Hi everyone!
Please enjoy this summary from myself and my team on the games our two groups came up with during the November edition of “Build a Game in Two-Hours or Less” and check out the Meetup Group that made it all possible!
Spin (a tale)
In Spin (a tale) players are given a few images at the start of the game. Players pick the image they think most likely to be used to tell a story when stacked up against similar images.
All images are then shuffled together and a number determined by the number of players is dealt out on the table. Going around in a circle players take turns telling stories using the cards on the board and at the end of each story all other players vote for their favorite part (blue tokens) of the story and their least favorite (red tokens) part of the story.
When the voting is complete, the image with the most “least favorite” (red) tokens on it is removed. If the image removed was one of the images chosen by a player at the start of the game they say so and score a point for every “favorite” (blue) token that was on the image when removed (images can collect both types of votes).
Remember the Tale (images pending)
In Remember the Tale, players are dealt five cards out of a normal deck of cards. Each number/face value corresponds to a word. For example, 2 = Coin, 3 = Merchant, Q = Curse, K = Knight, A = Sword, etc.
The first player chooses a card from his/her hand to play and puts it face down, using the corresponding word in a sentence. For example, if the player puts down a 2, s/he could use the phrase “A traveler found a coin lying on the road.” The other plays now bet, on a scale from 0 to 5, if they believe that part of the story or not.
Once the bids are in, the card is flipped. If the card was red, meaning a diamond or a heart, then the statement is false. Spade or club, the statement is true.
Based on their bids, players earn (or lose) points. Player 1 now draws a new card from the deck to replace the one s/he played, that way s/he always has five cards. Player 2 now must choose a card from their hand, use their card’s word in a sentence that builds upon the previous statement and the process repeats until there are no more cards left to play.
This iteration of the game we generated used playing cards because it was an accessible way to get the game functioning, however further iterations of the game would most likely see the deck of standard playing cards replaced with a custom deck that contain words, rather than having number cards that reference words. Additional attention would need to be paid to balance and score keeping, as those elements may need fine-tuning.
Building a Game in 2-Hours
It is worth noting that I have a longer blog post coming on the format we use to consistently build multiple games in 2-hours or less month-over-month. Here is a quick summary of how these games were created
Our Meetup Group is founded on the idea that rapid prototyping is the best way to build community and teach game design. That means that over the course of 2 hours we discuss, build and play our games in time-boxed 15-minute increments. We cycle through the discuss, build and play steps as many times as we can in 2 hours and always wind up with a lot more to show for our work then people expect.
Thanks for reading! What is one tactic you like to use when building games?