In order to test the gameplay designed last week, we invited team of Jiang Zhiqian to test with our team.
Discussion before starting
- Only five people participated in the test, so Yanis suggested that the host perform the first action. This can prevent spies from being named in previous rounds and being unable to perform without effective information.
- Zhu found that teams can display all the images in a video call at the same time only on the computer client. Therefore, everyone needs to unify the teams platform in the game.
- In Teams, players can adjust the background pattern, which can help players see more clearly (because some players’ game environment will be messy). We chose the same frame scene mode.
Round 1 monkey
The host sends the player’s identity to the player by private message. If you are a spy, you will receive “you are spy”, and if you are a civilian, you will receive the word you performed. The host performs first, and the performer selects the next performer.
Zhu put forward an idea: Should we limit the actions of players? Is this action a freeze-frame action or a dynamic process similar to gif pictures? The action of freeze-frame will be very limited and difficult for other players to understand. At present, we choose not to make any restrictions.
The actions made by Ziqi are the same as those made by previous players. This is a risky behavior. Most players will seriously suspect that you are a spy, and when repeated invalid information appears on the spot, it is not a good experience for other players. Therefore, we stipulate that actions cannot be repeated or identical.
The experience in the voting stage is not very good. In order to ensure fairness, we must let all players signal their suspects at the same time. This can’t be achieved by voice, because many players will be confused and illegible when speaking. We choose to input by text. Players need to enter the text into the chat box, wait for the host to count down and then press the Enter key. At this time, I encountered a problem: I will always pop up a message in the lower right corner, if others press the OK button, it will be faster than me. At this time, I can’t send my own message and the prompt will prevent me from viewing other people’s speeches. I haven’t solved this problem yet. The first round of the game achieved one of our expected results. Bangguo is undercover. This is a phenomenon worthy of attention due to cultural differences. In Chinese culture, Wukong is a hero who can represent the monkey image better than the monkey itself. When the players made actions that can show the characteristics of monkeys, Bangguo made actions related to “monkey”, although he thought the answer was “Wukong”. We realize that the topic given by the author needs to take care of a wider range of players in order to avoid cultural cognitive differences.
Round 2 knock nails
Knocking nails is a dynamic process, which forces players to perform a continuous action. We found that it is very difficult for everyone to perform a different action because nailing is a very unified and obvious behavior. Therefore, we may need more ways of expression instead of just using actions. We think that sound is a very good way of expression and can prompt other players from another dimension-hearing.
Round 3 David King
Ha ha ha.
It is very difficult for players to guess someone everyone knows. Because most people will guess at public figures when they find that the description object is a person.
Round 4 spy (that is, spy)
We predict that this word is very confusing, but in fact, its confusion only exists in the process when the host tells the player the topic. It is very easy to imitate and guess the behaviors of holding a gun and hitting the keyboard by hackers. So no one guessed who the spy was in this round.
Round 5 popcorn
Before we started, we thought of a problem: if players can choose a word, sound and action at will, then we need to avoid all players choosing sound. The judgment of sound is very simple and easy to repeat (it is difficult to have multiple sounds in one behavior),so we added a rule: the player’s way must be different from that of your previous player.
Round 6 Tetris
Bangguo made the action of “falling” and he took a prop-apple. I’m a spy. I guess the answer is Newton or free fall?
Round 7 MJ
In this round, yanis suggested whether we can use color as a description. For example, MJ often wears black and white clothes to perform, so you can say black and white to express him. Popcorn can be yellow.
At the beginning of the game, I made a MJ very symbolic action with gestures-the space dance step. So everyone guessed it. Therefore, when the spy identity is very obvious, the player can use a very obvious action to protect his own life.
Round 8 beer
We think that some simple things seem to be difficult to express with completely different actions. But if we allow players to choose other performances, such as sounds and words, it may deviate from the original intention of the game we designed. What we hope is to let players capture each other’s emotions through actions to judge who is a spy. At present, we have come up with a compromise-sounds and words can be used once in each round. This is a tentative rule. layers have used them, you can’t use them again.
Round 9 computers
Simpler words are often harder to express. Because ordinary players can easily guess if they are too obvious. But if your actions are too abstract or elusive, you will be suspected of being a spy.
Round 10 PUBG
Yanis made the iconic gesture of “waving a pan”. Jiang made the action of being shot and killed. Zhu made a baseball player catch the ball. Obviously, zhu, who plays a spy, judges “waving” as playing baseball.
Round 11 Elon Musk
It’s easy to guess for players who are familiar with this celebrity. The answers given by players are: electric, rocket take-off, Iron Man and “rich”. But the spy was not familiar with Elon Musk, so he didn’t guess.
Round Special Yao shui ge (Chinese funny artist)
Because our imitation object is a comedian, players will choose many classic bridges of this actor. The entertainment effect of the game is very good, but one classmate doesn’t know who he is. Therefore, we should try our best to avoid minority celebrities when designing topics. If it’s someone everyone knows or MJ, a world-famous artist, it’s ok.
Thinking
We are still uncertain whether to add expressions other than actions. I think this is what we will discuss next. Personally, after watching the video, I tend to use only actions to express myself. My reasons are as follows:
- As far as the feedback from players is concerned. Multi-directional information reduces the difficulty of the game for general players, especially when the number of players is small. Ordinary players can choose any expression, and spies can also receive information from multiple dimensions. This makes the whole game very “easy”. We need to add more challenges to the game in order to increase the probability of “unexpected things”.
- Too many expressions deviate from our previous definition of this game. We hope that this game can make players focus on one form of expression as much as possible-action. Only in this way can players have more energy to observe the performance of other players and then produce psychological games. If we allow sounds and words to appear, players’ attention will be distracted. As a result, “action” cannot be displayed more. Players will only do some very simple or absolutely relevant symbolic actions. This can’t surprise the game process.