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September 29, 2005
MOD Game : Ask Mr. Hole
[Game Screen] Rough Sketch
[Digital Game]
In digital game, things like calculating scores and detecting special cases can be automated and that gives players convenience and trust by having the computer as a neutral host of the game. It seems to give designers more freedom to extend the original game into somewhat complicated one.
[MOD Game: Ask Mr. Hole]
I added a seperate deck of special cards which can be interesting variables to the original game. When a player puts same number card, instead of making next player skip the turn, the player can choose either to pick a card from the special card deck or to make the next player skip the turn. Alsothere is the other case that allows players to pick up the special card. It is when there is nobody who can go on. The player who put the last card can either start next turn or skip his turn and draw a special card.
Other then special cards, there is one more special rule. It is when a player puts a same number and color card. In this case, the player can have one more turn to put cards.
The contents of special cards are like below.
* Backward Card: Players should put less or equal number of the card to the card on the table. When there is nobody to put right card on that, the rule goes back to the original. Players should put bigger or equal number of card. The player who put this special card can start putting his card first at the same time.
* Exchange Card: The player who put this special card can exchange all of his cards with other players'. It will be better to exchange cards with a player who has least number of cards. When there are more than 1 person who has the least number of cards, then the player can choose among them.
* Give 2 more cards to opponents: The player who put this special card can make other opponents to have 2 more cards from the deck. The number of cards to put to other players can be tweaked to keep the balance of the game.
[Diagram for the game progress]
Posted by doox at 03:10 PM | Comments (0)
September 15, 2005
Pachisi MOD game note
[Tropical life of circle]
I liked the way the pieces are placed at the begining. Since they are already close to each other and it actually increased the chance to interact with other pieces. Also deviding the path of the circle into 4 colors also made me feel that I am automatically interacting with the player who owns the terroritory by having disadvantage or advantage for the number of steps to move.
Because of all the different colors of pieces, a jungle picure with various saturated colored animals on the middle of board and also colorful dry pineapple
snacks, I became focused on color schemes when I tried to figure out the life theme of this game. I don't think this was what the designers' intended, though.
Colors are really abstract concept to think of the metapholic meaning of that and I actually tried to find my own way to put meaning on them.
Certain colors can kill each other and certain colors can share the same tile. Gray and Green colors were sort of similar(cold feeling) and also Pink and Orange(warm feeling) were similar. Similar colors kill each other and different colors live together.It felt like similar colored pieces are trying to kill each other to make itself unique in the jungle. Also different colors are attracted to each other just like human beings are usually attracted(hence favorable) to somebody who's different to oneself.
[Cops and Robbers]
I think donuts were really nice idea for this game. I was actually busy eating it and it actually made me a little bit distracted and lazy just like the preposition written on the game manual. It felt like the game rules were changed to be advantageous for robbers. Cops need to catch all of robbers although just one of the robbers need to escape to win the game. It became more disadvantageous for the Cop team when I was playing this game because cops had to wait for the grace roll for a long time to start chasing. I felt like that this game says that keeping justice is always harder than commiting crime by the game mechanics itself. Then also I was wondering if it is really justice for cops to be lazy to catch robbers because of donuts. This actually reminded me of comedy films about two buddy cops who happened to catch criminals without enough effort in humorous way. I wanted to see more interactions happening between cops and robbers encouraged by the game mechanics, though.
[Coattail]
I think I enjoyed playing this game the most. There happened lots of interactions between players (taking and being taken moments), game pace was speedy and 3 different choices of movement(rolling the dice as many number of times as equal to the number of pieces of the track or starting new piece or changing track) actually brought interesting strategies. Staying in a track with other players' pieces seemed to be more advantageous first time but it became so often chances to be caught by other players' piece. Especially on the most inner track, there are always chances of the new piece's spawining and it becomes too risky to stay on. My best strategy is changing the track and trying to bring more piece of mine to the track to have extra dice-role. The outter a track is the more the number of tiles but it seemed to be less disadvantageous than having more chance to be caught by others. Then losing a turn to change track nicely balances that. This game makes me think about interesting strategies. But I had hard time to find life theme out of that. It would be nice to put specific characters to the pieces or some visual change of the board/piece will be helpful for players to come up with ideas of life theme.
Posted by doox at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)
"Yut Nori(Yut Game)" Traditional Korean Game
I want to introduce a traditional Korean game called "Yut Nori(Yut Game)". This game has similar concepts with pachisi but also has other interesting mechanics. Korean historians say this game is similar to a chinese game or a mongolian game but the actual origin is not certain."Yut" is a wooden bar which has a round face and a flat face so it can only be fliped(showing flat face) over or landed right(showing round face). This game uses 4 of "Yut". Also the status of having all 4 "Yut" fliped over is also called "Yut". Koreans usually play this game with their family on festives. There are 2 different style of Yut game board.
For those who want to have quick review,
[Major differences in game mechanics]
- Players can choose shortcut to return to the base when their piece is landed on intersection points(Blue points).
- When players meet their own piece they can move together.
( When players meet opponent's piece they send it back to the base. )
- One of the 4 Yuts has a special mark on its flat face. If 3 Yuts are showing round side on and 1 Yut with the mark is fliped over then players should move their piece 1 step backward.
For those who want more detailed explanation,
[How to play] (This writing is from a Korean Info search site.)
Yut game is our traditional game that we play with yut Ball after dividing in teams with same number of persons. We usually play it with two teams, but we can make three or four teams in case of need.
The place of playing yut is a yard or a wide vacant land of town in
case of many participants, and in case of home, it is a relatively wide space like a main room or a living room. How to divide teams for playing yut is a general rule that a participant throws a stick of yut, Ball has a flat side and a round(convex)side, and a racer(a kind of tiles) of yut is moved according to its side.
1. Term of yut
Do : After throwing yut Ball, one of them is turnde upside down. A racer can move one space.
Gae : After throwing yut Ball, two of them are turnde upside down. A racer can move two space.
Gul : After throwing yut Ball, three of them are turned upside down. A racer can move three spaces.
Yut : After throwing yut Ball, all for of them are turnde upside down. A racer can move four spaces.
Mo : After throwing Yut Ball, all for of them are fallen down. A racer can move five spaces.
*In case of showing Yut or Mo. You can throw yut sticks one more time *
Hootae(Back) do : When one of them is turnde upside down and then it has a special mark(-2) after throwing yut sticks, this is called 'Back do' or 'Hootae do'. At this time, a racer must go back to a space. This 'Back do' is a kind of reformed yut game. (The way of moving 'Back do' is that a moving racer on the yut board must be moved, and if there is mo moving racer on it, a racer is moved from the start to the finish and then, if you throw yut sticks again and they shows 'Back do' , a racer(any racer of same team) can be escaped.
Yut sticks : a piece of yut
Racers of yut(a kind of tiles) : Small things to move on checks on a yut board.
Check on a yut board : Checks of racers on the yut board.
Yut board : A board used in playing yut, or a playing yut
Dot : A place of a racer's staying on the yut board, of when scores is made.
Fallen down : The round side of yut stick is showed
Turnde upside down : The flat side of yut stick is showed.
2. THE METHOD AND RULE OF PLAYING YUT
1) A team making a round first on the board is a winner, and four racers usually go round ahead. (A team making four scores first is winner)
2) If a racer is already on the place arrived when another racer is moving, In case of a racer of the same team, it can be moved carrying jon the back. have to throw yut sticks once more.(Don't change the order.) In case of a racer of the other team, you must catch it first, and then you have to throw yut sticks once more.(Don't change the order.)
3) If you throws 'Do', 'Gae' or 'Gul' can be moved first.(But, if you throw 'Yut' of 'Mo' after catching a racer of the other team.)
4) If you throw 'Yut' or 'Mo' and then, you catch a racer of the other team, you may throw yut sticks just one more time. (Only 'Yut' or 'Mo' is applied to)
3. THE WAY OF MOVING A RACER
1) If a racer goes round from the start to the finish, it makes a score. (Unit : Juim)
2) If a racer stays on an angle of The yut board. It can move to the center of it.(It can change its direction)
3) If a racer stays on the right angle and then, it moves toward the center. It must stay in the center, so that it can change its direction Toward the finish.
4) A catched racer begins to move from the start when its turn comes
5) A racer can move carrying its racers of same team on the back without regard to the number of racers.
6) A team that all of four racers make a round is a winner. Winner has to win two times first.)
7) Number of playing yut is determined by plying team. (Usually, a Winner has to win two times first.)
8) Except 'Back do', racers must not go back.
Posted by doox at 12:43 AM | Comments (1)
September 13, 2005
Aquarium Project - after visiting there
I. After visiting the long beach aquarium what I felt missing there was INTERACTION which is not only between visiting people and fishes but also among different fishes.
1) Fish vs Fish Interaction. & Place vs Place Transition.
Obviously, different fishes should be placed and displayed saperately to protect them from being eaten from other fishes but I wanted to learn and feel all the fishes as parts of a whole ecosystem. For example, what is the food chain among them, how different fishes make friends to each other, and so on. I wanted to have fun playing some interactive work that I can learn and see those interactions among fishes which we should be careful not to make it look too violent.
Walking through the different tunnels of the aquarium I felt it would be great of each places to have some connection to the next places that makes smooth transition. I wanted to know what ocean and how deep I should get into the ocean to actually meet the fishes I was watching. I believe there must be reasons for the order of arrangement for the different fish tunnels/tanks and that could be good start to make those transition.
2) Fish vs People Interaction.
From the little interactions like talking fish switch and kiosk touch screen to the big one like actual interactions with fishes through transparent water tank, this interaction between fish and people must be the most compelling interaction we could have from aquarium. I felt there were not enough of them, though.
3) People vs People Interaction.
I wanted to see people visiting aquarium actually communicating with each other by playing a very simple but cooperative game together which is fun and also can learn a message while playing it.
II. Who are the TARGET people for the project?
How can we make audience with different ages and cultures to participate the interactive work together without feeling too bored or too challenged? How can we make certain messages delivered correctly to different age groups?
III. How can we achieve bigger SYNERGY EFFECT by making this project work well with the actual display of various fishes?
I think what to buy would be a matter after deciding what to make. Also Obviously, what to make must be affected by how much we have.
Posted by doox at 04:03 AM | Comments (0)
September 07, 2005
Sketch
Posted by doox at 08:33 PM | Comments (0)
September 06, 2005
Long Time No Sketches
Posted by doox at 12:45 AM | Comments (0)
September 01, 2005
Thinking about FUN-damentals of FUN
While thinking about my fun things, I realized that it gets more and more personal. I felt like writing diary. Then, the more I tried to think why it's fun for me, the less it got fun. I became homesick for a while, I suddenly missed so many stuffs I like that I don't have right now. Then, I asked myself what about new fun stuffs that I haven't experienced yet. Am I not trying enough to find new things? Am I feeling guilty when I try to find fun stuff rather than prepare for my career? Should I try to find fun in something related to my career? What's still fun which has no meaning or value but just fun? When so many questions come up in my mind, it gets less fun. So I just tried to find the happy moments I had in my memory and write them here.
I like to go to a book store to see various kinds of books, play the keyboard using different sound patches, draw using tablet, walk through the path surrounded by lots of trees, fold T-shirts smelling the freshness after laundry, watch birds' funny way of walking, sing walking, cook La-myun(noodle) experimentally, record and watch video files of me & my friends all happily chatting after drinking some alcohol, eat Korean street food standing and chatting with friends, watch classic music performance with my mother, talk about the strangest and weirdest ideas about making a game with friends, see my program working perfectly or find errors immediately, watch Korean soap opra, play a game that makes me feel that I'm really exploring inside the game world, sing R&B on the stage, shower with hot water, sing or playing "my favorite things" and so many other things...
This class really makes me think about myself because I'm the first subject when it comes to studying what makes people fun. In terms of that, this class feels like getting me more and more deep into philosophical matters of life.
I have a book called "14,000 things to be happy about." by Barbara Ann Kipfer. I certainly respect her talent to come up with so many things to make herself happy and write them one by one. I wonder if I could find that many things that make me fun or happy.
Posted by doox at 03:09 PM | Comments (0)