Games Studies

 Week 1

This is the first time I have come into contact with this course. I started the first lesson with high expectations. The teacher first introduced us to the course schedule of this semester, then introduced us to a game, and then showed us a picture, asking us to make an interesting game created by ourselves according to the content on this picture this semester.

Here are the picture that we should follow.

Week 2

In this class, the teacher gave us a more in-depth explanation of the homework we want to finish, and explained it in groups one by one. What our group lacked was buff and debuff, and we should follow the requirements on the picture, but the teacher confirmed the fun of our game.

The following is the explanation of buff and debuff:

Debuff Cards (e.g., "Hypoxia: ETC disabled for 2 turns")

Buff Combos (e.g., "NAD⁺ Regen + PFK-1 Overdrive = turbo glycolysis")

Buffs Cancel Debuffs (e.g., "Antioxidant Shield" blocks oxidative damage)

Boss Fight Strategies (e.g., "Mitochondrial Upgrade" vs. ETC failure)TL;DR: Buffs enhance ATP production, while debuffs disrupt pathways—great for a strategic card/board game!

Week 3

In this lesson, the teacher asked us to find a board game store on our own, and as a group, we went to find a board game we liked to play and explore the rules of the board game.

We looked for a board game store near the school, and the game we chose was called Dune, There are different heroes, and at first each player has to draw their own heroes, each hero has its own characteristics, and then there are skills and raffles, and this board game is very interesting, but it took us up to 30 minutes to understand the rules of the game at first, which I think is a bit tedious.

Because of this, we intend to make the rules of our board game a little easier to understand so that players can better understand them.

We also had a division of labor today, and my role is to be in charge of the creation of the skill card and item card reward mechanics.

                                                                                   Week 4

In this class, the teacher asked us to take out a rough game plan to demonstrate to the teacher and also gave us suggestions, stating that our initial plan was not perfect and needed improvement. We changed our original five factions into six factions.Our original idea was to give each soldier and hero health points, but the teacher told us that we shouldn't add these elements in board games and should instead incorporate more entertainment elements, such as adding dice and fun features.So we made revisions based on the teacher's suggestions.

Below are some of the processes we went through in class.

In the end, we decided to make further changes based on the original to reduce complexity and add interest.

Week 5

In today's class, the teacher had us organize speeches with five mentors. They gave us feedback, saying that our game was generally good, but what we lacked was a complete connection to the picture that the teacher showed in the first class.We lack the relationship between monsters and glucose, as well as their consumption and production relationships.
So we finished the class and discussed to decide to make some changes to enhance our game, making it more complete and more interesting.

Week 6

This week the teacher asked us to experience the games we created ourselves. During the gameplay, we found a series of issues: the playtime is too long, it's a bit boring, and some aspects are not reasonable enough. The map is too small and needs to be enlarged; six people might be a bit too many for this game.So we need to make changes, either by reducing the number of players or by altering the layout; the game is too boring, and we also need to make changes, perhaps by shortening the game time, etc.

Below is the cover of the skill card and treasure chest card that I designed.

Week 7

Today in class, the teacher let us play each other's games and ask for feedback. We finished group six's game and we believe their game is quite playable. After that, we conducted a survey.The content in the survey questionnaire is very detailed, and we all completed it carefully.Other groups have found corresponding issues with our game after playing it, and we plan to make changes addressing these problems.