Initial Ideas
For this assignment, I took the approach of letting the aesthetics and theme lead the playfield layout design and gameplay. Specifically, I really liked the look of 1500s Astronomical star charts & woodcut prints, as well as Horoscopes, which give you a prediction for the future based on your zodiac sign. All of the reference art and the two images used for the final playfield are available in the public domain, and were found using pdimagearchive.org.
For the mechanics of the game, I knew I wanted to include these elements:
- 12 holes with corresponding zodiac signs. The sign you get will correspond to a horoscope
- Rails and pins to follow the contours of the playfield art (ex: pins where stars are, and rails where rainbows are)
- A spinning ‘water wheel’ in the center
For my initial design sketch, I displayed orange circles are holes, and blue dots & lines are rails and pins.
Design Iterations
This Bagatelle machine when through a series of iterations and improvements to get to the final design. Here are the main ones I documented:
- Assembly of the PinBox 3000 Frame.
- Initial playfield layout constriction (pins, discarded electrical wire rails, a curved backboard and chute. I decided against cutting actual holes in the playfield, as the marble would sometimes get stuck underneath it.
- Also initial playtesting by the Sophie, my roommate’s cat. 🙂
- “Oops all purple”, decided the frame looked too plain and ugly, so spraypainted it purple. Unfortunately this warped the paper playfield, so I had to rip it out and start again from scratch.
- Also the initial spinner test was completed with a folder piece of paper.
- Playfield update and additional graphics for the zodiac signs drawn. This was the most fun part for me as I was creating new art for the game, but it was also a challenge coming up with 12 unique colors and symbols that matched with the existing graphics. I also added a small sun on the backsplash to match with the one on the playfield.
- The spinner was also replaced with some more durable foam that I had lying around, and I patched up some of the gaps on the backboard and over the chute.
- For the final design, the biggest change was adding a game instructions card, which now lays out three different was to play, as well as actual horoscopes for the signs.
- I also added some more backsplash art with the name “Zodiac Bagatelle”, and directions for where to insert the marble and pull the plunger.
Final Design & Player Feedback
Players seemed to like the art for the game, as well as the overall gameplay. The most common feedback was the tendency for the ball to get stuck on the wire, likely due to the paper underneath it being warped. The instructions were also a bit messy and hard to read. If I were to make changes, I would:
- Print the playfield on cardstock, or some other more study material
- Type out the instructions & horoscopes on larger paper, with a more readable font
- Use superglue instead of hot glue for the wires
- Add additional art on the box