Week 5 - Paper Prototyping

   Paper prototyping helped to improve my group’s project in quite a few different ways. Initially I found myself being unsure of how our game would translate to a paper or board game-style medium, however it ended up transitioning smoothly. Since our game has a field similar to that of a soccer field, it was easy to sketch out the map and where the goals and players should go. Before we began the paper prototype, our group had a good sense of how our rules should be, however we ended up revising and adding certain rules after seeing how it played out in the prototype. Testing out your game during development is a crucial step towards creating a quality product. When designing games, it is imperative that you, “prototype and playtest them to fully understand what they can do.” (Macklin & Sharp, Chapter 5) I tend to be a perfectionist, and I tend to get frustrated when things don’t work out the first time (counter intuitive, I know.). Designing games has been a challenge for me personally because a key part of the process itself is failure, as it, “is what helps us learn and make our games better.” (Chapter 5) Learning to embrace failure as just a step towards the end goal has been a challenge, yet it makes sense. When you learn to walk, you don’t immediately stand up and just go; you must first learn to crawl, stand, and so on. Failure is an integral part of game design, as it is what will lead you in the right direction later down the road.

   Personal lessons learned aside, the rules of our game benefited from the process of paper prototyping. Having other people play our game, each with their own unique styles of play, helped our group to see flaws that we wouldn’t have seen otherwise. Things like how close the goalie should be to the goal, how much the defenders are allowed to move, and so on. Nailing down the details of these intricacies improved the quality of our game vastly. As it stands now, I feel that Bloodball is fully playable, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the playtesters or my group. Our group worked very well together, as we all got to present an equal amount of ideas, and were able to build on each other’s thoughts. I personally tried to take into account what was said in the reading, “special attention should be paid to make sure everyone’s opinions are heard.” (Chapter 8) No one person’s ideas are innately better than the other’s; so it’s always a good idea to welcome different opinions and points of view. The reading mentioned how it could be “often hard to get a word in edgewise,” (Chapter 8), however I don’t feel that our group struggled with that at all. We all worked together and shared similar ideas of what our game should be. The collaboration of our group shows in the quality of our game. 

   By playing the paper prototype of our game, it is simple to understand what kinds of skills would be necessary to play Bloodball. It's quite an active game, so the player would need to be able to run fast, kick hard, and dodge balls kicked by opposing players. A crucial skill needed to be good at Bloodball is team communication. With so many players moving in so many directions, it would be easy for everyone to end up doing their own thing. Yet if you go into the game with a strategy and know who should be where, the game would definitely be in your favor. Overall, I feel like this assignment has been a success. Our group was dedicated to the project, and we all learned more about the ins and outs of proper game design.