Trevor and I were assigned to modify the classic card game "Solitaire" in some way as a project in Game Design. We spent a week brainstorming and testing different rule changes for the game and came up with our version of Solitaire: "24 Down".
24 Down behaves similarly to its precursor, although in 24 Down the player's objective is different: to get all of the cards on the table. This completely changes the nature of the game, where the player isn't concerned with organizing cards but instead finding a spot for them. This is an easier objective than stacking all cards into their suit, so there is a three minute timer set which creates tension and promotes a fast paced nature to the game. The type of player this attracts is a competitive player that likes quick decision making. Although the game is still for one player, we found many people liked competing with their own previous scores.
The first issue with arriving at this final idea was changing rules without the game becoming too easy or difficult. Often times we had to add other elements to the game to help balance this, for example, our timer idea helps keep the game from being too easy, while also adding some pressure to play quickly.
Another difficulty was communicating how the game worked with only words. Our first draft of the rule sheet was not enough to completely describe how the game worked. For Trevor and I, since we already understood the game, it seemed like it would be unnecessary to elaborate and be more specific in the rules. After seeing a few players get confused we realized we weren't quite thinking for someone that had never played the game before. This caused us to make some additions to our rule sheet for the purpose of being more specific.
Lots of things worked in this development process, we decided from the beginning that if we found anything that was fun, we would build on that. That was the main factor we paid attention to. Moving forward though we learned it was important to incrementally make changes. In the beginning we made multiple decisions to compensate for any imbalances that might happen, like the game becoming too easy. This thinking ahead wasn't always helpful and often made it harder to determine what changes were positive and which ones weren't. Small changes, while slower, make it easier to pay attention to whether or not the game was going in a good direction.
Comments