final thoughts

                  During this final week of our card game design, we had actual game developers come in to play test our game. We found that for the most part, the developers liked the concept of Sushi Chef. Creating a sushi roll would be fun thing to do in real life. Inevitably though, we still had some kinks and issues that were brought up throughout the game. People had issues with the two-card hand limit, so we tried increasing it to four cards. This turned out to be successful because it gives players more flexibility and choices when it comes to trading and discarding cards. We also realized that we should add more of the rare ingredients into the deck because some rolls require that one ingredient that can be near impossible to get at times. Also, our wild cards should not be labeled “wild card” on the back as we have them; this would not allow the other players to know if one of them has a wild card. It is interesting to see how even making one adjustment which we often see as an improvement to the game, can open up an entire new alley of problems that were not there before the adjustment. Game design involves constant revision and testing.

                  Observing the game developers and how they reviewed each game made me realize that they are still normal people with normal opinions. Even though they are professionals, and much more experienced than us students, they still have varying opinions. The opinion of one developer did not always match with the opinions of the others. One of them could make a suggestion that contradicted the suggestion of another, as often happened with our game. Previously, I had a feeling that all the developers would critique the game in a similar way because they all work in the same field, but this was not the case. Some developers enjoyed certain aspects of Sushi Chef, while others criticized those exact same aspects. In the end though, all of their comments and suggestions were well thought out, and helped us see flaws in our game and problems we need to work on.

--Fady Youssef

Week 5

This was an exciting week for our game sushi chef.  We were at a point, as a group where we were a little nervous that our game was to easy.  We had played it several times and were worried that other players might get bored of it, and perhaps we only thought it was fun because it was our game.  In class, we had the other groups play our games and we were happy to find out that a lot of players said our game was fun and enjoyable.  When we first started the game, we agreed that we wanted our players to have fun and think about sushi, which is a food that is associated with creative and exciting feelings.  We did however notice that the game was to short if there are only three players, and it really needs to have four.  When there were only three players, it seemed that someone won right away.  Some players also said they felt there was to much luck, but we discussed it and feel that the cards are fair.  For example, some players expressed their sushi roll had one ingredient that was at the bottom of the deck or another player had it, which made it impossible for them to win.  However, each roll has an ingredient that is special to that roll specifically.   Of course we duplicated some of the ingredients such as avocado, but each roll has at least one ingredient that none of the other rolls need.  Some of these ingredients include:  brown rice, mango, jalepeno, truffle oil, ect.  We also decided to add an extra wild card, to total 7 different ones that you could get – some would slow down the game and a few would speed it up.  Overall, we were happy with the responses we received from our classmates and only had to make a few minor changes from what they suggested.  Our biggest challenge, we realized was that players were unsure of what they could do on their turn.  As we discussed in class, we decided to make a reference card so that a player could simply look and know exactly what their options are on their turn.  We noticed that several players didn’t look to take/trade a card with their co-card-players, and we were kind of unsure of why not.  We feel that the option of taking a players’ card is a great strategy because you might be taking a card you know they need to win, for example.  Again, if players were reminded they could do this, or played it more than one time we think that would be a choice made more often.  We were also happy that we decided to add the option of creating the public roll, and having at least three cards down on the table to pick from.  Our game changed a lot from the rules we started with and we think that each time we played it we changed minor details to make it a little longer and give our players more options/strategies.

In addition, playing other students cards games was helpful when we returned to discuss our own game.  We were able to kind of compare and contrast the different features, rules, creativity, complexity, and overall fun-ness!  We were happy with our game and felt that we enjoyed playing our game compared to some of the others.  This might have been just relating back to our theme, and that we feel it is a laid back topic.  When people are sitting a Japanese restaurant, they spend time talking about the menu and what they want to order, and we think that the laughing and feelings it created for our players was exactly what we were looking for.  We felt a little frustrated when trying to learn a few of the games, but also believe that has to do with not having a reference card.  We also thought our game was coming out to be  more successful because all of our group members were so reliable in doing what we agreed on doing each week.  Our communication processes were really open and our team work and dividing up work was fair!  We are excited to have the new-comers play our game!

  

--Olivia Paladino