Project Oud Goud :

Playtest compilation movie

Project

The goal of the project was to create a game for families that would start a discussion about whether or not cultural heritage needs to be preserved, demolished or be given an new function.

Our client was foundation ‘Dood Huis’ (= Dead House) that asks the question : "When can you let go of cultural heritage ?"

Very early on, it was clear the game would be become a physical game. Besides the physical game, there is also a small digital extension for Android phones.

The blog concerning the development of the game can be found here.
NOTE : there has been a problem with this blog. People are still looking into it, so I can't guarantee that the blog will function properly.

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Team

Credits card from MonuMania

From left to right :

Rik van Duijn - Design for Virtual Theatre and Games
Game Designer | Financial Manager

Laurens de Gier - Game Design and Development
Game Designer | Responsible for final press

Jens Wouters - Game Design and Development
Game Designer | Quality control press | Blog poster

Mick Vermeer - Game Design and Development
Game Design Lead

Timothy Stam - Game Art
Project Lead | Game Artist

Erik van Wees - Game Design and Development
Game Designer | Digital game artist

Maurus Beurskens - Game Design and Development
Game Designer | Programmer

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Brainstorming

We started this project with individual brainstorms. The three terms that were locked in my brain were : new, decay and restoration. I tried at a certain point to make the whole issue more human related. The equivalent of our problem translated to ‘human’ was plastic surgery. But the moment I realized this, I stepped away from it, because then the game would not be about our problem anymore.

I made a core concept which had the working title ‘Venus de Milo’. Here, the players would travel across the board with statues. Each area on the board would have different preferences for the state of the statues, causing the player to have to physically change the state of the statue she is playing with. The states are also the three terms mentioned above : new, decay, restoration. Scoring would depend on the preference of the area on the board and the state of the statue.

After the first rounds of brainstorming, we decided to each take the concept of another person and look what we could do with that. One person had mentioned a digital concept that could be compared to Mario Party. I took this concept and thought about a pretty standard board game that would be played digital. Each board could be another type of cultural heritage. By playing, the gameboard would dynamically change and create new possibilities and pathways in the process.

Eventually, we took three concepts and tried to develop these further.

Concept ideas 1 - Click to enlarge

Concept ideas 2 - Click to enlarge

Concept ideas 3 - Click to enlarge

Digital board game concept 1 - Click to enlarge

Digital board game concept 2 - Click to enlarge

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The troubles of having a lot of designers

When we were trying to get to an interesting point with the three chosen concepts, we discovered how hard it can be to come to a consensus when you have so much designers. Everyone had another opinion about everything.

Because we were getting nowhere, just two members of the team decided to set up a working core concept. They tried to start creating a game by taking a mechanic of an existing game that suited our goal of the project very well.

We iterated a lot to refine the game and get something fun and interesting to play.

Besides the physical game, we also had a digital extension that could be played on a tablet.

However, the approach for the design seriously backfired during our midterm assessment. Our assessors where not impressed by the game. So halfway through the project time, we needed to rethink the entire game.

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MonuMania : the card game

In MonuMania, you can hijack monuments from the city of Utrecht. When you have hijacked a monument, you have the possibility to achieve a personal challenge. Achieving challenges is necessary to be rewarded with tokens. The player who gets 10 tokens first, wins the game.

Challenges are based on the timeline of a monument. During the game, the players expand these timelines. The longer the timeline, the more chance there is a player can achieve challenge.
This makes it interesting for other players to be involved in someone else's monument. Players can negotiate to get in each other's monument, but this system is open. Does one player just let another player join, or does the other player first has to get him a drink ? This system creates a mechanic where you need each other, but at the same time, you are playing against each other.

There are three special cards in the game for the timeline :

The first is the mafia card. This card gives the owner the opportunity to either throw out a player or either get into a monument himself without negotiation.

Because long timelines create more opportunities, it is possible to use the second special card, a disaster. Disaster cards need to be resolved by paying 2 cards. If the disaster is prevented, the disaster card stays in the timeline. If the disaster is not prevented, the monument is destroyed. When there are 3 disaster cards in a timeline, the monument gets destroyed.
When a monument is destroyed, it pays to be involved in a monument, as you can claim one card that was in that monument's timeline.

The last special card is a band-aid card. A player can use this one to make a card disappear from the timeline. The most interesting usage for it is to counter disasters, but if you have happened to find out someone needs a specific card in a timeline, you can make this card disappear.

MonuMania : the card game, promotion shot - Click to enlarge

MonuMania : the card game - Click to enlarge

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MonuMania : the Android app

At a certain point, we needed to start developing the digital extension. But the core of the card game wasn't finished yet. So I decided we needed to start with the digital extension or otherwise, we wouldn't be able to finish it any more.

The Android app is a small game that probably takes about 5 minutes to play every day. With this game, you need to go to monuments in Utrecht. The GPS in the phone can see how close you are to a monument. When you are close enough, you can cast a vote. By voting, you determine if you want to give a new meaning to a monument or keep it like it is. A game round takes one day. The next day, you can see if your vote has won. Based on what you have voted for, you can chose different rewards.

You compete against other players by trying to collect rewards of your choice and outrank them in the leaderboards.

MonuMania : the Android app - main menu

MonuMania : the Android app - cast a vote

MonuMania : the Android app - claim rewards

MonuMania : the Android app - ranking

If you have an Android phone and want to check out the game, you can get it by scanning the below QR-code or download and install the apk.
NOTE HOWEVER : if you are not traveling through Utrecht, the app is useless.

Download the MonuMania android apk by scanning this

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Responsibilities during the project

I did a lot of different things during this project. Of course, I helped with the design process in the beginning. Updating the blog was also my responsibility. But as the project progressed, tasks needed to be divided.

I participated in a lot of in-house tests to fine-tune everything. I went to people for playtesting the game, recorded it, did a small survey and edited the record footage so the most interesting parts of the playtest were left.

One of the most important things I have done, is sharing my knowledge of press related stuff. I have this knowledge because of my previous study. I made a document with all the things that were relevant to this project, like the CMYK color space, the conversion between RGB and CMYK, bleed, how to create good PDFs, 300dpi, etc.

At certain points, I was ready with tasks and then I had to printi and cutt prototype versions of the game.

I searched for a suitable, rights free font to use in the manual. This is not as easy as it sounds, as I needed a modern font, that is easy on the eyes and also has some variations like italic and bold. I took care of the lay-out of the manual. Some of the non-game related cards were marked up by me.

From the 7 people, three people worked on the digital MonuMania in the end. I was one of the 3 people and did some design together with the others. I created wireframes, thought of all the possible error screens that could pop up, made a storyboard for the app, created an overview of the connections between screens and one of the more elaborate pieces, were the prizes. Prizes are items you get in the game by combining certain souvenirs (rewards). We had a handful of souvenirs already, but we weren't going to put them all in the game. Based upon the combinations I could come up with, we chose 10 prices that would be in the game. I created the equation for the reward that was being given to the players, as it would be depending on the amount of players that voted on a monument.

MonuMania : the Android app, possible combinations souvenirs - Click to enlarge

And in the end, I edited and subtitled the playtest compilation movie, which can be found at the top of this page.

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