Blog Post 5, Games I played in class

During class, I played a couple of games with Tony. Five notable games I played were QWOP, Canabalt, Super Puzzle Platformer, This is the only level, and Oregon Trail.

QWOP was an awkward game for us to play since the control mechanics for this game was extremely hard to get used to. The game basically lets us control a runner calves and legs and we use the q w o p keys in order to control him. Each of the keys listed let us control a different part of the leg and due to this, we had trouble moving the runner very far. Basically, we button mash our way to victory or like 1 meter.

Canabalt was a fun game where you control a player and make him run across the map. This is essentially a platformer where you jump over the obstacles with the jump button. The fun part about this game was competing with Tony to see who can get the furthest.

Super Puzzle Platformer was another game we played which was very  interesting. This is a puzzle game where you match blocks randomly fall down and when the colors matches or whenever you feel like shooting, you shoot the block in order to destroy it. It's better to shoot the blocks when they all match in color so you can get a higher score. Overall, this was a very fun game to play.

This is the only level was a game with only one level. This was a simple game where you move to the goal and repeat the level, but what this game did that was so perfect was that it varied the level design so that you can experience a multiple of gameplay mechanics. Examples of this are where the room darkens and you see nothing and have to memorize the map layout beforehand or when the camera zooms in on the character and you can't see the overall stage anymore.

The last game we played was Oregon Trail. Oregon Trail was a simple click and point game where the game plays by itself, and we supply the answers to the options and the game moves on. The game was not particularly fun to play, but it had a simple game play mechanic where you just pick options and pray you make it to the end.

Overall, I liked Super Puzzle Platformer the best out of the  games I played because I thought the game play mechanic was a fresh way to experience puzzle games.

Blog 4 Game prototype

                For the tabletop gaming I came up with, I came up with the main idea for the game from a video game I know about called "Zombies ate my Neighbors." Instead of making a game though, I decided to make a card game with an idea about zombies and trying to survive. The rules for my game are simple. To set up the game, you give out 5 "human" cards to each player that is playing. Next, you roll a dice and whatever number you land on is how many cards you draw and when you are done you pass your turn to the next player, and they roll the dice. Depending on the card you draw, you do a certain action. In the game, there are 6 types of cards which are human, zombie, 2 humans, medic, weapon, and bunker. Basically, for every humans you draw, add it to your hand with the other human cards. From the name, human is worth 1 x human while 2 human is worth 2 x humans. Every time you draw a zombie card, you have to discard 2 humans whether it be one 2 x human card or two 1 x human cards. When you draw a medic card though, you pick up 2 humans from the discard pile (if there are none in the pile, hold onto the medic card and use it immediately when there are 2 humans in the pile). A weapon card can be used to kill a zombie or another player's human card. A bunker card is used to protect you from one zombie card so that you do not lose 2 human cards. Depending on your luck, you may add the bunker, weapon, or medic card to your hand if there are no zombies cards that you have to waste these cards on in order to protect yourself. In addition, for every card that is drawn and is not a human, it goes to a discard pile. From here, when you run out of cards in the deck, you just pick up the discard pile, reshuffle it, and continue the game from there with the leftover cards. The goal is to be the last player left with human cards and then you win.

                To make this game, all you need are some paper, a pencil, and a dice. Next, you write down however many cards of each type you want then play the game. In my game, I made 30 zombie, 25 human, 4 medic, 5 2 x human, 4 weapon, and 5 bunker cards. In the first several play session of my game, I ran into some problems with the game being too short with only human and zombie cards. Thus, I added in 2 x human cards and medics to make the game last longer. This worked for a while until I decided that in my next play session I should add another card which was the weapon card. Now players can attack other players in order to win. Finally, I added a bunker card as a defense mechanism in the game during my 4th play session. With the play session I had from this Monday though, I realized I should fix my card ratio since there were too many zombie cards and a player lost when he draw nearly 6 zombie cards in a roll. Overall, this is my current prototype for my game and how it went when I played the game I made several times.