The PIGDA Board Game Jam is a full day event held by Pittsburgh International Game Developers Association annually for people to team up and make a board game and play each other's game. I can't wait to share my experience in the 2014 Board Game Jam! (Finally got ETC and had access to a computer!!!)
I teamed up with Yan Jin, a game designer who usually has lots of weird and amazing ideas. It was held in the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. I was late and stuck in a traffic jam when he texted me the secret topic of this game jam: > travel. My first idea was to make a simulation game about travelling in a town that players need to deal with traffic jams and pick different vehicles and sometimes switch between them.
When I got there, we started brainstorming around 10:30. We talked about a variety of topics, themes and mechanics. He threw out ideas like bacteria travelling in a body and interact with other stuff in it. He also introduced me the game play of a board game called Mr. Jack which allows players to take their turns to explore and interact with each other in limited area. I thought about travelling to different times with a time machine and have parallel universes. I felt it very interesting because I was sure that all teams would definitely be thinking about travelling through space although it sounds really abstract if we make a game about travelling through time. I tried to figure out how it might work, but I didn't get anything but headache. When I was about to abandon the time travelling idea, Yan went through all the things we had and we realized that both of us sort of liked it. So we decided to try our best and see what we could reach. I never doubted that it would be a hard process and it turned out to be true. We listed all the elements and fragments of design ideas. We decided to have three Time Sections: the Past, the Present and the Future. Whatever was done in former time sections changes the things and events happening in the later section. It was really hard to put them together and to make everything reasonable. However, as time went by, I formed the story line and basic mechanics in mind gradually. I got a bunch of problems and couldn't link them together. I tried to express them and let Yan solve all the problems. He did a good job reading my mind, iterating on the details including the items, events and maps and approving my thoughts. I was not confident with the idea of using items to link the three worlds together and I thought it not fun enough until he said it was brilliant to figure out that. We made a rough prototype, tested and changed more than five times. We'd been trying to simply the game play and making it as intuitive as possible, still I felt it hard to understand because there is no similar models in real life. I was almost 2:00 p.m. and we hesitated whether to push down and start over again. I really wanted to follow the spirit of Fail-Fast-and-Flow-the-Fun. But again, we really wanted to create a game about time travelling. It was also partly because of the text on blackboard: "Theme: > Travel". I was wondering if the ">" indicated that we were supposed to make something about super travel or things more than purely travelling. Anyway, we decided to stick to whatever we had. After the organizers set up the printer, it was almost 5:00 p.m. when we printed 3 copies of the map and drew the icons on them. All things were done in a hurry and we didn't even get enough time to run the final version.
There were 8 games at last. It was Demo time from 5:00-6:00 p.m. and we run all the games one by one. We were Team 1 and we named the game Testament. In a play of our game, there was a boy who tried to fight with me with his weapon, the Screwdriver. But he failed and killed himself. It was so fun. (He revenged and killed me in his game later...||||) The second game was about earning resources, delivering them, building and fighting. It looked very professional and clean. The third one was made by a lady and it was on a colorful graph containing lots of paths. The next one was similar to the classical board game Snack and Ladders in game mechanics but they got different themes. The next one was a Hello Kitty flicking game. The most impressive thing about this game was that the players who are not in their turn (basically flicking) are meant to count for the one who's moving, which keeps the game intense and adds more fun. The next one was also made by one person (Tim in a T-shirt with the Massive Chalice on it). It was about all band members earning fame and money for their band and themselves. When they count the total income it is a cooperative system and when it comes to individual it is competitive. He got explanations about all the characters, situation and events, which was awesome. Actually the game play was similar to the final pitch of my Game Design course team, a combination of Grand Theft Auto and Guitar Hero which allows player to experience the process of becoming a rock godfather from a shabby street singer. The last game but not the least was made by two high school (not very sure) boys and it was about wanders visiting various landmarks in Pittsburgh, gathering weapons and money and fighting against one another. The game rules are not perfect but it was really fun to play.
At last, we were awarded the most complicated and confusing. The judge said "We believe that there's something in there." Honestly I had the presentiment of getting this award when we were designing this game. Well it was great fun playing other teams' game, seeing new visuals and novel mechanics and talking to board game lovers there. I appreciate that the organizers provide the materials and food for us. I had never seen that many kinds of materials for making board games. They are really idea provoking. I was a great day and I hope to participate more board game jams in the future.
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