Interdependence: P3 Reflection

P3 was one of the most challenging games to make. Before making the game, I was not sure what I thought a systems game should be. The idea I had in my mind was that of a simulation as I was trying to show how a system works in the world. Afterwards, I came to realize there was so much more to it.

In the group I was a part of, we created a game called Interdependence. The game primarily consisted of challenge and fellowship as the types of fun present. The challenge came from discovering what the best way to survive was. This brought about fellowship as the best way to survive would be to cooperate with one another.

The mechanics of the game were a bit complicated, yet I felt like they were able to get the systems gameplay across by the end. The mechanics entailed two different animal species with different actions they could do such as pollinating and moving. In turn, this changed the board each turn to have islands containing different plant species. The interactions between the plant species determined if the plants survived or were removed from the island, causing the sources of food for the animal species to deplete or increase. If the players decided to disregard the relationships between the plant species, they would lose the game as they would eventually lose their sources of food.

When playtesting the game, it became apparent there were far too many rules and pieces to keep track of that the players could not have learned on their own without our guidance. Nevertheless, they were able to enjoy the game a lot once they understood all of the rules. After finishing playtesting, I realized the game was just too complicated at this point, causing it to be too long to finish despite limiting the game to a few rounds. I thought that was interesting as some games appear to be equally complicated with more rounds, yet still manage to be played in a shorter amount of time and are easy to understand. The issue here was that the game was simply not as accessible as we thought it would be.

Going forward, I want to make sure to playtest as early and often as I possibly can to get feedback on the progression of the game. Additionally, I feel it is important to ensure that a game be accessible to a variety of people by ensuring the gameplay can be understood without my help. I felt this was our detriment in P3 and is something I want to address in all games going forward.