Week 2 - Game Design Review - CTF (Capture The Flag)

Play-testing Report of CTF

 

During the Week 2 workshop the class was broken up into small groups of 3 - 4 people with each tasked with the creation of a Race to the End style of game taken from Brenda Braithwaite's Blog: (http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2008/07/09/the-easiest-game-design-exercise-ever-really/ )

I had the opportunity to play-test a CTF (Capture The Flag) style of game created by one of the other groups with my review and instructions for the game as follows...

As is identifiable in the image above the game is a CTF style of game and is suited for four players.

Each player is represented by a coloured token with each player assigned an initial starting area as well which is denoted by an identically coloured "flag". The goal of this game is to capture an enemy's flag and return in to your base.

Each player in turn rolls a die and moves in either a clockwise or counter-clockwise direction with the number of intervals moved determinate of the number rolled. 

If a player is able to land on an opponent's flag they must then attempt to return the opponent's flag without being intercepted. Should a player be intercepted they must defend the flag by rolling higher than the opponent. 

The first player to return to their home base with an opponent's flag wins the game.

Whilst I was told of additional rules to handle other situations such as two players occupying a non-base location at once and various other scenarios these rules where not elaborated upon nor did such situations present itself during play-testing.

During the workshop I was able to play two rounds of the above and was able to make the following observations about the game which I will brake down into pro et contra.

Pros

 

The game concept was a little hard to grasp at first and needed to be "seen" in action however once the core mechanic was understood and the rules clearly defined the game proved to be easy to play.

The gave offered plenty of conflict and also an element of strategy which I enjoyed. Being able to chose direction of movement and whom to attack made this possible.

Cons

 

Once the first player has won the game is over, this can result in a very brief match with other players feeling as if they had little if any interaction or participation.

The game rules were hard to grasp at first without a demonstration from the designers.

Suggestions for Improvement

Whilst I enjoyed the game during play-testing a couple of ideas came to mind as to how this game could be further improved.

The current victory condition is met when any player returns to their home base with an enemy flag but as mentioned above this can result in brief matches with little interaction from participating players. This could be mitigated by having a "last man standing" victory condition rather than first flag to base. Whilst this would result in eliminated players being unable to participate until the game is won, the time between each elimination would drastically shorten as the number of remaining players diminishes.

Rather than the "every man for himself" style of game-play offered a 2v2 mode could be offered. Each two man team would attempt to defeat the opposing team. When a team mate is removed from game due to their flag being stolen the remaining team member could either choose to "revive" his fallen team member with a flag captured from the enemy or have that enemy removed and attempt to take on the remaining player by himself. This would add further depth to the game and prevent other players from becoming bored whilst waiting for the game to be won. The problem with this however is that it could potentially result in a rather protracted game.

Final Verdict

 

All in all I found it to be a fairly enjoyable game and an ingenious use of limited time and resources. Whilst some cons were observed during play-testing it is likely that the game designers would have noticed the same had they more time to test the game.