Adding Flavor and Fun to a Game

Going Beyond the Basic Game Mechanic

with Wizard Roll by RoosterFin Games designed and illustrated by Kurt Keller and Traci Van Wagoner at Imagine That! Design

There a number of things to think about when designing and developing a game

While all of these are important, we want to talk about going beyond the basic list to find that extra component that adds either fun, interest, or knowledge beyond simply playing the game.

The simplest form of this is flavor text -- details in the game that don't effect the game play but add flavor and help immerse the player more fully.

 

When we design and develop a game, we like to find elements we can weave into the game play that  helps immerse players into the game more fully, adding another layer and dimension to a game, like the frosting on a cupcake. It can be something that reveals back story, character, and/or a story line -- something that helps you delve deeper into role playing and getting lost in the fun of playing a game.

This element doesn't effect the pure outcome of the win but highly effects your enjoyment and willingness to come back to the game and play again and again. It's that something that later in the week -- during school, work, doing homework or chores -- a memory of playing the game pops up that makes you smile or, better yet, giggle. And even better, the ultimate goal -- days later you repeat a phrase or something from the family game night.

Mille Bornes "coup fourré !" became a terminology of "I gotcha!" and who didn't love shouting that out while playing?

These are the important things in life. Games can make a difference by bringing joy and lasting memories.

For Wizard Roll, we took the game concept presented to us and wrapped the pattern building and pattern recognition mechanics into a story line, adding the element of players being wizards and building spells with rune tiles and elements.

We also made the spell each player is trying to build a secret? Which is fun, but is a game mechanic which effects the game play. So, what else could we do?

Roll the dice, build your spell or use the wand for a Take That! play. This adds another layer to the game, but it is another game mechanic and effects the game play directly.

 Our coup fourré

The final level of role playing we added was to give the runes fun and magical sounding words. When a player collects all the rune tiles and elements needed, they use the reference card and sound out the parts of the spell!

Perfectly magical.

Go ahead, try out some combinations from the Reference Card above.

And like magic, you've created a memory.

We even designed the box to look like a magical spell book. We hope you will buy Wizard Roll and have fun being a Wizard for an evening and many more evenings after.

To find out more:

You can find a great review of Wizard Roll on SAHM Reviews. You can also find many more games we designed and illustrated for RoosterFin that are great for family game night on their website. And you can get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of another fun game from RoosterFin that we designed and illustrated, Rooster Race in our 3 part series, The Making of a Fun Family Game.

And now for a gaming quiz...

Well, not a quiz exactly, we'd just love your input:
How do you get people to read the flavor text when playing or creating a game? Can you think of any other immersion techniques in game design? What other games have this extra element, or phrases you take into real life? We'd love to hear about it. Please share in the comments.

Game on!

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The Making of a Fun Family Game, Part 2

The Rooster Race Journey

continues with giggle worthy character development of the racing roosters

Last week we started the rooster race journey and ended with a sneak peek at the fun rooster characters that make up the game. 

We spent a good deal of time refining the overall character looks as well as individual personalities of the characters since so much of the game play depends on the characters.
We had a ton of fun creating this waky racing characters, and we hope you enjoy our character development journey. 
 
Here's the character line up.

 

 Ready! Set! Go!

Sketch until there’s a giggle:

We start with rough pencil sketches and designs exploring the looks and personalities of the characters. With these guys we wanted to make sure they're cute, but also wacky and, of course, racing and capturing some of the frantic feel of a racer. Once we get a giggle going, we know we’re onto something. The last page is the page of the best of all the pages of sketches to show the client.

 

© Imagine That! Design

© Imagine That! Design

© Imagine That! Design

The fun folks at Roosterfin Games giggled. Good, we were on the right track. Next we took any suggestions and thoughts from the client and ran with the roosters they picked and took them to the next stage.

© Imagine That! Design

 

 

With the general look of the characters defined, we finalized a couple finished illustrated looks of one of the characters to send to the client to establish the end result which will be applied to all the characters. Option C was the final choice.

During all this we’re also defining and refining the graphic design of the cards. No point in designing a character that doesn’t fit. We offered the client a couple options for the look of the cards.

 

 

At the finish line, this is what we ended up with for the Rooster Racing cards. Giggle worthy, right?

 

 

 

Game Assets

This game concept also needed some 3D parts. This was a bit of a new adventure for us. The client asked for corn, we gave them corn. We created this in Cinema 4D a 3D program. They created the corn on 3D printer.

3D printed corn by Roosterfin Games

 

  

We have come to the end of the journey for this week. We hope our cute rooster characters brought a giggle or two.

Do you know of a giggle game? Any game where you look at the packaging, read the cards, read the instructions and have an uncontrollable giggles. We’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Thanks for stopping by!

Be sure to come back next week for the conclusion of the rooster's journey with all the important packaging and instructions, where you'll see us putting it all together. Until next time, you can buy your own copy of this fun family game here. 

 

 

 

All images ©Imagine That! Design, all rights reserved

New Games for Family Game Night

It's game time!
We're so happy to be able to share with you several new games that are perfect for your next family game night. We helped develop these games with the fun folks at Roosterfin Games. In addition to helping create the game mechanics and do a bunch of play testing, we designed the games, created the fun and wacky characters, designed and illustrated all the game parts, instructions, and the packaging as well. We also created 3D images to be used for promotion and for the backs of the game boxes.

We love playing and creating games, and we hope you enjoy these new additions to the game world. These fun tabletop games are available at Roosterfin Games as well as on Amazon.

Please contact us if you're interested in working with us to develop a new game. Have some fun today and play a game or two

Arrr, Back To Work

Happy Friday! It's been our first week back at work in 2017 after a nice holiday break, and this pirate whipped us into shape with a good, "Arrrr, get back to work, matey!" He came from warm up sketches for a new game we're developing for Roosterfin Games.

We hope your first week back to work has been fruitful and full of adventurous fun.

Live. Laugh. Learn.