Project by Katy Mollenkopf and Ben Stern
My original concept was to create a playfield themed like an amusement park because it’s a fun setting to work off of and expand upon. In my previous bagatelle design on surfing, I received feedback stating that tunnels were fun for players, so I integrated more tunnels (the ones by the plungers and the tunnel in the middle for the Ferris wheel in this example). I also played around with the concept of ramps and bumpers and how that could play into the theme.
The ramps are meant to be roller coasters and the tunnels are meant to resemble those of dark rides or haunted houses. I topped the bumpers with colored paper to further push the jovial theme of amusement park rides.
Both Ben and I agreed that we wanted gameplay centered around more than just draining the other player’s marbles, so we went with having players visit all of the amusement park rides as the objective.
Based on the testing we did outside of class, this objective worked well because some of the rides (namely the ramps and Ferris wheel) were difficult to hit, so it wasn’t too easy to win, but still quite possible. Based on feedback gathered from the class playtest, though, players actually found the ramps too difficult. As I watched, I noticed a lot of players kept losing marbles inside of the bumpers, so I’ll want to construct filled bumpers in my next design to prevent this. I may also need to reconsider bumper placement for future designs, since they didn’t seem to support the goal of visiting all of the rides – rather, they acted against it and caused players to drain marbles quicker. Besides that, the Ferris wheel was accessible and players were determined to visit all of the rides.
A couple of players also said they wanted the to spin the Ferris wheel. This got me thinking of how I could implement interesting features to future designs that are unique, such as LED obstacles, spinners, or other neat things based on what the design inspires in players. All in all, it was a helpful playtest and made me consider some important factors that I didn’t think of when coming up with the design initially.