CAGD 170 Game Design - Marshmallow Madness

CAGD 170 - Marshmallow Madness

Group 1

Marshmallow Madness

The Mini Marshies!

• Marshmallow Madness is a competitive player-versus-player card game that involves marshmallows with special abilities and power-ups to use during combat! You are only able to use one marshmallow per attack and be wise using your power-ups! The player who collects the most cards from combats is crowned the Marshmallow King! ...have fun!

Marshmallow Madness Setup

• The targeted audience for Marshmallow Madness would be entitled more towards the collector or PvP player types! A few games they may also like would be: Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh, or War! We have strongly felt that this game is more appealing to this type of audience due to the competitiveness that's implemented in the game through a card game.
• A few problems that we've encountered with our Iterative Design process were putting all of our ideas and implementing them into the game and then actually trying to playtest those ideas. We went through so many prototypes of the game and decided the scratch off the ones that were too confusing or did not make any sense to the main concept of the game. Miscommunication was also a key factor since we were both on different pages of our ideas and decided to visually write them down and create an example for our ideas to come to life. In the end, my partner and I decided which idea would fit the age range of 6-12 best and something that is very easy to understand with not too many complications.

The Marshmallow King!

• My partner and I were successfully able to fully complete the game with all it's mechanics and details. We gladly took the feedback seriously from playtesters to improve our game and much more enjoyable. We extremely loved how the game turned out and puts a smile on our faces when we see playtesters have fun playing our game and understanding the mechanics. The only thing we felt that was uncompleted about our game was that when players print out the cards, they can actually see through them. So it kind of defeats the purpose when drawing cards at random because you can find out what card you were drawing. So we wanted to avoid that at all costs and decided to create a backside of the card so they stick them behind the power-ups and marshmallow cards.

• We were able to pinpoint a lot of our issues and create solutions for them through our playtests. The playtests were extremely useful for us to tweak the game to a much better standard and overall run more smoothly. The players also gave very good feedback in return to help improve Marshmallow Madness and we extremely appreciated it. If it weren't for the playtesting feedback, the game would've been much more different as the final product.
• As far as management went for Marshmallow Madness, my partner and I were successfully able to set up roles for ourselves and it turned out very well in the end. We were able to shine in our parts to make the game flawless and playable. So communicating our roles to each other was very key and crucial to this project.

Marshmallow Madness's main logo!

• Some things I would change about my own developmental process going forward would be to definitely map things out first before I commit to an idea that would go into a game. Coming up with ideas isn't easy, but implementing them and having things not work out is a whole other issue. So simply working step by step and slowly moving up is always best. Having a full idea and trying it out right away isn't going to cut it. The only thing you can get out of it is to pinpoint the issues right away and revolve around them to make that idea better.

♥

CAGD 170 - Marshmallow Madness

Group 1

Marshmallow Madness

The Strawberry Puff Marshie!

• Unit 2 kicked off with our chosen selection of a game template that involved marshmallows and fighting. The game that we were supposed to build around was also tailored toward 6-12-year-olds. My partner and I went through many game ideas until we both agreed and decided to go with a family-friendly card game that involved, you guessed it, marshmallows battling it out! We both tried to make the game as simple as we can but still have some sort of playstyle that would be easy to understand for young children. Our first step was to think of having the marshmallows have some sort of friendly appeal to them. Another thing was that we decided on many other marshmallows to have certain attacks and defenses but still make them have a fun appeal to them. We wrote down all the ideas we both could think of and essentially just build off of them. The card games that definitely gave us inspiration were: Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh, Uno, and War. From there, the developmental process fully went on its way!

The Melted Marshie!

• One of the most difficult processes we had was having a fair amount of cards for two or more players that would be able to use for combat but not have such a way that it would be overwhelming for the players. We also decided upon having two piles of cards so it would be easier to understand the game process. One pile was for the marshmallow cards only and the other pile was for cards that would be used as "power-ups." We really loved the idea of adding power-up cards to have the marshmallows do an extra amount of attacks/defenses to keep the game more interesting!
• We ended up going through playtests and having the game be stylized like the card game, War. The playtests went successful and we just had to make the usual minor tweaks to it. My partner and I went back to our original game idea list to see if we can add anything extra to the gameplay. I had the idea of adding a health system to the marshmallows the power-ups. We definitely felt that the idea was really good, but it can turn very complex because it might be tough for young children to keep up with the constant mathematical equations they may face. We ended up scrapping the idea but still had it in our minds for future reference to look back to.

The Mini Marshies!

• We both really had fun during this developmental process and enjoyed the game that we formed. The game can still definitely be tweaked around more to have it go to its full potential. This was definitely an experience and some new things were learned. The number one thing that was always in our minds all the time was what we can do to have our players have fun playing our game. We felt that we definitely accomplished that aspect based on what other players have said while playtesting Marshmallow Madness!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

• My partner and I playtested Group 6's game called, Bombardier. We were able to catch onto their game relatively easily based on the components, resources, and rules that were provided. Their game was successfully able to distribute the formal elements upon playtest.

The Formal Elements of Bombardier:

• Players: Their game requires at least 2 or more players to play, this is needed to create competition within each other.
• Objectives: The objective of Bombardier is to simply form a projectile and you have to toss it to a target and you have to try to beat your opponent's score! Your opponent will be heavy with competition so that's what made it fun.
• Procedures: The procedure of the Bombardier game is to make sure you have a flat and wide open playing space. You have to set yourself up to be able to throw projectiles enough to be able to have a high score. Your projectile will be simply a piece of paper and you have to build it to your liking that would make you be able to throw it far enough. I really liked this idea because it allowed players to be creative in building their projectile object.
• Rules: The one major rule of the game is that you MUST throw your projectile in a parabolic arc in order for your score to count! So the player must be able to practice throwing in that parabolic toss style so they can achieve high scores.
• Resources: The resources that were provided by the designers were a printable ruler, a target zone, and a firing position used for play. You must use these objects in order to create a successful play run.
• Conflict: The major conflict of Bombardier is that you may fall behind from your partner's score, thus you will eventually lose the match! You have to be as competitive and as smart as you can with your projectile throws in order to keep a steady lead with your opponent(s)!
• Boundaries: The Boundaries of the game is that you must try to throw your projectile toward the target zone and nowhere else. If you throw your projectile to a place other than the target zone then your score will not be counted or will have a failing score.
• Outcome: A winner of the game will be decided once a player has the highest total calculated score! The players will have to do a simple math equation to calculate an exact score and tally up points.

  

  Equation used to tally up final scores!