Prototype 2 - Feedback - Mara

Goals -- too daunting? Pile up too quickly and never solved, should have the feeling of being manageable and slowly solvable.


Settlers of Catan style trading mechanic? Trade 3 red or 3 blue etc for 1 of a color.

Puzzle mechanics -- too hard/unrewarding and too short? Maybe the puzzle should be closer to a crossword or sudoku in terms of difficulty to inspire casual players to at least get interested.

Discard memory (hand)? One way to get rid of stone glut would be to force players to discared some/most of their memory (hand) each turn. This would also be nice because it would give identity a second meaning/conflicting purpose -- i.e. as storage of certain qualities that you want to eventually be your goal. Additionally maybe goals should just be on the identity part -- you have all these stones floating around but the idea is you want your identity to look like xyz cause that's what really matters at the end of the day.

Signalling/Outward facing identity trading instead of getting? Maybe you trade each other whatever your outwarding facing identity is, making it more of a signal and also more interesting in terms of making yourself attractive. Also would be interesting if there were more stone types and some might be rarer than others.

Trending? To keep up with goals if trading is zero sum sometimes/most of the time, maybe players get an extra stone each turn. Instead of that stone being random, maybe it's based on trending (which is great in world focused purely on identity) which is to say the least owned stone becomes trending or the most owned stone becomes trending or even it's based on #hampshiregame #stonecolor mentions on twitter or something.

Identity board -- locked? Maybe instead of being able to change in and out freely, you have to discard and replace stones on the identity board. Maybe the identity board should feel like storage and the hand should feel like short-term memory, or interim storage for just that turn. In fact, maybe turns should be about trying desperately to get the stones you need so you can lock them into your identity before your memory disappears and is replaced. Maybe the identity board is larger for this purpose.

Feedback from Prototype 1

Ran prototype 1 at home this weekend with Mara, Frank and Hilary. Here's some of the feedback I got, written up.

Identity Stuff


-- Mix unknown and known layers of identity/gender somehow in a larger context.
   -- How can the unknown parts affect your payouts?
   -- How do you reveal/discover the code in an interesting way for casual and hardcore players alike? Maybe     think ARG or puzzle game model, in a very lite way.

-- Identity changes require you to use resources from your pool -- you have to spend them on the identity somehow.

-- Your identity/outward parts of your identity fundamentally affects other players payouts/maybe identities in a really fundamental way. This is why players trade with you, and why players might trade with other players as well. Social signalling. 

-- Your code also affects your starting resources and goal.

-- Your code is unique.

-- There should be a present and future tradeoff for having resources/not having resources to make putting resources into your gender/identity an interesting decision. Some sort of reason you would want money in the bank vs money in the pocket and vice versa.

-- The gender/identity board should be large enough that you can focus on *that* or you can focus on trading and each would give you different benefits.

Resources


-- More types of resources.

-- 1 crafted only resource (you can't start with it) that maybe has some kind of special effect.



Style


-- Name: Soma?

-- Performance art but also math problem.

-- Stronger/heavier typing and styling on everything is key. Key.