First Meeting

            During class last Wednesday, it was a bit of a challenge figuring out what game we liked best and wanted to go forward with.  We had to pick a game that had an interesting theme, was practical to play, didn’t have too many complications (or wasn’t too simple!), and we felt that we could collectively design as a team.  To start off, Mita had an absolutely fantastic idea.  She thought of creating a game whose theme everyone could relate to: the RU screw.  In her game, everyone is a first year student that is trying to overcome challenging obstacles at Rutgers – such as being late for the bus, having webreg shut down, not having good professors, etc.  However, although the theme got everyone excited and put everyone on common ground, I felt this game would be much better and enjoyable as a board game.  It took some convincing but we decided to put this idea on hold.  Ram, on the other hand, thought of creating a card game that centered on the Lord of the Rings.  Though I can’t recall every detail of his game – we all thought it was just too simple and relatively quickly dismissed it.  He didn’t take it personally though, which is good of course, and we moved on fast.   

Moving along, my card game was a children’s game that I designed to help young ones identify and spell different community figures that they should be aware of (i.e. the police officer, mailman, nurse, etc.).  Though the idea we felt was good and cute, we dismissed this too because it will be a challenge creating this game when we are young adults that aren’t all too familiar with children and their specific mentality and needs.  I’m perfectly okay that my game was let go though because I understand how this might be too difficult and even boring to create – even though the rules would have been relatively simple.  Lastly, Sam, who was our leader, thought of a very unique card game where players create meals by matching cards.  When she mentioned her idea, we quickly started brainstorming different ideas that we could incorporate into the game, such as creating meal cards from all different ethnic backgrounds and have them carry different point values.  Though all the details have obviously yet to be established, we felt this game would give players the perfect amount of challenge, zing, excitement and fun.  However, Sam didn’t feel the same way because she thought her game was silly and the theme (food) couldn’t be taken seriously.  But we felt quite the opposite!  Food gets everyone enthusiastic and her idea is awesome!  Still, she seemed shy to have her idea accepted so we ultimately put it into a vote and Sam’s creative idea deservedly won and I’m really looking forward to making this game a reality!