Rob's lesson notes 02/11/12
Snakes & Ladders
Snakes & Ladders
Snakes & Ladders breakdown FADT
Intention Perceivable consequences Story
No intention the consequences are perceivable an over reaching narrative
Game is completely random So you know where but not when player journeys from
start to finish
You have no control
our task is to is to iterate the game of snakes and ladders to give it the elements it is missing in the FADT. So for this iteration we could do by giving the game intention and maybe a story. To start of we focused on iterating intention into the game.
When making changes or making a rule you need to stick with that one rule when testing and not continuously adding new rules during playtest. You need to play it to see if that rule is balanced. so for example on implementation of that rule who kept winning. so one person sticks to one play style and the other person to the other play style like defensive or offensive.
So on the first iteration we decided that if a player lands on a snake then they get the option to move the other player forward or backwards a space and to turn a ladder into a snake. This played rather well but made the game rather long . However it didnt really tackle the intention FADT because as far as the player playing for himself he still has no choice.
We then tweaked the rule for ladders that if you take a ladder then the other player gets an extra turn. so you must decide whether or not to take the ladder as if the player is near or ahead of you then they would have an extra roll and would progress further.
We play tested this a bit but felt we could do more for intention.
.JPG)
For our last iteration we did in class we scrapped the first iteration completely and went for an iteration that focused on intention.
Firstly we gave the players three lives each then what we decided was to give the players an equal choice on the ladders. where the chance of taking the ladders equally can be good or bad. we added fight cards to the game. If you decide to take a ladder you would have to draw a fight card. On this card it would contain a monster to fight in a roll a six in two rolls sort of way. Now if you failed the fight it would mean not only you fail to climb the ladder but you also loose a life. Now if you lost all lives and failed a ladder fight you die and go back to start.
We play tested this numerous times with one player not taking the ladder challenges and the other taking them all. This game however needed more playtesting as we found it played differently most time because of the squares players landed on for example the player who was playing the ladders was not landing on the ladders enough to test the fight mechanic enough. We combated this by adding a few extra ladders. What we found was the ladders were too much of a gamble but because of the difficulty of the fights. Which is another possible iteration of adjusting and balancing the card fights more to not make it too risky. Another possible iteration was add lives for snakes aswell as this would work well as do you waste your lives on a small snake or save them for the large snakes. Or do you save them for your ladder fights?
Story
We could also add a story to snakes and ladders which would affect how the board looks for example make it a car race track and the snakes become oil slicks and the ladders become shortcuts. Also that the car has to move the amount of places the dice sets. This adds a reason for adding a have to land on finish to win because if its three away and you roll a six you would have to come back three spaces.
We play tested this a bit but felt we could do more for intention.
.JPG)
For our last iteration we did in class we scrapped the first iteration completely and went for an iteration that focused on intention.
Firstly we gave the players three lives each then what we decided was to give the players an equal choice on the ladders. where the chance of taking the ladders equally can be good or bad. we added fight cards to the game. If you decide to take a ladder you would have to draw a fight card. On this card it would contain a monster to fight in a roll a six in two rolls sort of way. Now if you failed the fight it would mean not only you fail to climb the ladder but you also loose a life. Now if you lost all lives and failed a ladder fight you die and go back to start.
We play tested this numerous times with one player not taking the ladder challenges and the other taking them all. This game however needed more playtesting as we found it played differently most time because of the squares players landed on for example the player who was playing the ladders was not landing on the ladders enough to test the fight mechanic enough. We combated this by adding a few extra ladders. What we found was the ladders were too much of a gamble but because of the difficulty of the fights. Which is another possible iteration of adjusting and balancing the card fights more to not make it too risky. Another possible iteration was add lives for snakes aswell as this would work well as do you waste your lives on a small snake or save them for the large snakes. Or do you save them for your ladder fights?
Story
We could also add a story to snakes and ladders which would affect how the board looks for example make it a car race track and the snakes become oil slicks and the ladders become shortcuts. Also that the car has to move the amount of places the dice sets. This adds a reason for adding a have to land on finish to win because if its three away and you roll a six you would have to come back three spaces.
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