Designing the Rules
Building the materials
Play Testing
In this section, we highlight some play test results. Emoji indicate the general reactions of players in the testing groups.
Our team
(4) 🤔 |
We began with a rough idea, to make a card game that creates a safe space for structured story sharing among new teams. As a new team ourselves, we were ideal play testers. The test was successful in that we learned details about each other that would not have come up in most class project-based discussions. Some stories shared were fairly personal, and even required some amount of vulnerability to tell.
Through the test, we realized that we needed to do much more testing to design the rules. We left the session with our next goal defined: to test with classmates and decide between two broad styles of play, which evolved into the main game and what we have called "Bingo style." |
CS 377I
(2 x 4) 😴 |
Play testing in class yielded excellent feedback. We ran both versions, the main one and the "Bingo" version, and ultimately chose the former because it kept players focused on the speaker rather than the cards, and it elicited stories that were more connected to each other. This made it easier for players to find common ground.
It also became apparent that play would progress very slowly in the final version if we allowed arbitrarily long stories. Additionally, players inserted awkward pauses to encourage use of Elaborate Tokens (one said, "I'll stop there so you can red card me"). For future tests, we decided to encourage short stories. |
Women's Ultimate Frisbee
(3) 😆 |
Caitlin tested the game with her Stanford Women's Ultimate Frisbee team, who know each other quite well. Some stories involved multiple group members, which created quite a different dynamic than we had intended for the game with the formation of subgroups of players joined by stories.
Players liked that they could tell tidbits of stories that they had never shared before - ones that they had never had the opportunity to tell, had not thought others would find interesting, or had not remembered until prompted by the Story Prompt Cards. For example, someone liked that she got to tell a story about an email begging a former teacher to return to her school. |
Web Apps Classmates
(2 x 4) 😍 |
Ellen tested the game with her Web Applications students a few times at other TA's office hours. One group that had gotten to know each other from mutually struggling at office hours really enjoyed the game. In particular, they had fun with the prompts based on shared childhood experiences, like "Internet" and "Standardized Tests."
They noticed they were "spamming" the React Tokens and leaving the Elaborate Tokens untouched. They suggested repurposing the Cards Against Humanity "Card Czar" to encourage use of the Elaborate Tokens, which allowed for an excellent combination of fast gameplay, natural speech, and the feeling of validation associated with being asked to talk more. Lastly, this group told a few touching stories that (1) were very player-specific and (2) were fleshed-out and did not require Elaborate Tokens. However, the players really wanted to reward the storytellers in these cases. We decided to create a new token, the Heart, for these cases. |
Tech Interns (3)
😒 |
Ellen also tested the game with some undergraduate tech interns. Before the start of the game, they asked what its purpose was. Upon hearing a response along the lines of "to help new teams get to know each other," they expressed negative sentiment about getting to know co-workers beyond the minimal understanding required to communicate well. During play, they repeatedly asked how much longer the game would take.
From this test, we conclude that this game can only help foster vulnerability and empathy among teams if those teams actually want to get to know each other. It does not convince people that these goals are worthwhile. |
Ellen also informally tested with 3 university-aged friends at home, and Alexa tested with 3 PhD lab mates. Testers enjoyed the game, but these sections did not produce actionable feedback in terms of game rules.
Materials Testing
Prompt Cards
|
Our first Story Prompt Cards were on white paper. We also printed blue and black versions, but settled on white card stock for a more authentic play off of Cards Against Humanity. We briefly considered other materials, such as wood, but decided 6 wood cards would be too bulky to hold.
The first white card stock Story Prompt Cards were far too wide. To decide what the final dimensions should be, we actually folded the first cards to different sizes and held them in our hands to test the feel. |
Modifier Tiles
|
The final Modifier Tiles are made out of wood for a homey and friendly look. We briefly considered making them black plastic, like their Cards Against Humanity analogs, but thought that was too harsh. As an added bonus, the wood tiles are thick and very satisfying to flip.
|
Tokens
|
The Elaborate and React Tokens come in different shapes to be easily distinguishable, per user feedback. We chose wood for these as well because the tokens are small, and the clear acrylic versions we created were hard to pick up and hard to read. Also, the wood tokens make a lovely sound when tossed onto a table.
|
Playing Mat
|
We realized that without a guide for placing cards, tiles, and tokens, all the materials will be strewn everywhere. As a result, it becomes hard to remember which Story Prompt Cards were played on which Modifiers, who played them, etc. Constraining the players to a discrete number of Story Prompt Card spots would be an odd choice however, since the number of players is variable. So we envision a circular mat - with the Modifier Tiles flipped in the middle and the Story Prompt Cards played in a circle around them - to provide a bit of structure without being too restrictive. We did not get a chance to make it, but believe that this would be a good extension to add.
|