Game Design Showcase: 4 April 2023

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Join us for our Game Design Showcase on Tuesday 4th April 2023

On Tuesday 4^th April 2023, stu­dents from my Foundations of Game Design course (IAT 312) will show­case their final game design projects where they were tasked to design a (dig­i­tal) boardgame that is not only fun to play (addresss­ing what  Lazzaro  calls “People Fun”), but also “trans­for­ma­tive” or “pur­pose­ful” (aka “Transformative Fun”, what Lazzaro refers to as fos­ter­ing altered states): That is, apart from being fun to play, the game should also be meaningful/purposeful or add value by some­how chang­ing the player’s out-of-game behav­iours or per­spec­tives.  During the course, stu­dents reflected on topics that they care deeply about that could help create a better world, and designed a game to tackle that topic.

How to participate?

To par­tic­i­pate in our show­case, you have 2 options:

Join us on Zoom for a live-streamed (online) showcase, from 10:40am - 12:20pm, using this Zoom link

Schedule: [draft]

10:40 — 10:45am: Introductions from Instructor (Bernhard Riecke) and TA (Kenneth Karthik), overview of the course and the projects in the showcase.

10:45 — 12:20pm: Game Showcase & team inter­view: Each team will be show­cased for about 10min, start­ing with the short project video pitch/trailer of their game (using zoom screen shar­ing), fol­lowed by Bernhard inter­view­ing team mem­bers and TA screen­shar­ing their game in Tabletop Simulator, while other class stu­dents will play the game in the back­ground so we can see life game­play footage.

12:20pm: Closing:  Final Q&A, audi­ence ques­tions, closing

Join us for in-person game demo/playtesting at SFU’s Surrey Campus in the Mezzanine, from 2:30 - 6pm

If you’d like to try out any of the games and/or chat with the game design­ers or instruc­tional team, join us from 2:30-6pm on the SFU Surrey campus, in the Mezzanine (up the escalator/stairs one flight), see direc­tions.

Documentation of prior course offerings and showcases from

• Spring 2022
• Fall 2021
• Summer 2021
• Spring 2021

Project posters

Details about the Game Projects

Road to Refuge

Follow and experience the journey of a family as they try to survive and escape their war-torn country.

Website of Team 1–1

Razor: A game that tells a story of a family that’s escaping from their country where they need to collect, and manage their resources while trying to survive through events that will challenge their teamwork.

Road to Refuge is a nar­ra­tive game that lets play­ers assume the role of a family escap­ing war. Players must coop­er­ate together to manage their resources and sur­vive through random events that will chal­lenge their team­work. The road to safety is not an easy path, play­ers must tra­verse their war-torn coun­try. Work together as a team on your road to refuge and a better life.

1 minute game trailer:

 

Full game video:

Mystery Zoo

Protect or trade? Every choice matters. Can you handle it?

Website of Team 1–2

Razor: You decide the life or death of animals. Will you protect or trade them? Brace yourself for tough moral choices. Every decision you make matters. Can you handle the consequences?

Welcome to our game “Mystery Zoo” where your moral deci­sions are cru­cial. You’ll enter a map with three dif­fi­culty levels and choose between being a pro­tec­tor of ani­mals or living a life of crime for money. Choosing to be good can be lonely and risky, while a life of crime brings wealth but also the threat of arrest or impris­on­ment. The jour­ney won’t be easy as you’ll face tough choices that test your moral­ity and courage. Each deci­sion you make will lead you down a unique path, shap­ing your char­ac­ter and world­view. But your expe­ri­ences and rev­e­la­tions will be invalu­able, and you’ll real­ize the pro­found impor­tance of animal con­ser­va­tion and we also pro­vide detailed animal infor­ma­tion to edu­cate you along the way.

https://youtu.be/e2n0ox5zTnw

1 minute game trailer:

Full game video:

 

Rainforest Rivals

Journey through the jungle, cooperate or fight!

Website of Team 1–3

Razor: The game promotes cooperation between players and highlights the interconnectedness between humans and nature, featuring gameplay elements that challenge players to make strategic choices about how they interact with the environment and its inhabitants.

In our board game, play­ers take on the roles of either human or orang­utan, ini­tially com­pet­ing for resources in the jungle. However, as they nav­i­gate the dan­gers and chal­lenges of the ecosys­tem, play­ers soon dis­cover that coop­er­a­tion is the key to sur­vival. With game­play that empha­sizes strate­gic choices and the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of humans and nature, our game offers a thrilling strate­gic chal­lenge that will leave play­ers with a new appre­ci­a­tion for the impor­tance of pro­tect­ing endan­gered ani­mals and their habitats.

1 minute game trailer:

Full game video:

 

Blue Planet

Surviving the sea of plastic

Website of Team 1–4

Razor: An event based board game where the stakes continue to rise as an increasing amount of plastic enters the ocean

Blue Planet is a sur­vival game where marine life fights against the ocean’s plas­tic pol­lu­tion. Each player rep­re­sents dif­fer­ent species of marine life where they get to draw events that con­nect to the sto­ries of their lives which can work in their favor or not. Each player needs to keep track of their own plas­tic inges­tion due to having a poten­tial in dying or receiv­ing aid from marine doc­tors. One large source of plas­tic inges­tion is the garbage patch, whereas play­ers encounter early in the game and more gets accu­mu­lated as the game progresses.

1 minute game trailer:

Full game video:

 

Likes and Lies

Are you ready to go viral?

Website of Team 1–5

Razor: A board game that simulates the fight to gain attention on social media, and the impact of the consequent posting of misinformation on society

Likes and Lies is a social media sim­u­la­tor game for play­ers to hang out and share memes. Each player aims to earn the high­est points by shar­ing memes and infor­ma­tion on social media. The player who gets the high­est likes from other play­ers will become the influ­encer and reveal other play­ers’ infor­ma­tion. Random events will gen­er­ate accord­ing to the play­ers’ decisions.

1 minute game trailer:

Full game video:

 

Together we Stand

Win together, or lose trying

Website of Team 2–1

Razor: Subterra-like card game where players collaborate to combat life struggles until they reach the end

Together We Stand is a sur­vival and co-op game that chal­lenges play­ers to work together to reach the end goal of cre­at­ing Utopia. The idea is for people to col­lab­o­rate with each other to face the tribu­la­tions, chal­lenges, and ran­dom­ness lifes throws at you such as health or finan­cial issues. To win the game, ALL the play­ers must reach Utopia. Players have their own indi­vid­ual perks and weak­nesses, and jug­gling their own indi­vid­ual issues while simul­ta­ne­ously help­ing others could be dif­fi­cult but nec­es­sary to win.

1 minute game trailer:

Full game video:

 

Perilous Voyage

Forced out of your home, you and your family travel the vast ocean in a flooded world to find a new place to call home. Will you triumph together over the challenges in this journey or perish alone?

Website of Team 2–3

Razor: A cooperative resource management game, players need to work together in order to survive traveling until they reach their end goal.

Perilous Voyage is a co-operative sur­vival game where you travel together on a boat and gather resources in order to sur­vive the jour­ney to find a new home. Each player takes con­trol of a spe­cific char­ac­ter each with their own unique abil­i­ties to help the jour­ney in their own way. When trav­el­ing play­ers can encounter var­i­ous events in both the ocean and small islands they encounter along the way, which can either help or hinder the play­ers. On islands play­ers may find NPCs that are will­ing to join them on their jour­ney, they can be turned away but some will be harder to ignore than others.

1 minute game trailer:

Full game video:

 

Dust and Gems

Gemstone Journey: The Struggle and Sacrifice of African Gemstone Miners.

Website of Team 2–4

Razor: Keep the player in mind

Carve your own exclu­sive path through the dimly lit under­ground, the road is full of sur­prises that you dig for your­self. Your suc­cess in mining for pre­cious gems depends on your abil­ity to nav­i­gate through the unknown ter­rain and uncover hidden trea­sures. Until the end, har­vest a vari­ety of gems in your mining adven­ture path. Who will be the rich man in the end? Different colors will tell you the answer.

1 minute game trailer:

Full game video:

 

Cash or Card?

Build your tech empire, no matter the cost.

Website of Team 2–5

Razor: Integrating two types of games, board and card as one.

Cash or Card? is a roll and move / card game hybrid that can be played between 2 to 4 play­ers. The objec­tive of the game is to reduce your oppo­nents cash stocks down to zero and the last remain­ing person alive stand­ing is pro­nounced the winner. In the roll and move phase of the game, the play­ers progress through the board using a simple 6 sided die and land­ing on spe­cific tiles can gen­er­ate var­i­ous effects, from draw­ing cards, random events, and neg­a­tive effects that can impact game­play. Then the play­ers enter the card game phase, where they’re able to place down cards in their hands, and acti­vate var­i­ous effects of dif­fer­ent cards they have on board.

1 minute game trailer:

Full game video:

 

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Want to try out Games from prior classes?

type “IAT312” into the search field on the Tabletop Simulator site on Steam or through this direct link.