Development Process

There is a marked difference between developing a game remotely and in person. It was quite awkward to go through the game production pipeline remotely, especially in the initial brainstorming process. During our first brainstorming session we found that we were focused on creating board games that might utilize Zoom’s drawing features. We were also leaning towards something that had no concrete goal and was subjective, in a similar vein to Cards Against Humanity. However, after discussing how much balancing and fine tuning our early game concepts would need we realized it would be difficult to accomplish them in the given time frame. We actually we passed over the initial concept for BeatBeet! during our brainstorming session, as we felt it to be too simple. But after some further discussion, we realized perhaps, simple was what we needed.

We set up a Discord and shared Google Drive to store all documentation, plan Zoom meetings, and keep in contact for the development of the project. We would meet on a weekly basis to iterate our project, go over playtests, and delegate next steps for the week. Our initial iteration was characterized by hashing out the rules for the game - mainly, what we were concerned with was rhythm construction, how the game’s difficulty would progress, and how points would be awarded. Our second and final iteration was simplified further, with points being attributed to each round as opposed to each move incorporated, along with themed cards that would facilitate the shift from easy to hard. Additionally, the rules were streamlined so the players could easily pick up the game and begin playing without too much struggle.

Design Documents

• BeatBeet Brainstorming
• BeatBeet Playtesting Document #1
• BeatBeet Rules Iterations
• BeatBeet Game Assets
• BeatBeet Presentation

Final Rules, Digital and Print Cards can be found on the main itch.io page.

Postmortem

Successes

Our biggest success was  coming up with  a simple and effective idea that could be played over Zoom. It’s very easy to add things to a game, but streamlining and making things easier is often the most difficult part of development. Overall we had a game that was fun and enjoyable not only to the players, but to everyone who was watching the silliness unfold before them. The casual play experience is a nice way to brighten up the daily Zoom calls that people are going through at the moment.Being able to have both a digital and printable version of our cards that was easily accessible to all players was a plus as well. We also came up with a cohesive themeing with "beet" logo and color palette. 

Setbacks + How We Overcame Them

The main challenge was writing our rules in a way that was easy for players to understand without the need of a physical demonstration from us. While players were able to understand quickly after we demoed the game ourselves, this wouldn't be ideal for a published game when players are trying to figure things out independently. We had to rewrite our rules a number of times in order to make them as concise and understandable as possible. We were also designing around the human constraint of memory. This was challenging as we did not want to overwhelm the player and make the game experience frustrating if they are unable to remember a long sequence of beats. For this reason we eliminated complex point systems and simple themed cards so that the primary focus of the players is on remembering the rhythm.

What we learned

Developing BeatBeet! was a positive learning experience for the whole team. To start, we learned a lot about game duration and how long a round can be before a player becomes disinterested. Focusing on the aspect of time and structuring it to fit our game was helpful in both playtesting and our game's finalization. We learned from playtesting together and the process of making our game more efficient. We also learned a lot about rule writing and how it can one of the most difficult part of the game making process; you can have an excellent concept but if your rules fall flat, players will just end up confused. Eliminating broad language such as "anything goes" helped eliminate any confusion on the type of beats that could be made. For this reason we tried incorporating visuals on our rulesheet and a few examples, and we are always open to adding even more.

Another aspect of the game making process that we learned from was accessibility. We discovered it was important to make rules that work for everyone playing. For example, some people are unable to whistle or snap, so it was important that we noted this in the rules. We learned that in order to reach a larger scope of players, accessibility and inclusivity are important. Unfortunately while our intentions were good, we realized in our final playtest that our phrasing of this came off as hurtful and uncomfortable. We learned greatly from this and in the future will be more detail orientated alongside being quick to admit to any mistakes we may have made as we didn't mean to single anyone out. It also led us to change the way that we organized our card decks. Instead of having the typical "easy" and "hard" choices, we based them off of the activity level that the player wanted to commit to.

We also learned some lessons about adaptability. As we brainstormed and drafted our ideas, we had to make sure that our game could be adapted for long-distance experiences via video call. The goal of this project was to develop a game playable over a video call, and it gave us the opportunity to learn how to accomplish this: by eliminating the need for a physical board and pieces. We challenged ourselves by instead relying on a digital card-making website and the motions a person can make over video, and we ultimately adapted to it. 

Future Development

As for further revisions of BeatBeet!, we would like to conduct a lot more playtests with a bigger pool of playtesters. This would allow us to test out more complex game mechanics, like stacking or targeting an opponent, without it leading to a bottleneck between two players. We are also interested in developing a variety of theme packs for different occasions and activity levels so that we can reach a wider audience.  They could range from extremely active challenges to ones that you can do in the comfort of your desk chair. This would also give players the opportunity to pick and choose what cards they would want to play during a game session. We’d also like to look into other folk games for inspiration, such as War or other memory games, and see if there’s anything we can borrow from those games to get around the memory constraint.  

Group Roles and Responsibilities

Milena Correa: Game Design (Rules), Documentation, Playtest Documentation

Yuen Hoang: Game Design (Rules + Theme Cards), Documentation

Alexia Christou: Game Art and Assets (Theme Cards)

Caitlin Keating: Game Art and Assets (Logo and Rule Art)