22/09/2025 - ?/?/2025 (Week 10 - Week 14)
Chang Wing / 0367807
Game Studies / Bachelors of Design (Honours) in Creative Media / Taylor's University
Project ?
TABLE OF CONTENTS
(Not updated)
LECTURES
Week 1
Principle 1: Player Experience
- Determine emotional journeys provided (e.g. adventure, excel oneself, caretaking) and consider target audience
Principle 2: Gameplay Mechanics
- Determine the primary mechanics (e.g. card actions, dice rolling, turn actions)
- Then figure out the secondary mechanics (e.g. resource management, trading, stealing, gambling)
Principle 3: Storytelling in Games
- Immerse plater in game's story, and design the environmental visuals, connecting storytelling with the UI
Principle 4: Balance and Challenge
- Establish smooth difficulty curve, balance challenge with player skill
- Skill vs luck
- Ensure player progression
Principle 5: Feedback and Iteration
- Carry on playtesting, identify difficulty or bland stories, and fine-tune the experience
Principle 6: Immersion and Worldbuilding
- Help players feel invested in the game through intriguing story telling / context
Challenges in Game Design
Monetization vs. Player Experience
Balancing revenue models with enjoyable gameplay. Overemphasis on monetisation can disrupt immersion, while prioritizing player experience without a sustainable model may limit a game’s longevity.
Figure 1.1 Hands-on playing board games (Game of Life)
Figure 1.2 Hands-on playing board games (Scrabbles)
Week 2
Balancing Education and Fun in Game
- A game can be enjoyable purely through its mechanics, but it becomes even more engaging
if it teaches the player about something (e.g. critical thinking, communication, science, math, language or history) - Make the educational parts feel natural and rewarding without sacrificing the fun aspects
Strategies for Fun & Edu Balance
1. Learning Through Play
- Integrate real-world scenarios into the game’s narrative, e.g. the Pandemic board game incorporates themes of global cooperation and crisis management, making the learning experience natural
2. Layered Learning
- Instead of presenting educational content upfront, allow players to gradually uncover concepts and lessons as they progress, unlocking new stories or mechanics creates a sense of discovery that keeps learning enjoyable
3. Game Mechanics as Educational Tools
- Embed problem-solving directly into the mechanics, e.g. in Catan, players build settlements and trade resources, which naturally introduces ideas of resource management, strategy and negotiation.
4. Storytelling with Purpose
- Establish a meaningful world and narrative that players can relate to
Avoiding Over-Instruction
- Ensure the game doesn’t feel overly academic, learning should emerge from play rather than from heavy-handed teaching
Player Motivation and Rewards
- Balance intrinsic motivation (curiosity, mastery, achievement) with extrinsic rewards (points, badges, or unlockables) to keep players invested without making learning feel like a chore
Daphne, Emily, Jensen, and I visited Unboxmou Café, a board game café in SS15, to experience various board and card games firsthand. Our goal was to gain practical insight into different gameplay mechanics and better understand how to develop our own card game.
Figure 3.1 Card / board games
Figure 3.2 Cheese Thief Board Game
Figure 3.3 Uno Card Game
Figure 3.4 CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) 2020 Edition - Chinese Version
Figure 3.5 Scrabbles
Figure 3.6 Group photo (Left to Right: Emily, Daphne, Wing, Jensen)
Week 4
Iterative Design Process
- Design (Game Mechanics) -> Playtest (Player's Behaviour) -> Refine (Adjust Mechanics & Balance Based on Feedback)
Figure 4.1 Iterative process with playful experiences
What are the playful experiences?
- What does the players feel during the gameplay?
-Do they feel thrilled, challenged, curious, or engaged
- How do these emotions influence their interaction and decision-making throughout the game?
- Public Holiday
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Week 2
Ideation
We started out by deciding on a Canva template.
Figure 2.1 Task 1 - Website Redesign Proposal (Final) (PDF)
Week 3
Play Week
As we played, we noticed a few key takeaways:
-
Every time we started a new board game, we found ourselves drained from reading the rulebook. We often skipped games with long instructions because they took too much effort to understand, especially when the rules weren’t clear. Unless someone guided us through the gameplay, watching online tutorials didn’t really help us stay engaged either.
-
Games with simpler and fewer rules were generally easier to pick up. We had fewer questions and could start playing right away, which made them more beginner-friendly.
Week 4
Test Game
Each of us came up with a concept idea for the base rules, and we ended up trying out Daphne’s “Heartbeat” idea. We thought the concept was pretty interesting, players had to play their cards in rhythm with a metronome’s tick. The idea felt fresh and a little chaotic in a fun way, so we thought, why not give it a shot?
But once we started testing, a few major issues popped up:
- The game requires a host to control the metronome and manage the rhythm, which makes it less accessible and harder to play independently
- Because everything followed the metronome’s tempo, the game couldn’t really stop or slow down. It left us little room to think, plan or add new mechanics
- The constant ticking made everyone rush through their turns, so instead of focusing on teamwork or strategy, we were just trying not to miss the beat
- One of the playtesters said, “The concept was good, but it’s really hard for newcomers to pick up the tempo and it gets frustrating when the game keeps failing.” Honestly, that summed it up perfectly.
Figure 2.1 'Heartbeat' play test
We really tried to save the idea, experimented with some tweaks here and there but the problem with needing a
host and the
rigid metronome mechanism just couldn’t be solved. The metronome dictated every player’s timing, meaning everyone had to play cards exactly on each beat without fail. There was no way to pause, slow down or adjust the tempo once the game started, so even a small mistake could throw the whole rhythm off. So, we decided it was time to switch a new idea.
Week 5
Reideate + Test Game
We said goodbye to Heartbeat, and moved on to new ideas. This week, we went with Jensen’s concept, one that focused more on strategy and collaboration than rhythm and chaos.
Figure 2.1 'Last One Standing' play test
FEEDBACK
Project 3: Final Working Website
Week 2 (29/09/2025)
Feedback: Likes the "Heartbeat" concept, have potential , keep the game speed, make more engagement, think of a way for next person to cover back; For the "Lost of Translation" concept: Come up a winning mechanism, can look at existing game mechanism; For the "Medical" concept:
Differentiate it with happy family, think about the narrative, more scenario, the roles can have more conditions.
Week 3 (06/10/2025)
Feedback: -
Week 4 (13/10/2025)
Feedback: The 'Heartbeat' concept is unique and has great potential, but having a host made the game feel a bit less accessible. It’d be better to keep everything on the tabletop without relying on online tools like a metronome. That said, the game could use additional mechanics to make the overall experience more dynamic and exciting.
Week 5 (20/10/2025)
Feedback: -
Week 6 (27/10/2025)
Feedback: -
Week 7 (3/11/2025)
Feedback: -
REFLECTION
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