Paper Prototype Assignment
The assignment:
For this assignment, we had to work in pairs and in a short time come up with a game based on the theme “repair,” then create a paper prototype of the game. The game we came up with is a simple game where the player must put the pieces together to repair a spaceship, but if they uncovered the alien by moving the asteroids while looking for parts, the player loses.
Brainstorming
For this process, we came up with a bunch of different ideas of things that could be repaired. This was a difficult part of the process due to the time constraint and the very loose theme that we had to work with.
After we had ll the ideas, we went through the list and graded them based on how much we liked them and how difficult we thought it would be to create. In the end, we decided on ‘repairing a spaceship’.
Playtesting
Upon having multiple classmates playtest the game we received some helpful feedback. One point of feedback given multiple times was that the game is too easy. The mechanics were very simple and there was not much outside of that such as good story or art to make up for this. The common piece of feedback was that the game was not replayable. It was set up the same every time, so it was easy to just remember where the alien is and not uncover it again.
Given the time to iterate upon our design, there are a few changes I would like to make that would address these problems. Most importantly, I would add multiple levels/layouts to the game so it plays differently every time. Different levels could also change the number of aliens or the shape of the ship pieces to add a different level of challenge to the game. The other thing I would change is adding some kind of lore or story so the player knows why the aliens are bad and to add some perceived stakes to the gameplay experience.