Story: You are one of several jesters performing at the King’s week long banquet. Jesters got bills to pay so earn the most before the banquet ends!
Platform: Physical | Time: 2 weeks | Role: Designer | Team Size: 1
Design Challenge: Design and develop a game featuring the use of one or more dice.
My Contributions: I designed, and developed this project. This involved brainstorming, conducting playtesting and iterating the game several times.
Development
Analysis & Brainstorming
Problem Statement
First I considered some of the problems with dice:
- Dice don’t hold their state, when rolled they change.
- Rolling one small dice alone sucks.
- Traditional dice are 6 sided symmetric.
- Rolling two equal dice together causes predictable regression to the mean.
- Dice are solid state probability elements, they are the same throughout the game.
- When dice are rolled they are visible to everyone.
Ideas
During Brainstorming I read through a number of Dice Games:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dice_games
Then came up with a few ideas:
- Dice that determine a persona in a social situation
- Team based game where there are fixed resource which each collects
- Game has a number of chips, and a dice is thrown that has on it a number of concepts e.g fruit, country. Whatever comes up the first person to name something in that category wins that chip.
- Game where two players roll together to score points, matching dice score a point mismatching lose points, single winner to 6 points win – problem is that probabilities are ⅙ of scoring so losing happens a lot more.
- Game where players throw dice and winner takes chips
- What about a game that you roll and everyone but you can see your dice
From these ideas I developed some candidates.
Candidates
Candidate 1
Taking idea two and the game LCR I developed a prototype. In this prototype players would hold three cards they kept hidden. Each would initially be one of each color card R,G, or B. The mechanic was two dice were rolled and based on the number you had to pass one card to the person opposite, left or right to you. The goal of the game was to collect all of a certain color.
Playtest
Date: February 1 – 14:00
Playtesters: Me
Time: 10 minutes
The game felt too random, and didn’t feel good having three cards and having to hand away two every turn. It destroyed a player’s strategy of trying to collect all of them.
I tried a team version of this game, and had trouble at end when judging if you had won or not. This was because players had no good way of guessing whether their team mate had the last card that they didn’t have. Finally I moved on to another candidate.
Candidate 2
Considering idea 5 I found a dice game called Mexican. I liked the idea of dice battling against each other for lives. I modified this idea to instead use numerically increasing value gains with chips.
Initial Rules
- Each player has two dice and 10 chips
- Players throw 1 chip on the first turn and one more every turn
- Each turn a player trolls two of their dice and the winning player takes double what they bet
- In the case of draws players reroll till a winner emerges
Playtesting
Playtest 1
In this playtest I did not have any prepared materials and so used a mish mash of dice and tokens.
Date: February 1 – 20:00
Playtesters:
- Male, 24, semi novice dice player
- Female, 22, novice dice player,
- Me
Time: 5-6 minutes
Playtester Comments:
- Token added a lot, nice glass smooth
- Didn’t like how dice were different in any other way than color, felt like some dice were better than others
- Would make for a nice drinking game
- Enjoyed it, and didn’t bet extra at all
- Intense, short experience with very little strategy, but fun
- Playtesters thought 6-6 should be a special case
- Draw cases not well defined
Observations:
- Playtesters had trouble counting tokens
Revisions
| # | Description | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Changed rule set now when a round of players have been completed only then is the minimum amount increased | Slow down the game to try encourage strategic thinking. |
| 2 | Draws split the pot evenly | Handling of draw cases |
| 3 | Bought chips | Made counting easier |
| 4 | Made 6-6 a special case as an automatic win | Reward for special case |
Playtest 2 - 1
Date: February 2 – 21:00
Playtesters:
- Male, 24, semi novice dice player
- Male, 30, advanced player
- Me
Time: 15 minutes
Playtester Comments:
- Casual players enjoyed it less because of slow down of pace
- More experienced players played the strategy of making slightly bigger bets at the beginning, but still lost and felt frustrated because the game requires little skill
Observations:
- Special case of 6-6 never occurred
- Increasing the bet by one per round added a lot of tension quickly, might make it after a whole round of players to encourage strategic thinking
Revisions
| # | Description | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Added 1-1 special case | Increase the probability of a special roll |
Playtest 2 - 2
Date: February 3 – 21:00
Playtesters:
- Male, 24, semi novice dice player
- Female, 22, novice dice player
- Male, 25, experienced player
- Me
Time: 8 minutes
Playtester Comments:
- Casual players still had fun
- Hardcore player still didn’t have fun at all because they interpreted the game to have little or no strategy which did not appeal to him
- I played with the casual players from Playtest 2-1 who preferred that version
Observations:
- Game snowballed if player initially won, because they would continually bet minimum and people initially lost tended to keep losing chips.
- Game became a more fun for remaining players who started betting all in or big bets to end quickly but was boring for people who got out early.
Revision
I wanted to add an element of skill so I overhauled the rule set and added a thematic element to the game.
Thematically I imagined a king setting a standard somewhere on a bell curve and a bunch of jesters trying to out do each other with displays to Please The King!
| # | Description | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Made each dice the same size | Eliminate 'feeling; of difference between dices |
| 2 | Added a public non player controlled dice to control probability calculations | Added more strategy to the betting system with a fixed value judgement |
| 3 | Added a mechanic called King's favor | A method to addressing stalemates. First consideration of numeric difference to consider many cases of non matching rolls. Next is consideration of matching rolls based on numerical matching. Design moves towards kings exact preference |
| 4 | Rethemed game to call it Please the King! | Wanted to create a motivation and story around the game to add to experience |
| 5 | New Rule Sheet | Wanted to start working on a written rule sheet so I didn’t have to explain it every time |
Playtest 3
Date: February 4 – 17:30
Playtesters:
- Female, 22, average player
- Male, 33, experienced
- Me
Time: 15 minutes
Playtester Comments:
- One play tester didn’t like the idea of being able to go all in
- Needed more clearly defined value judgement, maybe a card with rules on how to interpret the values
- Wondered what it would be like if the reroll could involve, re rolling meant ability to choose either to re roll one or two
- Wondered if king had more than two dice if it would be more interesting
- Liked the idea of pleasing the king, gave a motivation, said it made sense thematically
Observations:
- Playtesters understood game pretty fast
- Three players, one got out early, who got bored
- Winner and second place came close, leading to a climax where losing meant sudden death
- No complaints about increasing of 1 tax per turn
- Playtesters said only one minimum bet reroll is better
Revision
| # | Description | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Added rule for only one reroll per turn | Stop the person with the most money winning by rerolling a lot |
| 2 | Created a physical board for the game | Reinforce thematic element |
| 3 | Used a royal seal in the king's box to signify royalty | Reinforce thematic element |
| 4 | Used a raised platform to show king is above all others | Reinforce thematic element |
| 5 | Made the Jester money boxes to remind Jesters that their death is at the bottom of the box | Reinforce thematic element |
| 6 | Changed pay theme to instead of all in instead have it so that Jesters must collect money to pay by the end of the season or be beheaded! | Added a survival motivation |
| 7 | Made a railing on the platform to help with dice from falling off the platform | Dice fell off the table |
| 8 | Reduced the number of chips | Shorten the experience so a player who got out early is less likely to be bored |
Playtest 4
Date: February 6 – 20:00
Playtesters:
- Female, 22, novice player
- Female 23, noice player
- Male, 33, experienced
- Me
Time: 15 – 20 minutes
Playtester Comments:
- Playtesters liked the theming
- Started to feel tedious at end
- Felt great till end
- First person to get out felt helpless and frustrating cause they got out early
- Felt long
- Losing playtester liked Last Chance feature (roll without paying tax, winning didn’t so much)
Observations:
- First player out at round 5
- Second at round 9
- Third at round 12
Average score: 3 – 3.5
| # | Description | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Changed to 10 chips | Shorten the game |
Playtest 5
Date: February 7 – 13:30
Playtesters:
- Male, 50, super hardcore player
- Me
- Male, 23, novice player
- Male 21, experienced player
Time: 15 minutes
Playtester Comments:
- Playtesters suggested changing to D10 instead of d6
- Players found matching system super confusing
- Match system is fussy
- Interesting ideas
Observations:
- 10 chips was good
- Nobody was too bored
- People didn’t roll on the board
- People would often forget to pay in
Revision
| # | Description | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Changed matching system to have it by value comparison rather than number comparisons by dice | Realized odd calculation was what was important so wanted to simplify the experience so players could focus on that |
Playtest 6 - 1
Date: February 7 – 14:30
Playtesters:
- Female 21, semi novice player
- Male 23, semi novice player
- Me
Time: 10 – 15 minutes
Playtester Comments:
- Playtesters found it frustrating that one player would be a clear obvious winner around the middle of the game
Observations:
- Comparing and rolling went much more smoothly and playtesters due to simplified comparison system
- Playtesters would again forgot to pay in
Playtest 6 - 2
Date: February 10 – 20:00
Playtesters:
- Male 23, semi novice player
- Me
Time: 15 minutes
Playtester Comments:
- Had fun
- Found three dice a little difficult to calculate
Revision
| # | Description | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Changed Jesters 2D6 to a D4-D8-D12 | Wanted to make choice of probability choice more interesting |
| 2 | Tiered payout system instead of payout to only one player | Tried to solve problem of winner being too apparent early |
| 3 | Updated rule sheet | Add structure in to make experience easier to absorb |
| 4 | Changed king's dice from 2D6 to 5D6 | Wanted to create cases where players have to maximise and thought adding more dice would be fun to roll |
Playtest 7
Date: Friday 11 – 17:50
Playtesters:
- 21 male, hardcore player
- 30 male, hardcore player
- 23 male, experienced player
- 24 male, experienced player
Time: 15 minutes long
Playtester Comments:
- Felt like it took 30 minutes when it took 15 minutes
- Told to consider probability distribution more
- Found counting the Kings 5D6 a slow tedious task
- Players didn’t think it was fun to roll King’s dice because the King’s dice is not their dice
- Suggested rephrasing the rules to make it easier to understand
Observations:
- One playtester didn’t like maths, and used his phone to keep track of numbers
- Playtesters used their fingers to record differences
- Playtesters arranged payouts in advance of the round to make it faster
Revision
| # | Description | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Modified the rule sheet to include terms and bullet points with breakdowns as well as more explicit details | Make the game easier to understand |
| 2 | Included a method of keeping track of your difference | Take the mental load off the player |
| 3 | Changed players D4-D8-D12 to D8-D10-D12 | Due to analysis of probability curve and number distribution (refer to Anything Else section) |
| 4 | King’s Dice changed from 5D6 with pips on them to a D20 and D10 with numbers | TO make it easier to read and I preferred the more flat probability curve (refer to Anything Else section) |
Playtest 8
Date: February 13 – 20:35
Playtesters:
- Male 21, hardcore player
- Male 24, semi novice player
- Me
- Male 23, experienced player
Time: 15 minutes
Playtester Comments:
- Found rules difficult to understand
- Figuring out people’s dice roll most difficult
Observations:
- Understood rules quickly and game was resolved with payouts = 21,22,15,10
Revision
| # | Description | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduced a sheet of numbers and player use a token to mark what their difference from the king's favor is. | Make figuring out players difference easier |
Playtest 9
Date: February 13 – 23:00
Playtesters:
- Male
- Me
- Male
Time: 15 minutes
Playtester Comments:
- As soon as one playtesters heard about terms then they switched off
- Instead of difference players put down the number they got so they could visualize the difference easily
Observations:
- Using the new scoreboard worked well.
Revision
| # | Description | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Added a day counter row as well | Get another unnecessary detail out of the player's head |
Final Set of Rules
You are one of several jesters performing at the King’s week long banquet. Jesters got bills to pay so to win you must earn the most money before the banquet ends!
Rules
Jesters earn money by gaining the Favor of the crowd who pays them based on the day’s performance. The Favor a Jester receives is judged by the difference from the King’s Favor to a Jester’s Dice roll in terms of numerical value. The different Favors are as follows:
Lowest Difference
- King’s – 4
- Queen’s – 3
- Prince’s – 2
- Duke’s – 1
Highest Difference
Money is paid out to each Jester from lowest to highest difference from the King’s Favor.
Turn Structure
The game takes place over 7 days (turns). Each day has four phases:
Perform
All Jesters Perform by rolling their dice.
Kings Favor
The Kings Dice are rolled setting the King’s Favor.
Improvise
- A Jester can choose to Improvise. This can be done only once per Improvise phase.
- If multiple Jesters wish to Improvise, rolling must occur at the same time.
Payday
Jesters receive their payout based on the difference from their Dice to the Kings Favor.
In the case of draws:
- Non drawing players first receive their payout depending on their difference
- Drawing players must Improvise until there is a difference
- The loser(s) of the draw receive the lesser payouts
The following are examples of payday payouts.
Example 1: If the King’s Favor was 20, then a Jester at 19 is one closer than a Jester at 18. Therefore the Jester at 19 wins the King’s Favour and the Jester at 18 wins the Queen’s Favor.
Example 2: If the King’s Favor was 20, then a Jester at 19 draws with a Jester at 21 as both are one away from the King’s Favor. Both players must Improvise until there is a difference. The lower Jester gets the Queen’s Favor and the higher the King’s Favor.
Terms
- Kings Dice – The D20 & D10
- Jesters Dice – A set of D8, D10, D12 given to each player
- King’s Favor – The number rolled by the Kings Dice the center of the board
- Perform – Jesters rolling all their dice
- Improvise – Jesters rerolling one or more of their dice
Additional
The Day & Difference sheet is a useful tool for keeping track of what day of the banquet it is, and what the King’s and each Jester dice rolls are. Place recognizable tokens for each Jester and King on the values from 1-28, and move a token along the Day row to keep track of what day it is.
Estimate of Cost
I estimate per item cost at:
- Dice – 16.99 for 36 dice, making it 0.47 per dice, 14 are required so = $6.5
- Board & Boxes = $10
- Day & Difference Sheet (Multiple) = $2
- Tokens for recording day and value = $1
- 70 chips = $7.5
- Post It Note Sheet = 50 cents
- Pen – 0.5 dollar = 50 cents
This comes to $28, but I can likely get discounts on many of these items buying in bulk.
So I say approximately $20-25 estimated cost.
Anything Else
In Playtest 7 I did some probability analysis using anydice.com
Kings Dice
The bell shaped curve is 5D6’s and the more flat curve is the D20 and D10. I went with the more flat curve because I preferred having a distribution with more equal probabilities over a large range of values for the King since this would be the number players would aim to get.
Jesters Dice
With the King’s new probability curve in mind I analyzed the Jesters Dice. The previous player’s probability distribution which had a max value of 24 was skewed towards the lower spectrum of possible ranges. Looking at bell curve that touches up to 30 it was more fairly distributed and given the three dice of D8,10,D12 it would make for a less obvious choice instead of D4,D8,D12 (roll D4 for least change, and 12 for most) which I would consider more interesting.
