Resources In Gradius

To make the game more balanced in terms of resources, I would modify the game so that all the power-ups and abilities are not lost when the player is hit. Currently, when the player is hit by only one enemy, they instantly die. Once they die, they must restart at the pervious check point and they lose all their pervious abilities.  This makes the game very difficult as the player must start from scratch with building up their ships abilities. I would change this rule to make it easier for the player. For example, when the player dies, maybe let the player keep all of their abilities. That way they can continue to build up their abilities instead of starting over.

Another way I would modify the game would be to not have the player die in one hit. Maybe have the player lose their strongest ability for every hit they receive. For example if the player had speed, double and laser abilities, they would lose the laser ability if hit once. If hit the second time they would lose the double ability and so forth. Once they have lost all their abilities, then they die in the usual manner. Personally, I feel that this method is more “fair” to the player as if they are hit; they have a greater chance to reclaim the more powerful abilities, instead of just losing everything. This would also help they player progress further into the games levels as the abilities would count as a kind of resource for the player to continue if hit (similar the mushroom in Super Mario Bros). With these extra resources the player will be more likely to reach the in-game checkpoint, making level progression faster.   

           

Changing RISK

For this assignment, we were to redesign the rules of risk into something that younger players would enjoy in terms of difficulty and play time length. This was co-written with my group members whose blogs can be found here: http://drolzjourney.blogspot.com/ and http://dreadgdp.blogspot.com/




Game Changes
- Remove the army pieces that aren’t worth one army.
- Reduce the number of territories; about 4 of each color.


Setup
- Each player choose a color army and their units start on the country of the same color. For example, the red player would start on the red country. Three armies are placed on each territory in the player’s color.


Play
- Every turn, one army is given to the current player and they can place it on any territory they own.
- The current player draws a card at the beginning of their turn and place one additional army on the territory marked on the card. If they don’t own the territory, then no armies are placed this turn.


Attack
- On the current player’s turn that is making an attack, they roll a die and the number on the die indicates how many armies the player can attack with.
- The players involved with a battle will each roll a die. The highest roll wins and the lower number loses one army involved in the battle. The battle is over when all of armies on one player’s side are gone.


Movement
- The current player rolls a die and can move the number of armies as indicated by the die roll.
- A player can move his armies to any place on the board as long as there are adjacent territories under his control between the source and the destination.
- The player can make an attack order when there is more than one army on the territory they’re attacking from. They must also be adjacent to a territory that is under enemy control.


Winning
- A winner is announced when all other player’s armies are destroyed.
- The game also ends when 30 minutes have gone by. The player with the most number of countries under their control wins. If there is more than one winner, then one final battle is done between the winning players to decided on an ultimate winner.

Chez Dork Board Game

Name Of game: Chez Dork

Number of Players: 3

Time to play: 1 hour

Something I liked about the game was the humour in it. Most of the cards poked fun at geek and gaming culture. For example one card showed a video game called Final Adventure XVIII, which pokes fun of how many Final Fantasy games have been released. Another card made fun of how collectors never open or enjoy most of their collectable possessions. I also liked how you could sell cards to other players, which injected another layer of strategy into the game. For example you could attach a temporary obsession to a player then try to sell off items of that obsession to the player at a higher price. I also liked that the goal of the game was clear and straight forward.

Some of the different things I disliked about the game was that it was confusing to learn. My group had troubles trying to understand the difference between permanent and temporary obsessions. We also had trouble understanding what certain cards did. We found that the learning curve for the game was too large. It also did not help that we were only given an hour to play the game. Another thing I disliked about the game was at the fact that no fake money was provided. We had to use a separate piece of paper to keep track of each other’s money. This was somewhat annoying as player were constantly spending and receiving money throughout the entire game. Something as simple as Monopoly money is not expensive to manufacture, so I have no idea why it was not included. I also disliked that the amount of money you had in the end of the game did not matter, only the points counted. For example other board games might offer extra points if you had a lot of money left over.  

            Overall the game had a very solid design. One thing I would have made differently is the amount of money they player received at the beginning of their turn. I would have randomized it more than just having a set amount of 30 dollars. I might have included something like a dice or spinner that would either increase or decrease the amount of money each player receives at the beginning of their turn. There might be cards that do this, but we did not run into any. Another minor thing I would change would be for the temporary obsessions to have a time limit. After a set number of turns it would either be removed or switched to something else, to make the game feel more sporadic.

            There are not many rules in the game. The main objective is to gain money and to use it to purchase different card to earn points. The winner is the first to earn 25 points. The amount of points a card is worth can increase if it matches the players’ character’s obsession. For example a card with video games will be worth double if the characters obsession is video games. Each character starts with a permanent obsession, but is able to gain temporary ones. The temporary obsession can be added by the player or other players. You can also sell cards to other players that match their interests. Each turn the player received 30 dollars, they can use the money they accumulated to either buy cards from their hand or from other players. Each player has 5 cards in their hand, but must buy them to actually use them.