Entry 07

Based off of Macklin and Sharp's tools, I would say the hardest part of designing a social deduction game is forming an entertaining theme and experience for the player. When thinking about designing the theme of a game, I think back to what I have played in the past. The first 2 games that come to mind are 2 rooms and a Boom, as well as Codenames. Both games have the theme of secret agents working with each other for their own teams goals, while also being entirely different. It is hard to come up with an original theme due to how many games are out there, as well as coming up with an original game in itself. If I was to design my own, I would probably use things I experience every day, such as something relating to video games I play or perhaps something I overheard in one of my classes. In the youtube video we watched, "How to teach Board Games", the owner of the channel uses a quote about reading the manual on the toilet a week before you play with your friends. I feel as if to successfully create a social deduction game theme, it would have to be something I am 100% confident I understand and could turn into a fun game idea.

Moving onto experience, the most important part of a social deduction game (other than winning) is having fun while playing it. When we played Werewolf and Two Rooms and a Boom it seemed like everybody was actively enjoying their role without realizing it. I believe that creating an entertaining game would also be a majorly difficult part of designing my game. Everybody has their own tastes so it is hard to determine what someone may enjoy and what others may dislike. In Macklin and Sharp, at the start of Chapter 6, we are introduced to design values and how they help designers identify what kind of experience they want players to engage in. Focusing on design values would be my first step in determining how I want the players of my game to experience it.

The themes that I would probably use are those I have already talked about. I really enjoy the undercover role games like Two Rooms and a Boom, so I would probably do something like CS:GO and have 2 teams (Counter Terrorists and Terrorists) and instead of a bomb site have a package that the Terrorist team is trying to get from one point to another (Like rooms).