In the past, most games for the Jam-o-drum were fast paced action games, so we wanted to try using the platform in a different way by making a strategy game. In the end, the rules of the game are as follows:

Rules

There are four kingdoms, played by one or two people each. The game is played over six "days", and the winner is the one with the most points on the seventh day. Each kingdom starts with 10 points.

Each round is divided into a deciding phase and a results phase. During the deciding phase, players can discuss and negotiate with each other, and then secretly choose one action to send to each of the other kingdoms. These actions are:

1) Attack

2) Make Peace

3) Build a wall (only one wall can exist per kingdom at a time. If a kingdom already has a wall, they cannot build another one)

4) Send a spy (Starting after round 3, each kingdom can send a single spy per game. Spies look like Making Peace to everyone else, but if the spy is accepted, the spy reveals that kingdom's choices next round)

Following the deciding phase comes the results phase. In this phase, the decisions are simulated, and kingdoms get points. To explain the points succinctly, you gain points for making peace or betraying someone by attack their peace offering, and you lose points when you are attacked. Walls prevent a single loss of points from being attacked.

Later on, we added theming for each kingdom, and gave each a unique ability. These are:

The Verdant Forest – All trades are worth double points. Being betrayed loses double points.

The Bloodborn – Starts with 3 additional points

The Liar's Throne - Gets one additional spy to use during the game

The Citadel – Starts with 2 walls

The Design Process

The design process for Kingdoms involved a lot of iteration and playtesting. We were given 2.5 weeks for this project instead of the normal 2. My group chose to spend the extra days at the beginning running paper prototypes and focusing on the game design. We initially used index cards with symbols on them to indicate our chosen actions, and we had one person acting as the score calculator.

In this first version, players could build up to three walls, walls didn't persist between turns, and there were no spies or special abilities for the kingdoms.

We quickly discovered a few problems. First, it was too easy for a player to completely "turtle" once they got enough points. If a player chose to build three walls each turn, they could never successfully be attacked or lose any points. We iterated on our design, changing it to two walls that persisted if they weren't destroyed, two walls where one persisted, and eventually one wall that persists when it's not destroyed.

We also discovered that, while our group understood the how to play well, other players struggled. In particular,

- it was unclear that building a wall was directionless while all other actions targeted specific players

- it was unclear how points were calculated, so players made decisions arbitrarily

In response to these observations, we made a few changes:

- we kept walls as directionless to differentiate them from attacking

- we made points work like "population", so you would lose points if your "population" was destroyed (through a kingdom being attacked or a unit getting killed)

We then got to work implementing a full prototype on the Jam-o-drum. As the lead programmer, I took responsibility at this stage for most of the coding work, including displaying the different views to each player, choosing the actions, calculating the scores, and running the simulation of the battle.

When playing the Jam-o-drum prototype, the simulation of the battle initially happened all at once (for examples, every attacking unit attacked at the same time). We found that this made it difficult for players to understand what was happening—especially if they were betrayed or not.

We tried recreating our initial paper prototypes digitally by slowing down the simulation to one interaction at a time and added in a system of chips moving around to indicate scores changing. This worked very well for legibility, but was too slow in practice. In the end, I completely rewrote the combat simulation system to use coroutines so we could have simultaneous but staggered simulations. This greatly improved both understandability and speed of the interactions.

One question that we asked ourselves throughout the process of making this game was "why isn't this just a card game?" We we were successfully making the Jam-o-drum feel like a war table, with four generals playing a game for victory, but we weren't yet taking advantage of being able to show each player different information. To improve this, we chose to add a "spy" unit. The spy looked like a peace offering to all other players besides the one who sent it out, and was able to reveal hidden information to only the spier. Being able to see your opponents choices is massively powerful and enables more strategic play. Since there was no reason to ever send a peace offering instead of a spy, we chose to limit each kingdom to one spy per game. I implemented this whole system.

Changes for Festival Jury

We presented Kingdoms for a final grade, and then had a few more days afterwards to make changes before submitting it to a jury that determined if it got into ETC festival or not.

During our final presentation, we ran into the issue of players not talking to each other, choosing only to fight, and not quickly understanding good strategies. In a game that was designed to be played in multiple sessions, this is fine, but in our case, we expect people to only ever play the game once so we need their only experience to be great. After our final presentation, we were told that Kingdoms probably wouldn't make it past jury.

With limited time before our presentation to the jury, we discussed the changes we could reasonably make. We decided that the best approach is to add as much theming and interest outside the digital game as possible. We named each kingdom and gave them unique identities as well as unique benefits in game. This made playing as each kingdom feel unique, and encouraged specific play styles. During jury, our team dressed up as the rulers of each kingdom. Each ruler stated what their kingdom stood for and requested a champion.

For example,

"We of the Verdant Forest are known for our peaceful and collaborative ways. Who will be our champion?"

We presented each player with a handmade crown and a scroll that described their kingdom's special abilities. Our team then stood by each of our champions acting as advisors.

The jury was very excited by our game, especially the advisor system, and approved us for festival, recommending that we support 8 players instead of 4. With the help of ETC's tech team, we were able to support 8 players.

Learnings from Festival

Festival went very well, and people loved our game! From observing players, I learned two important things.

First, theming really matters. The physical world can be just as important for creating an experience as the digital world. In our case, Kingdoms is a form of location-based entertainment, designed for a specific platform and intended to be played only at this festival. We decorated the entire room to support our experience, building a floor to ceiling fireplace hearth, hangin up banners for each kingdom, taking royal portraits of each of the leaders, and making a shield for each kingdom that was hung up when they won. The theming really helped immerse players in our world and get into the mindset of generals embodying the ideals of their chosen kingdom.

Second, drunk people like to talk. A lot. One of our struggles throughout the entire process was getting people to talk to each other. Even at it's final state, where there was good communication, our test games each lasted seven to ten minutes. At festival, with the eight people instead of four, and with the increased alcohol consumption of the players, games lasted around thirty minutes. While this was great, because the players got really into the game and enjoyed the experience the whole time, it also meant that fewer people got to try our game.

Overall I'm very proud of how this turned out, and I learned a lot in the process that I'm excited to bring forward to more things I create in the future.