Reflection #1: Tadpole Tracers
The game that I created for the first design challenge is a physical board game titled, Tadpole Tracers. It is a two-player board game where players using markers traverse their way through a graph board in order to soon box up their opponent where they can no longer traverse. I was lucky enough to be able to have two playtesters, my older sister, and my brother in law, to help give me feedback on how the game functions in a physical setting. Both players responded to the game in a positive manner by saying how they enjoyed how simple and yet competitive the game could become with just a few moves on the board.
They were able to understand how the rules worked and often when playing against one another tend to have reactions of shock when they see how one player manages to box the other with unique tactics. It was also very helpful and fascinating with how both players gave feedback on how to make the game more challenging. My brother in law in particular suggested that the game could also implement a function where if a player rolls a double then they are able to cross through their opponent’s line once per turn. Overall, what I was able to discover from these playtesting sessions is that what worked very well was the inclusion of rolling the dice in order for players to move and players being able to cross their own line once per turn. The only aspect that originally did not work well was when I temporarily included the ability for players to roll and trace back their steps.
This ability did not work well mainly due to how the outcome of a stale mate between two players become a prominent trend. What I learned greatly from listening to player feedback is how it strongly helps iron out the bizarre flaws within a project and even highlights more possible inclusions on what to include or restrict. What I believe I could do to slightly improve the game is by adding powerup abilities on the graph board so that players would have to strategically plan on moving towards the powerup and use it to their advantage.
