By the time of week 8, I had managed to finalize the first draft of the gameplay for my card game. On Monday, I got the chance to present what I had with everybody in the class. The presentation slide can be checked out here.
The biggest feedback I received is how I should conduct a playtesting as soon as possible. Truthfully, I thought about skipping playtesting due to the lockdown because I prefer to interact with people directly so that I can see their reactions toward the game. I tried to find some alternative solutions, with online cards game generators like PlayingCards.io and all bad cards. The problem is they don't allow me to create my own card game or the options are very limited.
Thanks to Kate, I got to talk to Nicholas Margerison and he gave me some of the most useful pieces of advice. After looking at the suggestions, I came up with a way to work around the problem.
- At first, I produced a digital version of the game in Adobe Illustrator. Accompanied by a cheat sheet that contains the condense version for the rules. Also, I created some notes with the info of the cards for each deck. The cheat sheet and the notes will be sent out to the playtester individually.
- I will meet with the players through Microsoft Team. At the start of the game, I'm going to send them the necessary information. I will then direct the game manually on Illustrator. The choices of each player will be communicated with me through individual chats.
Being recommended by Nick, I decided to create a set of playtesting questions. The goal is to find out the playtesters' honest feeling about the game, whether negative or positive.
- How long did you feel like you were playing for?
- Did you feel like you were making friends or enemies with the other players?
- Use one positive word and negative word to describe the gameplay? Please explain the reason why you use those words.
- What was your most favorite moment? Why?
- What was your least favorite moment? Why?
- How far in advance could you predict your opponents' moves? Is that a positive or a negative feeling?
- To what extent did you feel like you were in control of the outcome of the game? Is that a positive or a negative feeling?
- Can you explain why the victorious player won?
- Was there anything that you wanted to do that the game wouldn’t let you do?
- What part of the game do you want to change? Why?
