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.          

Final Post

I was not sure if we needed to do another post, so I am going to do one just in case. Anyway the game came out great and I am looking forward to expanding it next semester. Hopefully the networking stuff will not be that difficult. I also hope we can find another artist to join our group as currently we have none. Anyway I am looking forward to finally going home for Christmas break and relaxing. I have a copy of Uncharted 2 sitting next to me (as well as a few other games) that I am dying to try out, but can't until the exams are done. Luckily I only have 6 days, 23 hours, 36 mins and 15 second before my last exam is done, but whose counting?        

Finish!

The games due date is Monday, but thankfully my group and I have completed almost all of the requirements. The only issue is the animations. I kind of had them working in a test program, but the game crashes when using them. Other than that everything seems to be done and working in the game. I have even started studying for my exams to get an early start. All of my modeling, elective, and project management assignments are done. I have 50 XP right now, but am waiting to see if the partial system homework needs to be made with a tool or not. If not then I should be up to 65 XP. Overall I think the game turned out nicely. I am still kind of disappointing as  some of the things we wanted to add to the game where nearly working, but other homework and time restrains caused us not to finish them. The first semester game is always the toughest, especially when working with a new engine. Hopefully next semester we can fix up a lot of the messy code, implemented the things that where cut, add some more functionality to the engine and dive deeper into Havok. Anyway I am looking forward to finally revealing the game on Monday at the GDW presentations as well as improving it next semester.   

Almost out of Time!!

My group is currently is crunch time has we are trying to get everything done for the game. Trying to get all the requirements done and working together is turning into a nightmare. Thankfully we only have a few more requirements left. We are going to be spending most of the time left to get them all done. The game is turning out pretty good, much better than our first semester game we made last year. Once the game is finally done I can relax for like 12 second before I have to start worrying about all my other homework. I had to set aside some of my other courses homework in order to work on the game. I still need to complete all of the IK stuff for my model, as well as all of the texturing, including normal and specular maps. 

The texture so far.  

I also need to properly UV map my level for the game. On top of that I still have homework for the game engine course as well as cybercrime and project management. Luckily all of these things are due a week after the game, so I should have time to get everything done. I am looking forward to Christmas break as I will finally get away from all this homework!!         

Still a Long Road Ahead

Progress was slower this week, but was still quite decent. I was able nearly finish my level for the game; just a few more textures need to be fixed. It is now implemented and fully functional. The artist in our group finally sent over the proper textures, which helped improved the visuals. I also started tackling a few more requirements, but am having problems with a few of them, but at least they are started. I still have no idea how we are going to implement features such as animations systems. As of right now it seems impossible. I am also having trouble with my character for the game, the IK system seems to be all wonky. I got the arm working, but I still need to get the manipulators controlling things such as the fingers. At least the weight painting is done… which was MUCH more work than I could have ever imaged. I also finished a large assignment for one of my electives. Hopefully with that out of the way, it will leave more time to work on the other assignments, like the game engine homework. Hopefully I can increase my 35 xp to 65 before the exam.              

Holy Progress Batman!

I have to say I am very pleased with the amount of progress my group was able to accomplish this week. It seemed like every day a different feature was solved and implemented. We were able to cross off a bunch of requirements from the long list. I feel that the overall game is really coming together. Shaders should also be in the game soon, but we are having a problem with the converter. We still must conquer large requirements such as the animation loader. Hopefully we will be able to solve these problems soon. I also began skinning my character, but I am having issues with the IK, as the arm is not moving correctly. The deadline is quickly approaching, but I think we should be able to get it all done, hopefully.       

MIGS

This week’s progress was not spectacular was a large portion of the week was spent at the Montreal International Game Summit. Overall it was a wonderful experience. The talks where very informative, I was able to learn a lot about game design though the speakers. Especially the Prototype Gears of War and New Horizons for Game Design. I was also able to network much more this year. My group was able to talk to companies such as Gameloft and EA, both of which seemed very interested in us. Bringing business cards also helped. For the game I was able to work on it a bit after MIGS. I believe I have mostly finished my level for the game. There are still some issues I need to iron out. For example when a rotate something, the physics seem to stop working. I think I am going to have to see the TA about this one. It is also getting very aggravating as it seems like everything we try to work on in the game; we always hit a brick wall. There are still a lot of requirements that my group does not know how to implement, and I am getting kind of nervous as the game is due in about a month.