Paper Prototyping
A Sight for Sore Five (Pairs)
I guess you never really know how difficult something is until you try it. For me, that was creating a card game. While I am pleased with myself and can say “Hey look, I’ve created a card game!,” I also find tired. Creating a game is a long process and I’ve only just created a simple card game. I tip my hat to you, game developers.
A Sight for Sore Five (Pairs) is a game I created with my partner, Earl. To put it simply, each player tries to create five pairs of black-red matching value cards. Then the players tally up the total and the highest total wins. The core mechanics of this game are card drafting and matching.
There wasn’t a huge difference between the three play-tests, but I do believe I improved the game by the third playtest. Throughout the different versions, only the rules changed. The board remained the same.
Note: I played with a family member for the second prototype, but she was unable to give me enough feedback to make any changes. During the lab, my partner didn’t give me any feedback either. So for this particular project, I ended up reaching out to two friends that I often played boardgames with to give me feedback.
Version 1 vs Version 2
I added more rules to clarify a few things and also make the gameplay more exciting to add tension. A lot of changes were made, mostly because my friend insisted we played this game 10 times. And then we finally got to watch our movie (Lincoln Lawyer, for any of you wondering).
The first change I went with was to have players display their pairs. That way, there was proper tension and players would be more determined to pick higher values. Trash-talking was also increased due to this. Which I find to be a thrilling and positive change.
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Originally, when a player couldn’t do anything and drew a card from the main deck, that was the end of the turn. To make it more exciting, I extended the player’s move. If the card the player drew matched a card from the display pile, they could create a pair.
I also made it so that players could decide not to pick up a card when they could make a pair. That way, there’s more opportunity to create a stronger hand of five pairs.
The last change between the first two versions was adding a rule to help determine tie-breakers. It wasn’t something I had considered before and when playing with my friend, we had a tie.
Version 2 vs Version 3
In the newest version, I added more rules. Mostly to clarify any confusion there was from previous rules.
We made sure players had a maximum number of cards in their hand. This was to prevent a player from collecting all the cards in order to create the best pairs.
Another change I had was to be able to hide some of the pairs. If the pair was made from the player’s hand and not the Display Pile, players could choose to place that pair face-down. Adds to the mystery.
And finally, if the last player hasn’t created the fifth pair, whatever pair they come across has to be the fifth pair. That player cannot wait for the best pair to come across them.
