PNP Game Testing!
For our next project and for the next month, we will be creating our own print and play games. We were told to go research some PNP games and report intel on what we found out. I played with Jen, Allie and Noa two different games (though we had another one lined up but we could not end up figuring out how to play it ). The first one is called Micropul.

For this game, you match up the circles (so if the circle is black, only a black circle can be placed there and vis versa for the white ones). There are special marks too like the plus sign and little dots. The plus sign means that if you use that card, you get an extra turn to play another card or use your "rock" (in our case it was a dye that is in the upper left corner near my hand). You can only use your turn to either place a card down or place your rock (you only get three). The rock means that any circle surrounding the area which you have placed it (the white circles in my case) are how many points I get. If I continue to add cards with the white circle then I can continue to get points. The little dot which can be on cards means that if you place your card where the little  dot is, you get another card (if there are two little dots on the card, you get two cards). All in all, this game was easy to put together, required very little for the player to find/get in order to play the game, and was somewhat fun. Though it is a strategy game and got tiring over time. This game can really only be played by two people which drags down the fun from being a group game. And there was no creative design/color in this game. Very dull visually, though easy to play.

The next game we reviewed was the game we ended up not playing because we could not figure out how to play. It is called Pinza De Ropa.

This game was incredibly complicated and took TOO long to prepare for. It took my team at least an hour to try and understand the different cards, what they meant, read the rules, and to cut. All in all, I could really only understand the story (which is what appealed to me in the first place). Apparently, there is a laundry day for the whole apartment building and the players task is to hang clothes from the balconies. The clothespins, which are supposed to keep the clothes intact to the drying rope) are causing clothing to fall (or to rise above to higher apartment levels). You are supposed to gather as many clothespins as possible on your apartment floor. So, the story making little to no sense gets even crazier by adding cards such as a "secret objective card". When I printed out these cards, they did not have any back (they were all one sided) so there was no "secret objective" behind the star cards. Even crazier, this game had like 5 different stacks of cards!

As you can see above, we could not even figure out what these cards were used for, how they functioned and how the player moved around. Also, we had to use 6 different dyes to play with, PER TURN. In the end, we didn't play because we could not figure out what half the rules were saying and, it was overall overwhelming to the player! I did learn from this game (though not being able to play it) to simplify games and make it easier on the player. The only thing I did like about this game that grabbed my attention was the stylization of the game and the fun colors! I am a color freak so to see bright colors and an eye grabber design of the game logo/icon (When I was searching for different games on the site) is very appealing.

The third and final game we played was by far the most fun. It is a questionnaire game, though with a cool twist. Instead of a dull question and answer game with questions already made up, the game lets the players create their own. Bringing a personal approach to the game was cool to see and also made a LOT more fun for the players. I do not remember the name of the game but here is a photo of us playing the game.

This game, along with the first one, was very easy to play though not as appealing in design color. You first chose your "character" and according to what you have chosen (which is a symbol) means that whatever symbol you chose, on the playing board will be your spot for you to question another player. For example, if I landed on a square and Noa was the square character, she would have to ask me one of her questions. If I answered correctly, I gained 3 points or I could gain 1 point and roll again. The goal is to get as many points possible. in the end there is a duel between the characters that share the same end spot (for example the triangle and the square shared the same ending point and would therefore have to duel) whoever answered the question correctly from a different player won. We as a group did not get to the very end, but out of all the games we tried, this one was the most fun. It brought the player into the game and made it personable to the group rather than generic questions created by someone you do not know. Very easy game mechanic and fun outcome!

What I ended up learning from these three games was, the simpler the better! Try and make the game unique, add personality to the game, but make it personal to the player.