Week 3

For Our Game I felt the most important element for our game was the actions. The main premise for our game was throwing a ball around in a square. You had to do this while also making sure that the throw you made was not so easy to be hit as we had people on the outsides throwing in trying to hit your ball and switch places with you, and I feel this coincides with what the reading Chapter 1 of Games, Design and Play in which It states that “Instead of focusing on the stuff in the world, systems dynamics suggests we should look at the actions and the interactions between the stuff.” because we originally were going to have the balls aim for people instead of the other “Stuff” in the world.  

One of the other elements that I felt was important in our game was the rules. We decided to throw out several of the rules of 4 square in favor of making it more of a four square and dodgeball combination. We felt that this would give the game more emotion as instead of focusing on 1 ball you had to worry about 2-3 and keeping an eye on where the ball was. In our playtest, it became the <span class="NormalTextRun SCXW179358169 BCX0" <the="" <="" span="">cause for many slip-ups and fun times and everyone seemed to be enjoying the change in the emotions<span class="NormalTextRun SCXW179358169 BCX0" <the="" change="" in="" the="" emotion="" that="" chaos="" gave<="" span=""> and </span>I felt this was a close example of what was said in Chapter 1 of Games, Design and Play in which</span> they talked about “Part of what makes game design so much fun, but also makes it so challenging, is that the game designer designs something a game that produces something else, play” 

<span class="NormalTextRun SCXW179358169 BCX0" <the="" last="" element="" that="" i="" felt="" was="" a="" pretty="" <="" span="">The Last Element that I felt was a pretty big factor in our game was play space. For four square you can mostly play anywhere but depending on where it can limit the flexibility of the game. Generally, all you need is an open space and some tape and or chalk to make the regions. We felt that having this flexibility would be good for the game so it could be played anywhere. In Chapter 4 Sicart talks about how “Play spaces are created when a space is appropriated through play” so we felt that anywhere could work as long as you wanted to play.</span> 

Our game has not been played yet by the full class, but from the feedback we got in the small group, I felt the changes we made to the game worked out well with the way the jokers were used.