This week we made significant changes to the theme and are now calling the game "Park It". We also refined the core mechanics and the structure a little more. We determined the components for our prototype and who would be responsible for creating each one. Each group member helped push the project forward by being receptive to new ideas and criticism, and by showing enthusiasm about the project.
We had a solid idea of where to go with the mechanics and the structure of the game. However, we struggled to relate the gameplay with the theme of the game. The goal of our game was to get points for parking cars at specific locations throughout the city, but the idea of getting points for parking was too abstract. To resolve this problem we decided to change the parking theme to a delivery theme. This solution did not require any fundamental changes in the core gameplay; the idea is still to get your cars from point A to point B by manipulating the street cards. As of now, each player runs a delivery company and must make sure their orders are delivered to the customer's location on the edge of the board. Now the mechanic of rotating/sliding the street cards will represent how good a driver is at finding the best route. Destinations that are far away will net your company more money and will subsequently be worth more points.
There will be certain locations around the edge of the board where players need to get their vehicles. The further away the location is, the more points the player gets for a successful delivery. Each of those places will have a 'customer card' placed on it. There are different types of customer cards which describe the specific delivery. They have special effects on them which can benefit or hurt the player who completed that delivery. Customer cards are replaced with new ones from the deck after the previous delivery was completed. Along with customer cards, there will also be action cards, objective cards and the previously mentioned street cards. Action cards give the player ways to manipulate street cards, customer cards, and even their own vehicles. Lastly, objective cards are secret goals or achievements that players can complete to gain additional points. Objective cards were inspired by the game "Ticket to Ride" and work in a similar fashion. For example, an objective card might require a player to complete two separate deliveries to the same location during the game. Or it could require completing a certain number of deliveries to a specific type of customer.
The first prototype will consist of street cards, a game board, action cards, customer cards, objective cards, and vehicle models. Bishoy will make the street cards, Tony will make the board, Shady is doing the action cards and I am doing the customer and objective cards.
We have a good foundation to build from now and a clear sense of where we want to take the game. During our next meeting we can begin to organize all of the content we want to include and decide what to keep/remove. After our initial playtest we should have a much better idea of what works, what does't work, and how to balance each component. The alterations we have made should allow our game to have diversity, strategy, and depth.
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