Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Week 4


The development of Empires of Trade has been going smoothly. After deeming our game simple and easy to play after play testing, our group decided to add another layer of complexity and give the game more flavor. We planned on accomplishing this by adding event cards. This new addition would not only add another dimension to our game, but also give our game more of a narrative feel. Before the establishment of trade routes and the Spice Trade and Silk Road, the world was young and unexplored. As more and more trade routes were being made, traveling to different markets became a more dangerous task. The hazards of trading not only included natural disasters but also bandits that would raid caravans and stop merchants from being able to move goods to other markets.

To accomplish this narrative feel, the implementation of event cards would have to parallel the increasing hazards of a growing world. The event cards we planned on utilizing would either have no effect or a detrimental one. When playing the game, the number of event cards drawn would increase as the board game progresses. This way the chances of damaging events would increase bringing more excitement and an added pressure on players to make wiser decisions.

We have been using Facebook to check in and share our progress. Using this social network, also allowed for better communication within our group especially when to finding a time to meet up. Since last class, Mahvish and I met up to work on the event cards. The event cards that we made can be put into three categories: global events, local events, and personal events. Global events when drawn can affect all players on a large scale, such as the destruction of routes. Local events are more specific, which could be the destruction of all markets in a specific area. Personal events would affect the player that drew the card, such as losing goods. We still need to play test the game with these added event cards to see how the flow of the game may change, and I am excited to see where these changes take us.

-Scott Lazaro

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