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Game Studies: FInal Compilation

22/09/2025 - 02/01/2025 (Week 10 - Week 15)

Chang Wing / 0367807 

Game Studies / Bachelors of Design (Honours) in Creative Media / Taylor's University

Final Compilation


TABLE OF CONTENTS

5. Project 2: Tabletop Playtesting
6. Final Project: Tabletop Game Development



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



Week 3

Play Week (No lecture)

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)



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?




Week 5

- Public Holiday and lecture ends.



INSTRUCTIONS

Project 1: Tabletop Game Design Proposal

Students are expected to explore and communicate their game concepts through play, experimentation, and discussion. Playtime activities will be conducted regularly across the module and tutorial sessions, with active student engagement expected at all times.


Project 2: Tabletop Playtesting (3 Cycles)

This stage focuses on iterative playtesting through three structured cycles. Playtime activities continue to support idea refinement through hands-on play and discussion. Students are required to gather and analyse gameplay feedback from target participants or users as a core objective of this phase.


Final Project: Tabletop Game Development

The final project consolidates all previous stages into the development of a complete tabletop game, informed by continuous play, testing, and critical reflection.



Exercises 1 & 2

Exercise 1: My Favourite Game & What Makes This Game Playful


Figure 4.1 Exercise 1 Final Report: My favourite game & what makes this game playful (PDF)



Figure 4.2 Exercise 1 Artificial Intelligence Interaction Log (PDF)



Exercise 2: Non-digital to digital - Evolution and Remediating This Game

Figure 4.3 Exercise 2 Final Report: Exercise 2: Non-digital to digital - Evolution and
remediating this game (PDF)



Project 1: Tabletop Game Design Proposal

Figure 5.1 Proposal presentation slides (PDF)


Project 2: Tabletop Playtesting

Iterative Playtest Report


Figure 5.2 Iterative Playtest Report (PDF)



Game Mechanics Review


Figure 5.3 Game Mechanics Review (PDF)



Playtests Documentation


Figure 5.4 Links to playtests documentation (PDF)



Final Project: Tabletop Game Development

Final Presentation

Figure 5.5 Final Presentation Slides (PDF)


Figure 5.6 Recorded Final Presentation




Weekly Progress


Figure 5.7 Weekly Progress in Game Development (PDF)



FEEDBACK


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: The fact that you managed to change the gameplay mechanics by eliminating the metronome concept is already good. Make sure there is balance in the gameplay.


Week 7 (3/11/2025)
Feedback: -




REFLECTION

After a journey of game development, this module was really fun for me. It gave us the chance to actually play board games, experiment and dive deeper into the mechanics and design thinking behind them. Being able to exchange ideas with so many different groups in class was a great way to learn how to design game experiences that cater to different players and perspectives. I’ve always been a huge board and card game fan, so getting to explore the everyday games I encounter on a deeper level felt really rewarding.

Of course, there were challenges. In the early stages of our card game, we were really excited about the idea of combining rhythm + metronome + card mechanics. It felt fresh and unique, and I loved how challenging it was. But after several playtests, more issues popped up than we expected. We tried hard to fix them, but with strict deadlines, we hit a bottleneck and eventually had to switch ideas, completely removing the rhythm and metronome mechanic. Even so, I still think that idea has great potential. I even imagined creating a hashtag challenge for it online because a card game with a metronome is weirdly innovative, and it could really catch on if players push hard and challenge themselves to keep up with the rhythm. Maybe it’s more suited for a different context than this module, where we had to follow the brief, which naturally limits experimentation. I understand that the goal of this module is to follow the guided brief first, like learning to crawl before you walk, but after polishing our skills here, I really hope we get a chance to revisit our rhythm + metronome card game in the future.

Throughout the module, we went through creating card-game mockups, making rulebooks, doing multiple playtests, documenting feedbacks and reviewing mechanics. We also had fun playing our own card games and really had exchanged a lot of ideas with different players. Going through this process helped me understand UX and design thinking better because it’s very similar to iterating on user experiences in real life. I feel like the skills and insights I gained here will definitely help me in UX gamification and designing more fun and enjoyable experiences in the future.



















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