❖ Version History ❖

25th of January, 2021:
In the previous chapter of the design journal we covered the process of dramatic changes to the number systems in the game mechanics. That problem had stemmed from needing to change the data around on the characters, and changing specific interaction types (such as the Skirmish Mechanic). Now, it would be nice to simply say that all of these things were changed and then poof! our problems were all solved, but that is not how this works in game design… or maybe anything. Extensive testing of those changes, specifically the changes in game mechanics, must be enacted and documented in order to even understand what sort of effect our changes have on the game.

While it can certainly be fun to sit around for an afternoon and actually play your game, it is a slightly different experience to accomplish significant play testing. A proper play test is like science: you want to isolate your variables and account for each element that is acting upon another element. You need to test hypotheses, return to a control state in between each change, and see how each variable acts differently in the various settings.

In the early days of a game (during the paper prototype phase for example) , it is easy to jot down simple notes of what is happening while toying around with your system a bit more playfully so you can learn how your game should feel. As the game gets to the phase The Great Chase is in at this point in time, it is crucial to track as much as you can every time a change is put into place, since even a small number swap on one of our six characters might change the balance of everything that happens in a way that breaks the system as a whole.

In this first image we have the Data Tracking info for the Easiest Difficulty in The Great Chase. The format that I used to make this chart was applied to each mode of difficulty, so the three images that will be shown in this post will look nearly identical at a quick glance. The most notable difference will be the colored bars of information along the top left of each image. If you have been following all of the Design Journal posts to this point in time, you would recognize those charts from our earlier discussion in Part #10 of the great chase along the top of the image. If you want to know more about that part of the chart please refer back, as I will not be covering it again here.

As the game has developed, so has this chart. Each time something becomes more concrete in the design, I try to track it extensively. By this point in the process, these are the statistics being tested as according to this chart:

1. Player Count :: How many of the six total characters are being used, and which ones?
2. End Game State :: Did this cast of characters successfully beat the game?
3. Turn Count :: 10 turns to a game, but players can fail. How many turns did they start?
4. Danger :: At the end of the game, how many time zones were left unsolved?
5. Unsolved :: At the end of the game, how many of the flight cards were left unsolved?
6. Notes :: Super short reminder text to describe how the game felt, or important notes.
7. Time :: How long did it take for the play test to run from start to finish (after setup)
8. Danger Chart :: A visualization of the information from items 4 & 5 in this list
9. Total Danger :: Comparing total spawns that can be solved vs. remaining at endgame
10. Dice Fails :: How many times did a player try to roll dice and fail at a task?

A unique element to this game is the fact that there are three modes of difficulty, but the hardest way to play comes down to how many characters from the cast of six are being used in a round. Less characters in play = more challenging, no matter the difficulty. With this knowledge, I start each of these charts by testing the limitations of the three player format, since it is the hardest. The images of these charts are from early on in the process, but as an important note, each time there is a system change (like the character numbers previously discussed), I come back, copy this chart as a new document, take notes of the changes to the game, and begin play testing again from scratch. By doing this, we can really track the impact of these changes & how they effect the outcomes across several iterations of the data collecting.

As the data collecting chart gets more organized and filled in, you can quickly tell how useful this tool becomes. I cannot express how significant this process is to the successful flow of game experience and content. While I understand that studying the data is not everyone’s favorite, I do hope that this gives an interesting insight to the challenge that came with keeping everything balanced in The Great Chase.