1. Roll & Race
Materials
Folio sized paper
Dice
Markers (blocks/meeples)
Blank cards
Products
Groups should submit a rough draft of the game board and rules along with any game components created. Make sure to list all group members on the rule book.
Nota Bene: A “rough draft” does not mean random brainstorming notes. It means a written overview that addresses most of the ideas in Part I, step 6.
Part I. Create a Game
Divide into small groups.
Each group will complete the following steps individually.
Step 1
Understand the pattern. We have all played race to the end games. Think Candy Land (BGG) or The Game of Life (BGG). Basically, you start at point A and get to point B. That is all you need to know. Draw a line on a long sheet of paper. You are now over 1/4 of the way finished. You can make the line squiggly if you want, but it probably won’t affect gameplay.
Step 2
Find a narrative. What are you racing toward or what are you racing from? You can go as simple as Candy Land and say, “We’re racing to get to the end first”. But we want to make this a historical race game. Ask yourself, what story from the past you might want to tell. They could be generalizable narratives (my examples tend to be medieval and European):
Pilgrims travelling to Santiago-del-Compostela or Mecca or visitors to medieval Rome
German booksellers distributing their wares at major fairs around France and Germany in the sixteenth century
Abbot or Abbess visiting all the houses of their order to maintain good order
Seasonal migrations in pre-contact North America
Or Conceptual Spaces:
navigating a calendar (the Roman Kalends, medieval Christian Liturgical, Hindu Panchanga or others)
Wheel of Fortune/ rota fortunae
Humoral system
Medieval cosmology (the celestial spheres)
Hell (many many levels according to Dante)
Writing a thesis
Or specific historical events:
In 1099, Crusader Armies vie to be the first to arrive in Jerusalem
In 1402, Ambassadors from the court of Ase (King) Dawat II (Ethiopia) travel to Italy to acquire Christian relics and return with them
There are about a zillion more ideas from history that we can brainstorm if you want something different.
Step 3
How do you race? What’s the game mechanic that allows you to move forward? You could use an element of chance (dice, random card draw, spinning top or whatever else you can think of) or you can use an element of strategy (though this takes it out of the easiest design exercise ever) or skill (i.e. one point per medieval trivia answered correctly).
Step 4
Add conflict. The easy as toast version of “adding conflict” is as follows. As a designer, you need to figure out a way to make the race interesting:
Speed people up
Slow people down
Make people change places
Make people lose a turn
Give people an extra turn
Once you figure out how you will do this, let players do this to each other. So, one player gets to make another miss a turn. Or get to change spots with them, etc. Add a few players so they must decide whom to affect or whom to reward. The simplest way to do this is to put spaces on the board that force these actions. A modified version of this uses spaces where a player gets to draw a card. They may use the card on themselves or on another when they choose. So, I draw a “Skip a turn” card, and I play it on you or someone else whenever I want to.
In your grame. Conflict should be premised on historically reasonable actions.
Step 5.
Write it down/ type it up. If you’re adding cards, write out the basic text and format they would take. If you’re adding text to the game board, write it down on your prototype board. Jot down the basics of how the game works in point form.
If you have enough time, think about what the game might look like if you had time to work on the design and write it down as a rough game design document:
Who is the player agents? What would the player token look like?
Think more about what is the story behind the game? How can the story impact game play? What would the playing surface look like ideally to help tell this story?
How could the game components (e.g. cards, dice) look to feel authentically historical? What font would be used – and how do you make that choice?
What kinds of things would you need to access/ learn about to design the game that would play and feel more historically appropriate? Era appropriate documents or images? Or what?
Step 6.
Start to draft a rulebook which might include some of the following information:
Thematic Intro/Background – A short summary regarding the setting and theme of your game.
Thematic Objective – Explain what the goals of the players in relation to the theme. From this, players should have a rough idea of how they will be interacting with each other and what the victory conditions are.
Component List – A list of game components. It should be detailed enough so that the players can determine if they have all the parts of the game. For a scholarly take on game components, read
Set-up – Show where to place components and other preparatory steps.
How to read components – This should detail how to interpret the info on the cards, dice, tiles, or other components.
First Player – Explain how to select a first player.
Typical Turn – Explain what actions can take place on a typical turn. This section should be very detailed. It will likely be a section that will be read the most.
Special Actions/Turns – Outline actions that can be done in turn or out of turn.
Examples of Gameplay – Include the most common actions in a typical turn.
Endgame/Scoring/Win Conditions – Detail at what point the game ends and how to determine a winner. It’s also good to include tiebreaker instructions.
Amazing! You’ve done it! You’ve made a game! Will it win awards? Never, but you will have actually created a game, and the process will be satisfying enough that you just might want to make something else a bit more complex.
Part II. Playtesting
After we get the roll & race games to a rough product stage, each group we will present and if possible, we will play that games, (one, or if possible, both of) which students have created.
Step 1.
Each group will present their idea, what was the objective of the game and how to play. And then answer questions. Basically, groups should be able to explain what historical narrative it attempts to communicate, as well as how it is played, including:
How many players are intended to play
What are the game components
How conflict is established in the game
What the game might look like
How to win
Step. 2.
As a class, if we have time, we will select one game to play together. We will need volunteers to be players and the rest of us will observe. For the observers, take notes about ideas that strike you about how the game might be altered to add complexity, historicity or excitement.
Step 3.
After we have played, we will spend the remainder of the class brainstorming what could be done to develop the game. In essence we want this time to consider what are all the things we might want or need to know in order to develop the game ideas into a proper game. This is a precursory “what might we need to learn about first in order to accomplish something” getting us to acknowledge our areas of ignorance.
These could be things like,
How can I learn more about topic X?
Where can we get images to use for the game?
How would we make player tokens?
I hate dice, how else could we get players to move with a different mechanic?
Sample Rulebook Content:
The rulebook is meant to explain your game idea to others and resolve any possible obstacles and contradictions in the setup/ gameplay.
It should include (in roughly the following order):
Thematic Intro/Background – A short summary regarding the setting and theme of your game. This can be written in scholarly prose to explain your thinking or as a game text that would preface your rulebook.
Thematic Objective – Explain what are the goals of the players in light of the theme. From this, players should have a rough idea of how they will be interacting with each other and what the win conditions are
Component List – A list of game components. It should be detailed enough so that the players can determine if they have all the parts of the game.
Cards : how many types and how many cards
Dice: How many and what type
Tokens: are there players tokens or any other tokens required by the game mechanics (NPC, obstacles)
Set-up – Show where to place components and other preparatory steps
How to read components – This should detail how to interpret the info on the cards, dice, tiles, or other components
First Player – Explain how to select a first player
Typical Turn – Explain what actions can take place on a typical turn. This section should be very detailed. It will likely be a section that will be read the most.
Special Actions/Turns – Outline actions that can be done in turn or out of turn
Examples of Gameplay (optional) – Include the most common actions in a typical turn
Endgame/Scoring/Win Conditions – Detail at what point the game ends and how to determine a winner. It’s also good to include tiebreaker instructions
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