Week 2 readings

For week 2 we dove into a lot of information within our chapters and got to apply some of it to our game design within the class. For me, it was most prominent when we were playing the board game "Up The River" in class and started attempting to mod it within class to suit our desires. Before we even started the game I already sort of guessed what would frustrate me and that was the fact the game is entirely random. Macklin and Sharp would define this type of game as a "Games of Chance and Uncertainty" Ch.3 but also one that incorporates some set of control to the player, so as to implement a strategy to this. This was helpful because it made me feel like it wasn't entirely out of my hands but it also made me feel like my victories weren't just entirely chance-based. I earned them in a way.  It was an important innovation but even still the game felt entirely too random, when talking about chance and uncertainty Macklain and Sharp say "The more chance, the harder it is for a player to develop strategies," Ch.2 such as to say the point of it is to shake up the gameplay, and in the case of "up The River" my guess is it was an attempt to even the playing field between children and adults. But again it creates a problem. Most everyone in our classroom agreed that it was so random and so uncertain even though elements of strategy were in the game they were overshadowed by its dice roll mechanic. 

One of the things I enjoy about "Up The River" despite all my grievances is how well it allows for all different kinds of gamers to play and enjoy. I could see there was a clear intention behind the game when we read rules like how rolling a six would allow one to either help themself or detriment another player, the detriment clearly being an addition for the "Killers" of the world. Not literally, but "Killers" as they are defined in Macklain and Sharp, as "the players who like to impose their will on other players." Ch. 4 It also offered up a funny thought when other players in our class were implementing game modifications, one group created an entirely new goal that was "Killer" oriented allowing players to shoot off pieces of the boards with a Nerf gun. It makes me wonder as designers, how influenced we are by our own joys and how we could be wise to make sure to understand all different player groups.