Last Group Meeting Before Final Project Due

Today was the last group in-class meeting before the final game would be due. Our group has really gone a long way from trying to figure out how to make our game the best it can be. With so little time left, we had to make sure we would get our game done on time. We decided we have all the basic things done, the only thing left is creating a website, printing out the final board, cards, and making our game box. Even though out group wasn't familiar with photoshop, we were surprised at how much we learned over the past few weeks. Our game board looks really neat and attractive after weeks of editing and changing the game board to make it look the most appealing it could possibly be. Our basic rules for the game have already been made. The only thing we might have to change for the rules is to add pictures to make it more clear for the players to understand the game as a whole.

Even though one of our group members couldn't go to the final meeting, our way of communicating with him through e-mail and phone made it effective, and it didn't stop us from getting stuff done. His job would be to design the game box, so that was already a big part he would have to work on.

After all these weeks of careful planning and designing, we are excited to see how the final product will turn out like!

Class 4/13/2011

Today in class we play tested another groups game and gave feedback from our experience. While 3 of us were at another table playing their game, one of our group members had stayed with Health-mania and helped 3 others understand how to play he game. After the game was over we received feedback from the group that played our game.

The feedback that we had received was mostly positive. We need to tweak a few things in our game such as changing the hangman idea into something else. We need to meet sometime this week to finish and finalize our game, printing out the final board, finding a box that will fit our game and obtaining a dry-erase board for the drawing aspects of our game.

It seems that we are in the final stages of creating Health-mania and everything seems to be going real smooth. We just need to sit down and finalize the entire game and come up with a complete project.

Getting a Good Start to the Game

During this three hour class, we were amazed at how much we got done in that amount of time. One of our group members wasn't able to make it, but we were still able to figure things out. Each person in the group did his or her job of thinking of different things to put on the cards for our game, which made the whole process easier. The only problem we had was we had to make the game board on Adobe Photoshop as soon as possible. None of us are familiar with using Photoshop, but we knew we had to take the challenge and do the best we could. We decided to work on the game board in class and see how much we could get done because without the game board, we wouldn't be able to test out our game and think of additional changes and ideas. Luckily, our professor took a lot of time to sit down with us and help us with the game board. He helped us a lot, and we ended up finishing most of the game board during the class! Next week is play testing week, and we have a lot to put together before next week. We divided the roles up by having one person finish the game board, one person create the cards, and another person create the rules. By dividing the roles up, this seems to be the most efficient way to work on the game without having to meet up over the week with each person's busy schedule.

Second In-Class Meeting, A Whole New Idea to Our Game!

At the beginning of class, we were a bit hesitant of how much we would be able to get done in class today.  For the first ten minutes of class, we were still struggling with how to change our game around. One person in our group brought up the idea of making the game not have a theme at all. The idea of a no theme game would make us be able to think of more ideas for the acting and drawing categories to our game.

As we talked and discussed our game more, we somehow decided that we should change the game board up completely, while still keeping the draw, act, hangman, and trivia elements of the original game idea. Instead of having a 8 by 8 circle game board, we decided to make our game board more like a race track divided into four sections. Each section would have a category (act, hangman, draw, or trivia), which would allow each team to pick where they wanted to start out at first. This idea seemed to be more ideal and more interesting to play. With the game board set, the next step is to create a theme for our board game.  We came to the conclusion that it is still best to have a game with a central theme, so the categories won't be too random. Thinking of a theme will be tough, but after this step, things will get a lot easier.

The Start to the Final Game

Today in class was the first day we got together in our new groups to discuss the final game project. Even though we already had a basic game idea in mind, we realized there still needed to be many changed made to it. We were surprised that we spent the entire two and a half hours in class just talking to each other about how to make the game better. We found it to be very challenging to alter the rules and try to make the game as interesting for the target audience. After two and a half hours of talking, we came up with some new ideas like making our game involve some trading and money, which would better enhance the farm theme for our game.

Our group decided that for homework, we would each have to come up with ideas for what to put on the word cards, which will be used for drawing, hangman, taboo, and acting. Instead of waiting a whole week before working on the game again, it is best to work on it a bit outside of class, so more things can be accomplished during the next class.