“The best way to learn games is to play games. The best way to make games is to work.” – Alan Emrich
Your Weekly Homework Game:
If your game was not envisioned with an Economic Model, guess what? Marketing just told you they want one in the game, so now you have to figure out how to add it.
This week's homework builds on your Weekly Homework (i.e., “Ship”) Game’s current Concept Document (i.e., its Title, High Concept, Hook, One-Sentence Marketing Description, and a single paragraph description of the game’s setting, Epoch, scope, scale, and who the player represents). You're required to hand in a written document that includes your name plus the Concept Document information from last week’s homework assignment (with the Ship Matrix, Victory Conditions, and Conflict Resolution).
After copying and pasting that information from last week, you’re going to extend that Concept Document by adding this week’s homework assignment information at the end in a new section.
This section is entitled, “Week 4 Homework: Economic Model” and, specifically, you must write:
A description of how the Economic Model in your game will work.
Exactly what resources will the game have?
More importantly, what will players be able to do with those resources? (Remember, resources by themselves are not cool; it’s what you can do with them that is.)
How will resources be acquired, expended, combined, moved, stored, depleted, discovered, etc.?
Important: Create a simple ‘Costs’ or ‘Build’ Table showing the game’s economic model. (There are some examples from various games up on the web site this week.) Specifically, your Costs or Build Table should answer these questions:
What players can spend their resources on?
How much (of what) does each cost?
If needed, what pre-requisites are required for that purchase?
If needed, how long each takes to complete?
Sample Weekly Homework ('Ship Game') Assignments
are available for your inspection!
Outstanding sample homework files are included inside this .zip file. It contains complete sets of homework assignments for this course from several award-winning ship games including: Alien Colony, Extreme River Rapids Racing, Hive Mind, and Outlaw Star. Peruse these to see what is expected from you each week!
In addition, this week's assignment only can be seen in isolation from this series from the game:
Pirates: The Battle for Booty.
Your Graded Course Project Game:
Pre-Planning: This week, you handed in your Graded Course Project Game’s Inception Document. Well done!
This week, you get to start writing your game’s rules. Yep, more writing! (And that, dear friend, is an important key to being a Game Designer; the ability to communicate clearly in writing.) You should write down all of your game’s key rules and play systems. At the very least, this should end up being a comprehensive set of notes.
You’ll need these notes for next week’s assignment, by the way. Next week’s lesson is on writing proper rules using the Case System, so you’ll get to take your rules notes from this week and turn it into a proper first draft of the rules next week (which will be a graded assignment).
Article: Who's On First? by Matthew Horn
If you can't decide how you should determine who plays first in your game, then this article is packed with inspiration. (Remember the second rule of game design.)
Article: Is It Really About Theme Versus Mechanic? by Andrew Hardin
When you're pondering if players will like your game, this reflective piece might help you find the right device to achieve that goal because different people become immersed in games in different ways.
