Week 3

Today, we played San Juan for about an hour. This game proved to be a beneficial experience as the group had attained a better grasp of game mechanics and structure. Specifically, San Juan involved many different mechanics and structure which resulted in occasional confusion among the players as to what the correct rules. Aside from that, the game was very engaging and allowed for all players to participate even during down time. The game was a new game to many and was an enjoyable experience.
After we had played San Juan for a good hour, we discussed the core mechanics and structure of our future Cold War game. After much deliberation, it was determined that the game's core mechanic would involve the drawing of one discovery card and choosing whether to ask a question or not. Although all of the mechanics are not all thought out, we had focused more on the structure. The player who goes first in the beginning of the game will be decided by whoever rolls the highest number on a six sided die. The structure of our proposed game involves two decks of cards. One is the character card deck and another the discovery card deck. It was also determined that if you guess the spy wrong, you lose a point and if you are correct, you gain two points. After gaining eight points,the game ends and whoever accumulated eight points wins. There are at most eight character cards and a max of two spy cards. Therefore, the maximum possibility for a full game would be six innocent players and two spies. The discovery cards will each have a question that will be used to gain intelligence on who is the spy. In addition, there will be a sheet of paper for each player that will contain information about what kind of person the spy is. Every player must pay attention to this as the spy(s) must answer the questions posed to them relevant to the biography. Other innocent players can trick other players into believing they are the spy by posing answers similar to the biography. It was also determined that if you want to call out who you believe a spy is, it must be done before the start of your turn. You can accuse someone anytime in the game but it must be before the start of your turn, adding to a catch-up mechanism. The point system is as follows:
+2 = if you are a spy and someone guesses wrong
-1 = if you guess wrong
+2 = if you guess correct
If a discovery card is used, it must be discarded. There will also be duplicate discovery cards containing the same questions.
Throughout the class period, we had accomplished a lot in terms of the progress of the game. We agreed to think of three traits of the spy for next week in addition to planning to meet outside of class.