GD Exercise - UBI

8/3/2019 GD Exercise - UBI

1/6

Lego Exercise Primary | Design 1 July 15, 2009

UBIsoft, Pune / SupInfo Game Advanced Harshal Chheda

PRIMARY | DESIGN

CONCEPTION

The assignment was to use the following materials to make a playable game in ~5 hours :mechanical set, multi-coloured Play Dough, paper and pen

For the first two hours, I experimented with the mechanical set to get a hang of how itworks, first of all, and to determine what elements can contribute to gameplay. I ended up

with a wind-up motorbike.

When doing an exercise like this, I find it useful to write down all the gameplay possibilitiesprovided by each material

Play Dough- Creation of terrain and other objects or beings- Creation of tokens or pieces, for example, dice or chess pieces- Use of the different colours like in Mastermind, for example- As a base to insert pegs into so that they dont move or as a dart-board-like surface

Mechanical Set- Making a vehicle using the wind-up engine to use for drag-racing, aiming games, etc- Catapult / shooting / aiming using the wind-up engine or rubber bands- Spinning dial using the wind-up engine to serve as a Random Number Generator- Using the various pieces as tokens- Creating a mini-board with readymade slots using some of the flat, perforated

pieces

- Using the rod-like pieces to make a make the tallest tower without it falling or aPick Up Sticks type of game

In the mechanical set, I found the wind-up engine of particular interest and decided to use it The perforated, flat pieces in the mechanical set would provide an ideal surface for a board

game

Multicoloured balls could easily be made using the play-dough Finally, a wind-up dial or pointer could easily be integrated into the board to add a RNG or

luck element


2/6



INTRODUCTION

Name Primary

Target audience Ages 5+

Players 2

Playtime ~30 mins

Genre Mechanical Board-game

Primaryis a board-game of strategy and luck, where you try to capture as many slots on the board as

you can whilst using the roll of the spinning pointer to maximum advantage.

GAMEPLAY

The objective of the game is to capture as many slots as you can with your team balls

GAME BOARD AND P IECES

Spinning pointer

Quadrants

Slots for balls

Legs

Bracing

Pointer wind-up engine

Top

Bottom


3/6



Primary balls (universal)

White team balls

Black team balls

HOW TO PLAY

At the outset, players chose the white or black team and receive team balls of their teamscolour and 10 each of the red, yellow and blue primary balls, which are universal.

The game begins and players take turns, with the white team starting first. At the beginning of each turn, the player rotates the pointer a minimum of 360 clockwise

and releases it the pointer spins and then stops in one of the quadrants of the board.

TIP: To avoid knocking over the balls on the board while winding back the pointer, use its

orange part.

The player then places one primary ball into a slot on that quadrant, which finishes the turn,after which the other player spins the pointer, and so on.

A string is a (not necessarily straight) line of 1 red, 1 yellow and 1 blue ball (any order);wherein the line has no gaps or other balls in its path and is entirely in 1 quadrant.

When a player places a primary ball such that it creates a string, he can replace that entirestring with his team balls.

When a player cantor doesnt want to place any balls in his turn, he can pass. When 3 consecutive passes take place, or all the slots on the board are occupied, the game

ends and whoever has the most team balls on the board wins.

Balls


4/6



MECHANICS

STRINGS

A string is a (not necessarily straight) line of 1 red, 1 yellow and 1 blue ball (any order); wherein the

line has no gaps or other balls in its path and is entirely in 1 quadrant. Shown below are example

quadrants with valid strings and their transformation into white team balls.

A player can capture multiple strings if the primary ball he places completes two strings

independently. This is shown below. Also, thePrimary Ball Involvementrule must be followed.


5/6



OTHER RULES

5-per-quadrant rule: There can be a maximum of 5 primary balls of the same colour in eachquadrant, e.g. if there are 4 red balls in that quadrant, the player can place another red ball

in it, but, if there are already 5 red balls in the quadrant, the player cannot place any more

red balls there.

Primary ball involvement rule: For a string to be captured, the primary ball placed by theplayer has to be a part of that string.

Any strings that are uncaptured due to player error will be treated as normal primary balls. Joker: The player can treat one of his pre-existing team balls per turn as a joker (primary

ball of any colour) and form strings using it. The team ball with the black star has been used

as a joker here.

In the eventuality of the pointer landing along a yellow bar between quadrants, i.e. it isunclear what quadrant the pointer is in, the player must spin the pointer again.

Team balls are unlimited.


6/6



OUTCOME

After the initial conception, the idea underwent a few tweaks to aid smooth gameplay. Quadrants:I feel the quadrant system, aided by the5-per-quadrant rule, negates the

possibility of same-coloured primary balls aggregating in one corner of the board and

clogging up the games flow.

Spinning pointer: Adds a luck element which, in my opinion, makes the game more engagingand unpredictable.

The Primary Ball Involvementmakes the rules totally unambiguous and solves, in one line,issues that would require a lot of rules to clarify. This was made clear during the short focus-

group phase.

The joker rule makes the game more fluid and, of course, faster which is good because theinitial play time of the game was too long.

The final design for the construction of the board, along with the wind-up engine, pointerand all the legs and supports turned out to be surprisingly solid and stable.

I feel that there are very few to no loopholes in the game and am happy with what the playtime and engagement levels finally turned out to be.

The feedback I received is that it is a good game and neatly made overall. I am personallyquite satisfied with the final result.

Documents

GD Exercise - UBI