Gender Swap-A board-game about the inequality of the workforce.
Positives: Players were allowed to marry other players in the game of the same gender or opposite. That idea is very interesting. The game explores a very controversial topic of today’s society. Maybe it’s just because of my beliefs on this topic but I loved that same-sex couples can get married. Other players thought this was a good aspect of the game was well.
Positive: Because I wanted the game to be like real life and the Game of Life it was easy to build on both. It was easy to build off both ideas because I have experience with both life and the game. Since I had references for my game I could easily come up with basic things to include in the game and how to make the game since I had already experienced a game like it. Examples are: From real life I took marriage, divorce and children all things can happen at just about any time in a person’s life. I made it as close to real life as possible. From life I took paydays, life events, the passage of time to retirement etc.
Positive: With a little research on my part it was easy to find clip art to create my game cards with and salary information. I got the art for the cards from Microsoft word all I had to do was type in words like firefighter, mechanic etc. While doing this process my game concept hit home with me even more. While searching through the clip art for pictures to include in my game the idea of job fields being dominated by specific genders was evident on Microsoft word as well. Most of the pictures for jobs like fire fighters, police officer, receptionists, etc were dominated by a specific gender with the images. Even Microsoft word had gender specificity within it.
Negative: I wanted the game to progress like the Game of Life with life events good and bad. But I wanted my game to be more realistic. Instead of making crazy amounts of money for having children like in the Game of Life I had players incomes decrease every time they had a child. With that idea none of the players wanted to have children in the game because the effect children had on their wallets. Finding a way to balance this idea was extremely challenging.
Negative: My game has to be played with males and females in attendance. But when there are only women present the players can’t get the full effect of the game. Since our class is dominated by females its hard to see what the game was meant to be like. Throughout the whole play-testing phase of the class this remained true only females have played the game minus one instance but other than that its only been played by women. Men and women need to play the game at the same time because the men have women like jobs and women have men like jobs both sides get the full effect when both play at the same time.
Negative: There were so many directions this game could have went and so many other things I could have included. My problem is how to decide what should go in the game and what shouldn’t. At first I had player buying property but it was not really a necessary feature of the game. I am sure there are other things I should put in the game to make it better it’s just hard to decide what. I also had a version of the game that had multiple paths the players could take but there was no real reason why. So it is hard narrowing down what should be included and what should not.
In summation I think this is my best game yet concept wise. I have the strongest connection with this game. As mentioned before there are so many directions this game could go the options are endless. Before taking this class I had never heard of an art game and here I am making a game based on the idea of art/social. Hopefully I will be able to pursue a job in the video game industry and continue to improve with creating games.
I think my top three games were Actionary/Pictionary, Mario Kart and Gender Swap.
The object of Pictionary was to identify through sketched clues as many words as necessary to advance on the game board to the finish and correctly identify the final word. There are five different categories players could possibly draw from. Actions, person places things, difficult ,all play, and objects. I added an acting option to the game. So whenever a team lands on a certain space in the board a player had to act out their assignment from the card instead of draw.
Mario Kart
Mario Kart is a racing video game. The original Mario Kart allowed the players to race as different video game characters from other games as well as from Mario Bros. I made Mario Kart into a board game. I tried to take as many aspects from the video game as possible. While racing, players can use special weapons such as speed boosts, banana peels, invincibility star, and ramming among other things to help them win the race.
Gender Swap
A game about the inequality of the workforce. Female and male players get a chance to have a job ruled by the opposite gender. Male dominated fields such as race car driving would be occupied by the female players and vice verse for the females. The object of the game is to make it to retirement with the most money.
I chose to polish the Gender Swap game because there were so many different directions this game could have went. I just wanted to keeping working on it. The concept is very interesting as well.
For the final week of regular class I planned on focusing on the Gender Swap game itself and new ideas that I have for the game. I thought about using the LIFE board, money and career and salary cards but changing a few things around. For example I was thinking maybe I would try using the career cards for all players. Female and male players would pick from the same careers but males would get paid less. This way I can use the professional game board and cards and have a nice appearance to the game since I don’t have the resources to make them myself. I was also thinking that I would have negative life events for the LIFE tiles instead of gaining ridiculous amounts of money. I am still a little stuck with the children idea in the game. I have yet to come up with a positive system for having children in the game.
When exploring a game as art, it is important to look beyond the graphics to the underlying experience.
I am going to continue working on the gender swapping idea, but I can’t decide if I want to use the Life cards and change the game so that women and men have the same jobs but men get paid less or to keep it the way I have it now. The way I have the game now men have women like jobs and vice versa for women, but it makes it hard to make the game more professional in terms of appearance due to my limited resources.
Games are systems. By way of metaphor, the systems in a game are similar to an engine in a car. Systems are under the hood in digital games, and it is those very systems that make the whole game roll.
Gender Swap
2- 6 players
Objective: To make it to the finish with the most money. Roll the dice to move on the board.
Things needed for the game
1 die 6 plastic cars Pink and Blue people
14 occupation cards Bridges for the board Bankers Tray
14 salary cards Decks of cards play money, insurance, loans, salary, occupation
Game board
Setup: One player fan out each deck and each player picks a card from the face down decks of salary and occupation cards. Men pick from the decks marked with the male symbol and female players pick from the decked marked with the female symbol. Each player takes one card from the deck with their symbol.
Place those previously mentioned decks of cards face down near the game board.
Separate the different types of insurance policies and place it in the banker’s tray. Have one player be the banker. Player may purchase houses, or insurance at the beginning of their turn.
Each player picks a car from the 6 cars provided. Females put a blue person in their car to represent them and pink for male.
Whenever players roll they collect their salary from the bank.
Players can marry at any time during the game or remain single. If players marry they combine incomes and car pool together in the car of their choice among the two players’ cars. Each spouse takes a turn to roll on their turns moving their car further along the board. When players get married they advance slower in life. Players who are not add 2 extra moves to their turn. So if single person rolled a 4 on the dice they would move 6 spaces instead of
Players can divorce at any time as well. In the event of a divorce players separate and so does their incomes. Where ever the players decide to separate the spouse who is leaving places their new car on the same tile as their former husband or wife and continue the game from there. The male keeps any children and women pay $2,500 per child to the male with every pay day. It is up to the player to make sure child support is paid. The man gets the house and the car.
Players can have children at any time during the game. For every child that is born subtract 5,000 $ from your income for every pay day. Players can have children if they are single as well. For every child born to a player they can subtract 1 from their move. So if a player with 3 kids rolls a 4 they would move 1 space forward.
Each player takes there turn and rolls the dice to move along the board. Everyone must make it to retirement for the game to be over and everyone can calculate who has the most money.
To get the full effect of the game players should consist of males and females.
Most games are driven primaraily by player decisions.
Friend Challenge Minimum 2 players and 2 teams Objective: To make it to the finish line first, and win the most challenges. Game Kit: Game board, dice, timer, questionnaires Rules: 1. Each team is divided into teams of two. a. Preferably with people you do not know. 2. Fill out the questionnaire by asking the person on your team questions about themselves. a. Write down all the answers to each question as quickly as possible. b. Each player on the teams take turns asking the questions and filling out the questionnaire. 3. Next pass both questionnaires to the other team. a. Both teams exchange questionnaires. 4. One member from each team roles the die to see which team goes first. a. Highest number goes first. 5. The team that goes first is asked a question by the other team from the questionnaire of their teammate. a. If the question is answered correctly the other team member rolls the dice and moves on the board the number of spaces on the die. b. If the question is not answered correctly then the team does not to get to roll or move on the game board. 6. One turn counts as one question and one answer. 7. Each team takes turns answering questions and moving on the board if the question is answered correctly. 8. Only one guess per question is allowed. a. If a question is answered incorrectly the answer cannot be revealed after the question is answered. b. Incorrect questions can be asked again, but later in the game (At least 3 turns later). 9. Correctly answered questions cannot be asked again in the same game. a. Make a check mark by the questions that have already been answered correctly. 10. Also throughout the game there will be friend challenges. a. These challenges are marked on specific tiles on the game board. b. When a team approaches a friend challenge on the game board they must stop and play it. c. If a team rolls the die and they land on or go over the friend challenge then they must stop on it and play the challenge. 11. The team that gets to the finish first wins. a. If the game is not progressing because the players cannot answer any questions correctly take 1 minute to glance at the questionnaires. 12. There are three mini games to that each team will have to play to complete the game. a. Each mini game has separate rules.
These challenges are played one at a time, based on which team gets to them first on the game board. Mine Field Challenge 13. The first game challenge is called Mine Field, a challenge that focuses on trust and working together. a. When one team reaches the Mine Field challenge the other team takes this time to look at their teammate’s questionnaire sheet. b. For the Mine Field game the team that got to the challenge first gets one piece of paper and one pencil. c. The team playing has to decide who is going to be the person telling the other player how to navigate the mine field, while the other player moves through it. d. Once this is decided one player gets the pencil and the paper. e. The other player will be telling their teammate how to get through the mine field because their teammates eyes have to be closed until they complete the mine field. f. The player with their eyes closed has to listen to their teammates instructions while marking on the paper the directions their teammate is giving them, until they reach the finish. g. They will be timed so the team with the best time wins this challenge.
Alphabetti:Support The second game challenge is quick game of Alphabetti: Support. h. A quick game from Pictureka where each team spells out the word “Support.” i. The mission cards in Pictureka are not needed for this game. j. Shuffle the picture cards, then the oldest player of the two gets the picture deck first. 1. Deal out 4 cards to you and your teammate. 2. Start with the letter (S). 3. Each player should work as quickly as possible to spell out the word support for this challenge. 4. After the cards are dealt both players can look at their cards and decide to play a card that has something on it that begins with the letter “S”. 5. Once a player has finds something on a card that they have then they lay the card face up on the table so that the other team can see it, and state the object/word that they see on the card that begins with the word they are looking for. 6. If the other team agrees with their decision they move on to the next letter in the word. 7. This challenged is completed once the whole word is spelled out. 8. The team with the best time for this challenge wins. 9. For this challenge or any challenge for this game neither team can waste the time of the other team or sabotage them in any way. Four 1. This challenge focuses on the number four. The most common answer found for how many friends a person should at least have is one. 2. For this challenge the team playing has to complete four sets of cards. a. Two cards that have the same number make one set. i. Example: 2 cards with the number 2 on them makes one set. b. Both teammates have to work together to make 2 sets of cards apiece. c. Players have the option of exchanging cards to make a set. d. If both players cannot make a set with the cards they have they can discard one card at the bottom of the deck and pickup another from the top of the deck. 3. This challenge will be timed. a. The team with the fastest time wins. b. The timer will begin after the cards are shuffled, dealt to both players and flipped over. c. Both players can look at their cards to decide how many matching pairs they have.
I feel like the games are really starting to illustrate the ideas Dani and I were going for. The things that make up a good frienship and making friends.
The Samarost, Today I Die.... They were both interesting games, very different from each other and different from the games that I play. The Today I Die game was kind of dark but I liked it once I figured out what to do. The Samarost game was more laid back and fun but it gets frustrating when you can't figure out what to do next. Both were cool and creative.
Games don’t need to be especially fun. Games can say whatever the artist wants them to say.
jbvideogamer 