I'm an English teacher. I like to use games in my lessons to assess, instruct and review material with students. However, I found that no one game could respond to all my students' needs, or indeed, more than a few of them at once. There were other problems with the games I used. They were expensive to collect, required a lot of space to store, had fiddly bits that would get broken or lost, involved a long learning curve and much preparation time, often required the elimination of players to determine a winner, and could not easily accommodate the arrival of new players.
At first, I began designing my own games to get around the issue of cost, but many of the other problems just would not go away. I resolved to design a new game system which would finally eliminate--or at least minimize the effects of--most problems I experienced.
From the outset, my goals included reducing preparation time to nearly zero, giving players as much responsibilty as possible in determining the difficulty of the game and compliance with rules, and eliminating the tandem relationship between learning and winning. I also wanted a system which could be expanded to include new learning goals, which could admit new players mid-game, and which would not be affected by the mid-game departure of players.
My first attempt was not completely satisfying for me, but still pointed me in a fruitful direction. I developed a print-and-play game board which consisted of an 8 by 8 grid, where each cell contained an icon representing a language task that players would perform, should they land on it. Before starting the game, players chose a topic with which they were familiar. Then, each player would take small blank paper slips and write on each one a single word which they related to their chosen topic. These paper slips were folded up and mixed together in a bag or box. Players started the game on the first square (marked "Start"), rolled a die to advance their player token across the grid, and eventually would arrive at the last square (marked with a mortarboard icon) first to win the game. The intervening cells were occupied by thirty-one different language tasks, repeated in the same order. On landing on a square, a player might be required to draw a folded paper slip from the prepared supply in order to complete the indicated task; some tasks required the drawing of additional slips, or for opponents to draw slips instead.
It was a good start, but I still had a board, a die, and player tokens, and the game still took far too long to complete. It had variety, but still lacked the randomness I wanted because the game tasks were in a fixed order on the board. These problems almost magically disappeared as I began designing new language tasks to accommodate more learning objectives.
From 31 activities, the list quickly grew to about 100, and then to about 250 items. These would never fit legibly on a board, but as I conceived of even more game activities, I began writing them up on blank business cards and these cards seemed a logical replacement for the board and also afforded the randomness I was seeking. The game cards could be shuffled into a nearly-infinite range of combinations. By eliminating the board, I also eliminated the need for dice and player tokens, and by using the cards, I was now able to expand the game system as much as I wanted.
At first, I was rather pleased with the variety that 250 tasks provided, but I would occasionally add an item or two, and the system continued a slow expansion. Then, one day, I had a major breakthrough. I was riding the subway to work and reading my dictionary to pass the time. There was a moment when, reading about a word, I realised that it represented a new activity concept for my game. I put a mark in my dictionary next to the word and continued reading. However, having found one new game item this way, it wasn't long before I happened upon another entry which yielded the same outcome. Holy shit, I said to myself. I turned to the last page of my dictionary--page 900-something--and then it hit me: this book is filled with game ideas!
The game exploded from 250 items to more than 500 in a few weeks. Every day, I was adding 5, 10 or 20 new activities to the system. I needed a new box to hold all my cards. I also set myself a new goal of developing 1000 game concepts for the system.
It took some time, but by perusing my dictionary and other sources, I discovered hundreds of new ideas. I reached my goal of 1000 game concepts earlier this year. The list stands at more than 1100 items today and my new goal is to create 2000 word games for the system.
[total for Sept. 17/14 = 1285]
This was the genesis of my game. To reiterate the main points:
(1) Players choose their own topic.
(2) Players use readily-available material (e.g. scrap office paper) to create a "random" word pool.
(3) Players choose the words which will be used in the game.
(4) Players can also choose which game activities to include. They might choose to play one game, ten, a hundred, or all of them.
(5) Players can adjudicate the rules themselves.
(6) Players can decide whether and how to scale an activity for difficulty.
(7) Any number of people can play, from 1 to--how many have you got?
(8) There is no time limit; play can continue for five minutes or five hours. A suspended game can be resumed at any time, or in a different location.
(9) New players can join mid-game; players can leave mid-game.
(10) There is no board, no die, no player tokens, and no timer (unless players want to set a turn time limit).
(11) The game system is expandable and may respond to any theme desired. It may also be suitable for other subjects (e.g. math). It's even possible for players to add their own cards to the system during the game.
(12) The only "age limit" on the game is really a skill limit: players should be able to read and write, even if only at a basic level. Players of different ages (abilities) can play together.
(13) Accumulation of points is independent of the learning experience. Learners are the winners, not those players with the most points.
A few details remain unresolved. I don't have a name for the game yet. I have a few ideas for the supporting artwork, but I'm not an artist myself, so this work remains undone as well. I believe the system could be marketed in "basic" and "expansion" modules (of about 100 cards each), but I haven't yet determined a rubric for creating these. I think I want to self-publish--at least at the beginning--but I am a complete unknown in the game business, and I don't have deep pockets to afford costly mistakes.
I am participating in the Board Game Designers Forum to sound out the potential response to my game, and I've already received some encouraging feedback and some thoughtful suggestions from people who certainly understand the big picture better than I do--you know who you are--and for this I am very grateful.
I've started this game journal today to share my discovery with all of you. Hopefully, this will someday develop into something tangible that you can purchase and enjoy with your own students, family, coworkers and friends. Some of you are already in line to receive complimentary samples as a tiny token of my appreciation for your help and advice. If you've taken the time to read this, I also thank you for your interest and patience.
This has been a wonderful experience for me, and I hope it continues.
BGDF Rules!
Comments
Based on all the different
Based on all the different tasks and options, this should make an awesome computer app/game, instead of a boardgame. If you want to explore more into this option please don't hesitate contacting me :)
This was never the plan.
I never intended for this to become digital in any way. Indeed, many (if not most) of the activities cannot be transformed into digital versions of the same thing. Moreover, having these activities in digital form defeats the purpose of the design, rather than enhancing it, and it does this at a fundamental level.
For example, the players are to make up their own stock of words to play with in their game. These words are handwritten--and perhaps misspelled as well--on individual pieces of paper. How does this translate into a digital form? It doesn't. It's impossible to have anything handwritten in a digital form. You might suggest that the words be entered using a keypad instead, but this does not include the variability of handwriting.
Here's another example of why this won't work digitally. Players using this activity on their mobile platform may not be together. What's to stop someone from cheating by looking in their dictionary or collaborating with extra people? Nothing.
Yet another example. Most activities require an oral response, so not only does the respondent have to use a microphone, all the other players need to listen to the response as well. In real time. What if someone is driving? or working? They won't be able to listen when they should, so the game is either held up for them, or it gets broken.
Some of the solo activities might be suitable for digital versions, but there still wouldn't be any handwritten terms on paper slips.
The plan has always been to keep the design low-tech, with as few components as possible, and no special equipment required.
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough about this point earlier.
Categorization
This is a fascinating read, learning of your design journey.
I've been a teacher as well, for typical adults as well as those with special needs. I love sneaking educational initiatives into what appears to just be a game. It's always pleasing to see someone realize that they're learning something while they're playing. To me, that's the epitome of teaching: learning something new is an enjoyable experience. So hats off to you for putting this together!
I'm curious to know of your organization method for all these games and cards. For your "easiest 100," for example, are they organized simply by challenge/difficulty level, or is there some other form of organization? Do you have themes delineated? Although there's been no indication of the types of games listed on individual cards, is there a way to develop categories?
I bring this up because when you have such a large pool of materials, it can be daunting or intimidating to a player/user in terms of choosing which ones to include. Game expansions have themes involved: look at Dominion or Thunderstone, for example. Each expansion has some thematic link or specific feature that makes it distinct from the others.
Another thing to consider is a "randomizer" deck. Like in the two examples I listed above, there's a deck of cards used in the beginning to help players determine the makeup of their tableau - that is, which sets of cards out of the available assortment will be used. By letting the decisions be made for them, players can move past the "choosing" stage and move as quickly as possible through setup and go into playing the game.
Best of success to you on this! Hopefully my concerns and suggestions for organization/categorization have already been addressed. Have fun!
Responding to these questions...
The "Easiest 100" were culled from the mix based on their overall low level of difficulty, based partly on observations of how my students responded. Of course, some folks might have a different list for themselves, and native users of the language, in particular, might also classify some of the "harder" tasks as "easy" (or the other way around).
Another reason for selecting this number (100) was to take advantage of some d20 I had lying around. I could give a table of students a numbered handout with a pair of dice and dispense with making up two or three sets of cards. I might have used other dice sets (e.g. d12) with shorter lists.
While there are many tasks in the system which have structural similarity, there isn't really a theme running through everything, unless "words" counts as a theme. Instead, the system requires the players themselves to choose a game theme which will inform all the terms they deposit in the stock at the beginning.
There are a few groups of tasks which are quite similar, but even so, these seldom number more than a few and compared to the whole system, may be only as much as 0.5% of all the cards.
For example, there are at least two sets of "spotter" cards; one group deals with stress placement (e.g. Trochee Spotter, Dactyl Spotter, etc.) and the other deals with spelling (e.g. Diphthong Spotter, Digraph Spotter, Blend Spotter, etc.). There are also groups of cards dealing with alphabetization, visualization, memory, pronunciation, semantics, grammar, etymology and other features of language, as well as groups derived from popular culture (e.g. memes, clichés, titles, events). There are probably more.
Another method of grouping the cards (other than by difficulty) might be by the number of players involved in the task. Many--if not most--of the tasks can be performed solo; a fair number also involve at least one other player; some tasks involve everyone playing. Still, these groups do not have similar numbers of members (solo tasks >800; partnered tasks >200; group tasks >50). This grouping method responds to the issue of different numbers of available players; perhaps an icon in the corner of the card can indicate (more quickly than might be deduced from actually reading the card text) how many players are involved.
Beyond this, I have developed alternate titles--and some special cards--to deal with some holiday themes. For example, there are already cards in the system for Hallowe'en, Christmas and Valentine's Day, but these are too few in number (<20 each) presently to constitute playable variations.
To help potential users make some sense of what structure there is (graded difficulty?), my intention is to release the system in modules of about 200 cards each, beginning with those I believe represent the "easy" tasks, and working my way up through the deck toward the "difficult" tasks.
While the design does not articulate a prescribed scoring structure, I imagine users will either record or remember those tasks they have completed successfully in the past. At one point in the design process, I had considered grading the game tasks in a manner analogous to the way students matriculate through an academic system.
The "easy" cards were analogous to "prep school", the "harder" cards" to undergraduate university, and the "difficult" cards to graduate school.
However, not only was this rubric overtly "educational" (the kiss of death for tabletop games), it also reflected a sub-culture many folks might consider "elitist". This theme could inform the requisite box art (e.g. Varsity font), but even to me, it lacked sparkle in the shelf appeal department.
The breakthrough I now seek is the metagame for this system.
I can imagine users devising all manner of selecting their cards, arranging play and scoring, but I know also that players may take the system to new places, into the "white space" beyond the margins of its present conception. Users may discover and exploit these realms in ways I cannot predict, much less control.
Even so, I'd like to nudge this thing in a suitable direction.
Feel free to extend this exchange.
UPDATE
This project is nearing its eventual configuration. The product will be a box containing more than 200 poker-sized cards, each with instructions for users. How the cards are used is described on the box, thusly:
"There are more than 200 word games described on the cards inside this box.
> Step one: choose which cards to include in your game. For more repetition, choose fewer cards; for more novelty, choose more cards.
> Step two: choose a theme or topic that every player understands well.
> Step three: tear or cut scrap office paper in half four times, and on each paper slip, write ONE word connected with your game topic.
> Step four: fold up all the slips and mix them together; this is your WORDSTOCK.
You're ready to play; take turns drawing cards from your deck and following the instructions. Draw a word from the stock now; the player whose name appears closest to it alphabetically will take the first turn."
Other box information:
Players: 1+
Play time: 10 minutes+
Age: reading
Contents: [#] cards
Not included: paper, pencils
You ask me to come and look
It sounds like you have a game here.
One of the ways to keep your cost down:
1. Print and play - I buy some of my games like this and I print them out.
2. Cut Out - Print then out and let them do the cutting.
3. Parts - Make the fist part of the game and then make expansions of the game.
4. Full Game - Make the hole game.
See how this may work for the price. A lot of game makers do this.
Also a place you may want to look at for publishing and printing of the game is Game Crafter.
They will publish, sell, and market the game. You can but 1 or 100 this is good for a prototype game
or people can go there to buy.
Do you have a place on line where we can go to see the game rule and some of the card this way
I can help you a little better.
I all ways to look at new game and hope to see your game soon on store shelves.
Update
WORDSTOCK: Get Together
"Wordstock" is a variation on "Woodstock", the era-defining rock music festival of August 1969. The backs of the cards will feature a rainbow tie-dye swirl of colour; the faces, a border trimmed from this image. The name of the game will appear in "Woodstock" font, as will the titles and flavour text on all the cards (remaining text in a generic sans serif font). The tag, "Get Together" alludes to the 1960's rock anthem of the same title; coincidentally, the song was the third selection performed at Woodstock, on opening day.
The cards are now being assembled into their modules, with the first one to include all the easiest language tasks--more than 200 cards altogether.
Manufacturers (America, Europe, China) are being consulted.
Let me try
I would be interested to try it out. I'm a middle school librarian and last year we did school-wide apples-to-apples via the morning announcements, to help boost vocabulary. The kids and the teachers loved it, so I'd like to see what you've got.
Yort
I like libraries!
Okay, Yort. I'll send you the basic ruleset, which is my personal selection of the 100 "easiest" items (there are more than 1100 altogether now).
If you can get a box of blank business cards, you can write each item on a card, and play that way. If you can get a pair of d10, you can simply print the list and let players roll dice to determine their fate. The game is designed so you can pick and choose those items which best suit your needs or goals, so feel free to improvise.