Game Prototype and Abstraction

For my game this week I will be discussing Abstraction and whether my game has concepts of it, my progress with the prototype and an example of the rules which are being used in the playtesting.

Abstraction in games can be defined as:

The conceptual process that is a series of mental activities where rules are derived from literal signifiers. 

Abstraction occurs when a concept provides the framework for a body of subordinate concepts.

So there’s a bit of mental gymnastics with this concept and how it applies to analogue game designs, themes and rules. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure whether or not my game has concepts of abstraction in it, but I’m leaning towards ‘no‘ more than ‘yes‘.

Progress with my prototype has slowed down a bit since last week, I’ve been swamped with other assessments and things that I have to do that I have somewhat neglected it a bit. I have however taken into account the problems from the last playtest and made some changes to the game and its components. A few of the problems that the player’s experiences were remembering the longer named memes (which I honestly thought would happen because there are a few with 3 or more words), this has been changed and should now be okay. Another issue that was brought up was the fact that the rules weren’t clear enough for my players, so for this, I have changed the rules and had them reread it to make sure it made sense of them which it did. I managed to get a small game going with my family members with the edits in place and found that it ran a lot more smoothly than last week. They all looked like they were enjoying it as they played and it got quite competitive. When a player places this card, the next player has to skip their turn. If turned up at the beginning, the first player loses his/her turn.

Meme-ery is a game which tests the player’s ability to memorise the cards which are placed down throughout playing the game. The game’s rules, setup and play will be discussed in the new post after this one where I will go into depth about all aspects of gameplay.