise, player B wins
Submit your writeup to D2L which includes:
- Quick synopsis of the broken game you
- Your analysis of where the game fails to be playful enough
- Your description of how to improve the game by applying the six heuristics
- A final section where you theorize why people play games like this anyway
Grading Rubric:
C: All deliverables properly prepared and turned in on time on D2L
B: A correct analysis of where the game lacks playfulness and thoughtful ideas about improving design
A: the above plus game modification is an effective and elegant solution to the problem. Ideas about why people play these games well-thought through.
