ED

Our brief

The assignment was set to teach skills such as applying research to practical activities, iterative design, play-testing, gathering and recording data, and game design principles. In my group of four, we must design and make a board game based on a current social, political or economic subject which we have thoroughly researched. The game should last between 30-60 minutes and be 2 or 4 players. We will present our concepts on the 6th or 7th November, submit all the project work on the 7th December and have an assessed play test between the 11th-14th December.

We began by each thinking of basic concepts based from what we had seen in the news or other relevant current event sources. We came to a total of 10, all on different topics, and narrowed it down to 3 basic ideas which are all a work in progress with lots of research behind the scenes:

Concept 1 - Terror Cell

The objective is to find and put a stop to a terror cell operating in your town/city before they can act out their plan. It's a tile game, with each tile having a 'threat level' which increases/decreases depending on actions within the game such as player choice and random event cards. Players are working together versus the 'game'.

Concept 2 - Hospital Manager

Imagine a hospital simulator video game as a board game. Each player is in charge of a department and must run that department depending on its requirements (e.g. short wait times for A&E). The player can hire staff for their department to complete tasks, however the effectiveness of these staff members depend on their skill level. Better staff cost more (research real NHS pay grades).

Concept 3 - Hipster Game (aka 'Trigger Warning')

Work towards getting the most followers on your social media page by keeping your 'hipster status' high. The status is determined by your apparel choices such as nose piercings, unnatural hair colour, and dungarees. Every round there's a new trend or something is now seen as the equivalent of crocs (apologies anyone that likes those shoes!). The winner is the first to reach 'x' number of followers on their social media. This is requiring a lot of research into psychology and other subjects not relevant to the games development subject area which makes it a challenge.