MarioKart BoardGame!!

During this week my partner and I worked on creating a board game from a video game that is already in the market. We chose to do MarioKart for the Wii, it is a lot of fun for the Wii and my friends and I spend a lot of time laughing and playing this game.

MarioKart Wii

The board game is very straight forward and is based off monopoly and snakes and ladders. The board game layout is based on the popular track called Rainbow Road.

The items in the game include:

Blue shell - player in first place goes back six spaces

Red shell - knock person in front of you two spaces back

Bullet Bill - advance six spaces

Star - quick-play card that enables invulnerability for one hit

Banana - drop on current space, if anyone lands on this space they lose item held

Mushroom - advance three spaces

POW - all players go back two spaces except user

Lightning - all players lose items

The board game in its prototype stage

We have created the board game and asked our friends to play the game in order for us to understand how people would react to the game, doing this will allow us to see if our game is ready for the World and if people would purchase it. When creating our actual product for retail we could include something related to MarioKart in order to attract more consumers.

People play testing the board game

Overall I believe the game was a huge success and that if it was released into the market it would be purchased by consumers.

The Documentation continues!

The documentation documents as long as they are, are needed in our full design of the game. Like stated earlier it is essential in getting an in-depth idea of what the game is actual about.

The concept design document is almost completed and now I am turning my attention onto the scope document which is one page that describes the high-concept and core features. This is one page document describes what makes our game stand out from other games.

I would like to put a lot of colour and concept designs on this one page to grab the attention of the reader. I don't want to make it boring but it needs to be detailed enough that all our points are understood. The design must stand out and bring people in towards accepting and wanting more of the game. I believe it needs to "sell your game" so that people will remember and look for it when it comes out or try and find more detail about it. Team Lightning's OverDrive is a 2.5D vehicular action racing game that will have a playable demo soon and we hope that people will want to play it.

Concept Design - our primary design that describes our game. A vehicle equipped with guns blasting though an insane explosion.

The game is coming along and with the documents being implemented the programmers of the game can also look at these reports and see them as sort of a checklist. After finishing an aspect of the game they can say "yeah okay, let's move onto the next thing," organization is very important in making a game because it can get confusing and something can be missed. We hope to bring our game into the real world soon and that it can give the player an experience.

I believe racing games are very standard and if we can make OverDrive stand out from the rest it will be something that players can enjoy.

Documentation

Creating the documentation of a game consists of a bunch of reports that are needed to keep the team and the group on track. From background story to a detailed breakdown of what people are doing the reports are kept for organization.

Lance Lionheart holding a custom made light machine gun in one hand and a pistol in the other. Lance is all about blowing things up and getting the job done.

Vincent Molotov a evil genius that worked for a company that stole his invention and now is seeking revenge.

I have started the "Concept Design Document" and this pretty much describes the game in difference aspects. So far i have covered the story and background of each character in the game. Creating each background story gives a feel for each character. This is an ideal thing to do because without a story inform users who your playing its just another random creature that can move and shoot. I believe people need a story to get fully involved in a story and that is why the story and detailed information about each character is very important.

The story we have created is about three characters that join a highly classified agency that takes care of the world without anyone knowing. I don't want to get to much into the story because I don't want to ruin anything but the organization is called Lightning (like our team name : D) and the main obstacle they must face is a evil genius that creates a super engine and wants to use it to take over the world.

I really enjoy creating and expressing the feel of the game because if people think your game is "lame" before they even play it then they won't experience this amazing game that will hopefully be finished soon.