Print and Play Analysis: Writer's Block

Ever wanted to write a book? Too lazy? Too busy? Well, if you've got half an hour on your hand then you might be looking to play Writer's Block, the game where the goal is to write the best developed story!

The best way to look at and analyze this particular game is to understand the objects it contains: cards. All of the other mechanics rely on this foundation part of the game. Each card has an attribute that can reward a player with either ink, used when playing a card, or a writing cube (a personal token) which can be placed on a plot card. One of these attributes can then affect the state of the card.

For example: If a card is blue with a blue and a black dot in the top left, then the card can complete two different actions. The player may want to play the card in order to place a writing cube on the blue plot, however if they don't have any ink then they cannot play it. Instead the player must burn (discard) the card, collecting all of the available ink (the dots) from it. 

Player's hand at the beginning of a round.

These then are the two states possible for the cards: turned into a writing cube or burnt into ink. As you can see, the states of these objects are very important to the playing of the game, as they allow you to do the only two things that will let you win.

There are, of course, other objects in the game. There is the plot card which is the space players put their writing cubes on. During the "Edit" phase of the game, players are rewarded for having the most tokens on a plot card. They may be rewarded in ink, but they may also be rewarded in idea tokens, a form of currency used to buy bonus cards. These bonus cards, found in the "Brainstorming Area" can be used to complete various actions like adding their writing cube to a plot, erasing a writing cube from a plot, etc.

Well, it's clear that there are a lot of different options when it comes to these objects. And though there are few of them, they can result in many different outcomes. The operative actions like burning a card, spending an idea token, or placing a writing cube on a plot are what lead into the resultant actions, a much more complex list of results that are produced because of the operative actions.

Some of these operative actions are as below, as are their resultant actions:

Burning a card: Player earns allotted number of black dots at the top left of the card. Card is discarded.
Burning a card which is related to a plot on which you have the majority of writing cubes: Player earns allotted number of black and colored dots at the top left of the card. Card is discarded.
Spend ink: Player is allowed to play a card. The card remains in front of the player. A writing cube is placed on the specified plot card.
Spend an idea token: Player may purchase card.
A bought card is played: Player may move a writing cube, add a writing cube, or remove a writing cube from plot cards. 

With so many possibilities in resultant actions, Writer's Block leaves a lot of open room for gameplay and different choices. Now, keep in mind that all of these things are occurring within a few discrete spaces on the playing field. The list below this images spells these spaces out.

The game space as visualized by the developer of the game.

Erased: A place for cards that have been removed from the game.
Plot Cards: The area to place down the writing cubes that help win the game.
Idea Deck: Cards that can be drawn and distributed for the player's hand.
Discard: The discard deck.
Ink Tokens: A place for ink tokens to gather.
Idea Tokens: A place for the idea tokens to gather.
Brainstorm area: The shop from which players can buy cards. 

One of the play spaces: the Plot Cards.

 These 2D spaces make up the entirety of the game's magic circle, leaving little room for question or confusion. Once the game has been set up once it can easily be set up again and again as the game moves on. Don't worry though, because the game itself does require some skill and cunning that will hopefully throw your opponents off and help you win the game.

A player's idea tokens, ink tokens, and writing cubes.

This is where you and your genius brain come in, as you start the game you must choose your hand for the next round in a draft format, meaning that you may pick one card from a hand but then must hand it off to the next player so that they may pick a card from that set. Here you must decide which plot you might go for, which cards you think are disposable, and which cards you think your opponents might be in need of. With the right strategy you could pick all the right cards and leave your opponents high and dry with the worst picks of the litter. This kind of challenge will help you weed out the good from the bad, the beneficial to the wasteful. A player should leave no stone unturned if they wish to make the right strategic move.

Now, there is some chance involved in the game, but only just enough to keep things interesting. Keep in mind that your opponents may have cards they bought during the brainstorming phase, and they could choose to use them against you. This is of course out of your control! Hopefully if you're making the right decisions you will be able to easily recover from an unexpected blow. In this way the game proves to be versatile, and rewards players for skilled gameplay, something that can be important to many players.

In my opinion Writer's Block is a well balanced game. With lots of opportunities to turn the tide back in your favor, like earning ink and purchasing cards to benefit you, there are many possibilities for play and numerous outcomes. With multiple outcomes comes interest in replaying the game. I've found that a majority of print and play games suffer from such an imbalance that it wouldn't be fun to play it again because you know how to break the game, and no one wants to play a game that doesn't challenge them to reach a goal in some way. Balance also means that players can feel like they are equally matched with each other and that each unique way to play can be effective, rather than one cut and dry method that always works well.

If I had to critique the game I would say the instructions are sometimes difficult to understand. Had the game not been explained to me by someone else beforehand I think it would have taken me at least one full playing of the game to understand most of the rules. For example: the rules state that the Martian plot card allows the winner of that card to erase two cards from the game. The instructions don't explain why this is different than simply discarding two cards, instead they could have explained that the erase pile remains for the entirety of the game, every round, so they cannot come back into play whereas discarded cards are shuffled back in for the next round. Of course, this is a minor disagreement, so overall the developer of this game should feel confident that they have found success!

Print and Play Games

In an effort to learn more about the nature of print and play games, their design, set-up, and requirements, I played three different games. Each of these games has very different mechanics that make for three varied experiences, some bad, some good. Here are the results.

Bad Grandmas, mid-play action

Bad Grandmas is a game featuring some very sassy grandmas who battle it out in, presumably, their bad ass nursing home. They are all equipped with weapons and funny remarks. I was really excited to play this game because I liked the humor involved. Unfortunately, as me and the other players began to play it seemed as though the game is based only around luck. This wouldn't be so bad, but I feel as though the game goes under a more strategic guise. Each grandma has a specific value attached to her. One grandma at the beginning of the round is chosen to set the rule. Our particular grandma's particular rule specified that the person with the lowest total score would win. However, after having been dealt random hands of cards it was clear that no amount of strategy would save a player from their worst cards. We left our grandmas in favor of finding a more suitably strategic game.

A player making bank in the cutthroat restaurant scene.

What we found was Delivery, my personal favorite pick of the lot. The game has a lot going for it--it's a relatively unique concept, it's mostly easy to understand, and the art actually isn't bad. Its mechanic revolves around random rolls of dice, but that is balanced with strategic choices in price of food and investments in either food quality, advertisements, or speedy deliveries. While "Delivery" is, for the most part, balanced, there is one major flaw. If a player chooses to price their meals at $2 they will get +1 added to their roll to see who will get to take the food order. Anyone who prices their meal at $5, however, will have -2 taken from their roll. In this way, at least with only a 6 sided die, it is nearly impossible to win a roll with your prices set at $5. A more balanced option would be to take -1 from the order pick up roll, and -1 from delivery speed. Otherwise a player offering expensive food will never even see the delivery stage.

Playing Pennywise as Sugar, the (obviously) best character to play as.

All hyped up on our restaurant success (or lack thereof), we moved on to Pennywise, a game based around using your wits and your coins to run your opponents out of their money. While this game was simple, its stardom came in its balance. Each character card offers you a different starting combination of coins, allowing for very different gameplay choices. The idea of the game is that each player takes a turn putting down a coin in the center of the table, or the pot, and they may remove any amount of coins that is equal to one less than the coin they put in. So if a player puts in a nickel they can remove 4 pennies. I think this game's strength lies in its ability to be played so many ways, and thinking about the combinations of coins that will add up to one less than yours is a nice mini brain exercise. I'd conclude, though, that even though this game was balanced it didn't hold interest for to terribly long.

I'm surprised at how much I ended up enjoying playing these games. While they didn't hold my interest as well as other non-printable board games have in the past, they could easily fill a boring lull, or a woeful financial situation.

Pedestrian Mayhem!: A Real World Observation

 Observing the real world is an important part of making games believable. The decisions players are offered should, in most realistic games, fall in line with what a real person would do. When players are offered decisions that they wouldn't have made in the real world a disconnect happens and any previous immersion might be lost.

It's a simple observation, but I decided to watch people cross the road. Crossing roads safely is something that has been ingrained in most people's minds since they were children, so I wanted to see how that played out in the real world.

This presentation covers all of my observations!

Rewards and Games

Rewards are one of the best aspects of gameplay because they offer an extra aspect to the goal of most games: to win. Winning by itself is already a great reward in the eyes of many, but a game designer must ask themselves, "what's going to keep my players coming back to my game?". More often than not the answer to that question is simply a greater reward, something that can either positively affect the player's impact in the game, or something that the player can use outside of the magic circle of the game world (money, prizes, etc.).

The Sims Scouts- by Roudoudou Hirons via Flickr

For me rewards should come frequently and in small doses. I love simulator games and because those often don't have any specific goal or way to end the game, game designers have to keep the player in the game by giving them smaller rewards. In The Sims players are rewarded in many ways with job promotions, in game currency to buy better houses and furniture, and even a more points based system that rewards players for reaching certain life goals with their sims, allowing them to unlock better stats, if you will, for their sims (not having to use the bathroom, sleep, or even eat as often). This system creates small and quickly achievable goals alongside larger, more long term goals. These smaller goals feed the player's drive to reach the goal that might seem like it will take a more significant amount of time to achieve.

Pollination by Riccardo Cuppini via Flickr 

Another game I've come to love, and let's keep in mind this is a judgement free zone, is Plant Tycoon. Yea, you read right, I love Plant Tycoon, a game based solely around cross-pollination and selling plants. Its reward system is excellent: by cross-pollinating any two mature plants, a player is rewarded with a new yield of seeds that create a whole new plant. As you sell plants over time you are able to buy better soil, pesticides, and fertilizer, thus opening up a whole new set of more delicate or exotic plants. This kind of reward mechanic is just subtle enough to let the player feel a more natural success, almost as if you were cultivating a real nursery of difficult plants. I think for many players, at least on a casual level, it might be more fun to work towards an abstract goal, creating a really cool plant, than it is to work towards something more concrete like a new set of armor.

Honestly, I'll play any game as long as it has some semblance of a working rewards system, but the finely tuned rewards of sim games will always feel just a little bit better.

Day of the Dead Concept Art

Tonight I'm sharing some concept art I developed recently. After what felt like a hefty amount of research, I felt I wanted to create a small Mexican village celebrating a traditional Día de los Muertos but in the heart of a city. I like to imagine that as time passes and our cities expand, that we will still maintain our heritage around the world!

It was important to me to keep the light warm and inviting, avoiding any preconceived notions that a city has to be dirty or grungy, or bathed in neon light. Both of those options are just as reasonable, of course, but Day of the Dead is about inviting spirits of loved ones into your home and spending time celebrating life. A cozy and inviting atmosphere simply plays on that idea!