Week 3 - The Number King's Challenge

   After throwing around a few ideas back and forth, my group decided to go with the game that eventually became Number King. We came up with an initial idea of what we wanted to do, however, we couldn’t decide on how the rules should work. The basis of our plan can be summed up in one word: accessibility. The main goal of the game was to be accessible to all people who would want to play. All ages can play it, and the only thing you need to participate is your hands. We tossed around a few different rulesets to see what would stick, trying to strike a balance between rules that were fun, yet easy to pick up and understand. Yet the biggest lessons we learned came from when we started playtesting with other students in our class. We saw that our game worked and was fun to play, and that with some tweaks here and there, we could have a truly fun and functional game. 

   The most important change we made was reducing the pool of possible number choices from one through ten to one through five. By doing this, we added a type of constraint, which can be defined as, “putting limits on player actions and interactions...with the intention of creating a play experience.” (Macklin & Sharp, Chapter 2) We needed this constraint to maintain the pacing of the game. When we playtested with the version that used numbers one through ten, we quickly found out that you could go a few too many rounds without an elimination. Reducing the amount of numbers you can use ensured quick and snappy gameplay; keeping tensions high and the gameplay itself interesting. Another side effect of reducing the pool of usable numbers is that it increases the level of challenge presented to the players by making it easier to match with the Number King or each other; making the game noticeably more challenging than it previously was. This change was recommended by a player during a play test, and this is a direct example of what is called a lusory attitude; a concept introduced by Bernard Suits which refers to how, “players are willing to accept, and even invite, less efficient or logical means of engaging with a game in exchange for the potential of the play experience.” (Mackling & Sharp, Chapter 2)

   Even after applying different concepts to our game to further improve it, the game still retained the most important part of itself at its core: it is a game of chance. Number King was made to be a game of chance by design, as we wanted to approach this assignment with an original, outlandish perspective. Many games are ruled by chance, such as Rock, Paper, Scissors, Uno, Yahtzee, and so on. Although the only drawback of a game in this style is that the concept of “skill” in the game becomes a bit more abstracted. You could potentially refer to skill in this game as knowing your opponents well and being able to predict their patterns, only using certain numbers at certain times, or doing whatever might give you a slightly more competitive edge over the other players. However, there is no way to train and get better at this game. The player is unable to get better at the game because there is nothing to get better at, as it said in one of the readings, “purely chance-based games remove decision-making from the player experience.” (Macklin & Sharp, Chapter 3) This isn’t completely true for Number King, as the players do get to choose their own numbers; however they can’t choose what other players pick. This doesn’t completely negate the power of their choice, yet the Number King’s choice is undeniably the most impactful. It was hard finding the balance between chance and player interaction and input, but we tried our best to make our game as balanced as possible. Designing a game of chance is challenging, as chance itself has to be, “carefully managed to keep players engaged.” (Macklin & Sharp, Chapter 3) After all of the adjustments and player feedback that Number King has received, I believe it is a fun and engaging game that people of all ages can enjoy.