COLLECTION NAME:
Graduate Thesis Collection
Record
Title:
Harmony: A Game to Teach Transitive Game Balance
Creator:
Schreiber, Ian
Subject:
Thesis (M.F.A.) -- Interactive Design and Game Development
Subject:
Savannah College of Art and Design -- Department of Interactive Design and Game Development
Rights:
Copyright is retained by the authors or artists of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Abstract:
This thesis explores the difficulty of providing practical experience in the balancing of transitive game mechanics (i.e. games where some elements are more powerful than others, but also have a higher cost) within a classroom setting. Games that showcase these kinds of mechanics tend to be too complicated to analyze and appreciate properly within the time span of a week or two of lecture and homework. Additionally, game balance is highly subjective in nature and thus difficult to grade fairly. To solve these problems, a simple trading card game called Harmony was created that is easy to learn and explore. The game starts off highly unbalanced, and the objective of the students is to modify the card costs in order to bring it into balance. Objective assessment is performed using AI players that repeatedly playing the game to determine if one strategy wins more frequently than the others. Playtesting confirmed that this game can be used as part of a game design or game balance course to give the students practical experience in balancing transitive mechanics.
Publisher:
eLearning / Savannah, Ga. : Savannah College of Art and Design
Date:
2013-05
Format:
PDF : 58 p. : ill; SWF