Philip ([info]philiptan) wrote,
@ 2009-04-28 15:09:00
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Prototyping kit alpha

Prototyping kit alpha
Originally uploaded by philiptan
I've been taking a stab at assembling a gameplay prototyping kit for our summer students. This is itself a prototype... trying to get everything to fit in a neat little bag, collecting my favorite generic game bits, and figuring out what's missing.

The discs are already proving to be difficult... these are the old Ray Line tracer discs (5 colors, 10 discs each) that have a single notch, so you can use them to indicate heading. Or you can use them for victory points/currency tokens. But Ray Line has been bought out by a hockey equipment manufacturer, so I'm not sure if they still make those things in the quantities I need.

Update: Ray Line does indeed still make tracer discs in massive quantities! Score!

The index cards are another problem. They're cheap and easily restockable when you run out, but they take up so much real estate in the bag, and they're a little too big (3"x5") for a card game. That being said, having a large card means I can go with the cheapest Sharpie available, which has a pretty thick writing tip. (And the cards are great for Cartagena-style maps.)

The fold-up map is a fairly new addition. I'm not sure if it's necessary but it doesn't take up much space. One thing that I'm not doing is providing UI prototyping tools... there's just not enough space for glue sticks, scissors, Post-its, and other things I find useful for UI. Maybe I'll make a different pack in the future.

Anyway, comments would be extremely welcome!

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[info]dariusk
2009-04-28 07:28 pm UTC (link)
Have you spoken to Brenda Brathwaite about this? She's done a lot of research into places where you can order board game prototype pieces from.

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[info]philiptan
2009-04-28 07:31 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, I was planning on picking her brain when she comes to campus in June. :)

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[info]firstfrost
2009-04-28 07:35 pm UTC (link)
Dice?

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[info]firstfrost
2009-04-28 07:36 pm UTC (link)
Oops, sorry, I can see them when I look at the larger picture, but I really couldn't in the thumbnail. :)

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[info]philiptan
2009-04-28 08:50 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, the dark purple doesn't stand out. I've ordered some nice blue and red D20s in bulk. Unfortunately, I've only just realized I could have saved 50% on the dice by buying them from educational suppliers instead of game suppliers.

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[info]alecaustin
2009-04-30 06:41 am UTC (link)
...educational suppliers get discounted d20s? =(

It's a strange and terrible world.

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[info]philiptan
2009-05-02 03:28 am UTC (link)
I could live in a world where D20s are in every elementary school.

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[info]kelkyag
2009-04-29 05:27 am UTC (link)
Do you need parts you can get reliably, or just a reasonably wide useful assortment? The Children's Museum recycle shop will have all sorts of interesting tidbits, but not necessarily the same things twice.

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[info]philiptan
2009-04-29 03:50 pm UTC (link)
I actually want reliably-sourced parts, but hitting up the recycle shop might be a good way to keep the lab supplied with bits. Thanks!

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[info]alecaustin
2009-04-30 06:57 am UTC (link)
This is all pretty cool. While I don't have any additional suggestions for a physical prototyping kit (aside from smaller/more cards, as you've already noted), it might be good to have examples of the kinds of clarity issues and rules pitfalls that are common to board games with unclear instructions.

That might even be more valuable as another stage of the process - I know when we had a two-day game creation workshop at EA, there were people in my group who wouldn't believe me when I told them that players weren't going to understand how to play our game from our instructions. While software has more tools for teaching players rules than a hastily written instruction sheet, it's good to make people realize how much a player needs to learn to have fun/play the game the designer intended.

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[info]philiptan
2009-05-02 03:03 am UTC (link)
I'm going to be introducing the kit as part of my class in the Fall, where I intend to explain how rules are often unclear, and fully expect to be ignored until the students actually have to test their games.

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[info]hariyos
2009-04-30 12:50 pm UTC (link)
Ha, meeples.

I'd really throw in more than a single d6, and I might put a pair of d10s in as well - not because I'm a tabletop geek, but because d10s could be used for tracking victory points pretty easily as well.

Do you have access to any way to get piles of cardstock cut in a particular pattern (a 6-hex triangle, for example)? I doubt you want to supply it at the outset, but if someone decides they really want to have fun-topology tiles, can you produce them?

I'm worried about diversity of shape of objects in that bag. Right now you've got discs and meeples. Colors isn't going to help you; normal people use colors to denote player, and it's cumbersome to say "Oh, I'm the red and yellow player. Which color is my army and which color is my navy? Dude why do you keep putting your heavy infantry in the water spaces?" (Substitute your favorite genre for my pseudogrognardism. Maybe you're playing Ponies and Rainbows and you keep using the Pony meeple on the Rainbow plane and that Just Doesn't Work, you can't prop up a Pony on two clouds, that just doesn't make *sense*)

I've got a boardgamegeek friend at work. Do you mind if I show this to him?

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[info]hariyos
2009-04-30 01:12 pm UTC (link)
Do you have access to any way to get piles of cardstock cut in a particular pattern (a 6-hex triangle, for example)? I doubt you want to supply it at the outset, but if someone decides they really want to have fun-topology tiles, can you produce them?

The reason I say this is that you pack a hex map in the kit. Someone is going to look at that, have a geometry-gasm, and spend the next 2 days cutting out tiles with scissors. If you can just produce some for said person, you save them 2 days of kindergarten arts class.

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[info]gnibbles
2009-04-30 04:57 pm UTC (link)
Someone is going to look at that, have a geometry-gasm, and spend the next 2 days cutting out tiles with scissors.

Haha, that sounds like me. >.>;;;

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[info]philiptan
2009-05-02 03:17 am UTC (link)
I'm going to put in a pair of D6s, so you can get familiar probability curves. There are 10 of each color of discs, which is my default token for victory point counters, and I don't have any reason NOT to get D10s other than having already spent a lot of money on dice. :(

Getting cardstock cut in weird shapes gets expensive, but the educational supplier I linked in my original post has tons of geometric shapes in wood and plastic for cheap, with and without magnets. They might be a little thick to fit in the bag, though.

As for different shapes, I'm going to check out their vehicle counters. They have dinosaurs too.

Thanks for the ideas!

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[info]philiptan
2009-05-02 03:27 am UTC (link)
Oh yeah, go ahead and share the link to the photo or blog post. I'll try to upload pictures of version 2 of the kit once my dice order arrives.

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[info]fredrickegerman
2009-04-30 03:07 pm UTC (link)
The classic wooden cubes in addition to meeples, maybe?

Where do you order meeples in bulk, anyhow?

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[info]philiptan
2009-05-02 03:24 am UTC (link)
You can order meeples from here but I may already have too many. If you need meeples, let me know and we can work something out.

You can also get wooden cubes from there or EAI, the educational supplier I linked above. The prices are similar, but EAI offers free shipping for orders of more than $100.

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