Marcel Markov - Balancing + Art

'Weekly reports:'
Weeky report 1 - Week 40

In our group we've had two meetings so far. And on these two accasions we've had great progress in our development of a system for our future board game.

So far I feel that our system is getting really interesting and I can see a lot of potential.

At our first meeting we were just throwing out ideas and it took a good amount of hours before we found something to hold on to and evolve. I found it rather

difficult to just think of a system without visualizing on themes and the aesthetics.

What I've brought to the table has mostly been ideas and point of views on were we are going. As the first idea was established it opened up more ideas

to develop the main system.

I feel that the group dynamic and members are very good and Teodor, our producer, is very responsible and loyal.

Looking forward for further development on our system/Board game

/Marcel Weekly report 2 - Week 41

This week we've been working long and sufficient with our board game system. We've met as a whole group two times.

At our first meeting(2011-10-12) this week Johan suggested that we could play the game Dominion to get a deeper understanding about the characteristics system and game play mechanics which is a bit familiar to our game. So we borrowed it from school and played it one time which took quite a bit longer than we thought it would. Later on we used the cards from Dominion for our own game and just interpreted our own mechanics and values.

During this state, We all iterated the system a small step at the time and tested it. I provided with a few new Board level designs.

On our second meeting this week(2011-10-14) we brought BIG cardboard papers and some color pencils and started to cut up cards for our Beta board game system. For me, I was all over the place getting rulers and a tool to cut the papers properly. After a long search, we found a paper slicer in a janitors room hidden in the library's dark corner. The cards came out nicely in the end so it was worth the trouble.

Meanwhile the rest of the group balanced and iterated the rules and play tested some of the new features and changes.

<p style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">I organized in theory the content in all the different card piles for our game, and listed all the games different components and distrubuted it into different tasks for everyone to work on over the weekend. I felt very productive and organized today and made a great portion of decisions to structure our System beta, so that everyone knows what to do.

<p style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">/Marcel

<h4 style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">Weekly report 3 - Week 42

=
During this week we've been trying others system(more like games) and there where some interesting ideas and system mechanics. But considering our system this week we got done with our beta prototype and have recieved feedback from the groups that tried it. Some feedback was just a great misunderstanding from their side, like they tought we should have made it more visually attractive, which was not the case of our beta. But other than that the feedback was really well written and useful.===== Besides trying others games we've been developing our system further and applied a theme and made it into a game rather then a system. We've started with the visual profile and came up with what every card should look like and be called. It was a lot of work and a long process to come up with and decide. Even so the name for the game and the logo. This was friday, and over the weekend we will work with the art for the different components. My task is to draw the different minerals which represent the points and "economy" in the game.

I believe that we will have a great and beautiful board game in the end of this project. Now we just have to keep up the phase and make it.

/Marcel

Weekly report 4 - Week 43
During the weekend, before the start of this week, us artists in our group did the needed art and design for our game. Much was done and the last work of art got done on Wednesday. That same day was the day we finished developing our board game. Everything went smoothly and rather fast considering the amount of work that was done. Besides finishing the last art, we printed out all the different needed cards, play area and board for our game. Everyone cutted out the cards and we placed them inside small plastic folders for cards, and even with an extra hard piece of paper inside to make it more stiff.

Later we glued and taped our board on to a nice cardboard and from that moment it was complete. It was a lot of fixing and crafting but it was fun in contrast to the usual school work. It was great relief to get it done in advance and the way it now looked with all our flashy graphics intensified the feeling of playing our game.

Thursday we played other groups games and gave them some feedback on their sites. Later we went on with our groups Post Mortem and just started briefly writing down some notes to evolve further the next day.

Friday after class we let another group try our game and then we worked together on our Post Mortem. Unfortunatly i didn't bring to much to the share but atleast I wrote some lines. A heavy burden is starting to relief from my shoulders when this course is approaching its end, but I'm pleased with the course and very satisfyied with the content we've made during these last two months.

/Marcel