CAGD 170

Group 3

Blog Post 1

For our first group assignment we were tasked with modifying the classic game solitaire. As classic as the game can be I'll be honest I had never played the game prior to this group project. One thing I can tell you for sure is that I came with good knowledge and understood the basic elements (Card values, Suits) of the game as I am a huge Blackjack and Poker player. Anyways our Iteration process began there with my other group member and I first getting a glance at the quick gameplay of the actual game at first so we could fully understand what we were dealing with. The expertise of our 3rd partner came naturally to him as he had already known what the game was and had played it before. So, we had help with that concept.

Getting Started 

Once everyone was brought up to speed we got to experiment with different types of ideas. We were getting curious on how we could integrate a new factor into the game that would not get rid of the games level of challenge but that however bring a new objective playable within the core value of the game. It was challenging for ourselves to come up with such an idea so we needed to brainstorm deeper. Having a deck of cards handy helped our minds visualize our ideas much better which led us to come up with our final modifications to the game. 

                                            

Brainstorming Furthermore

When we had jotted down some fun and crazy ideas, we had to go through of course the process of a playtest in order to fully see if our modifications could even be possible to integrate into the game. We got our deck of cards out and proceeded to play the game with our newly invented rules so that we could see what players could expect. During our playtest we were able to see where we went wrong and what could have been a problem if someone were to try and play our version of solitaire, but it was in this same session where we could also discover ways to refine our ideas and shape them into a better, clearer idea. 

Problem solving

When we decided that our main change to the game was going to be that towards the end of the game when you are putting the cards in the right order and suit that perhaps instead of the cards going from Ace low to King high, they go in the order they are intended as you were playing poker meaning that Ace is the original HIGH card and then proceeds to King and Queen and so on. The order in which the cards would have to be stacked were now (A, K, Q, J,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2). However, during our playtest, we ran into some issues that we found we needed to fix such as that when we would try to start stacking the cards, we noticed that we would have no more possible moves anymore due to the king being the only card that could be placed in an empty spot of the 7 columns available.

            

We then realized that if we applied this special power to the Queen and Jack, we could then potentially have a smoother gameplay. It resulted that by making this new change we could indeed have a game where we got an acceptable outcome.

Overall

We ended our notes and planning when we saw that our new contributions were peace sailing into the game. One thing that might have helped us with our iteration process was being familiar with the game we were working with.