ONCE UPON A DICE ROLL
INTERGENERATIONAL ACCESSIBILITY. UNIVERSAL APPEAL.
​
DATE: NOV. 2015
DURATION: 5 DAYS
TEAM: 5
ROLE: GAME DESIGNER
*SHEPHERD CAMERON, DYLAN CAREW,
KEITA LORENTE, AARON SUTTON
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OVERVIEW:
OUaDR is an award-winning storytelling game where you roll dice, collect words, and build-on your friends' stories!
Gameplay uses a 'Consonants D20' and 'Vowel D6' guiding word creation, scoring, and 'Genre Die' for story.
My roles included game design, playtesting and presenting/ pitching the concept to faculty.
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GAMEPLAY SYNOPSIS:
Once Upon A Dice Roll has 3 gameplay phases; word creation, story creation, and voting.
A. WORD CREATION:
1. A player rolls the consonants die, and vowels die. These rolls result in two letters.
2. Each player thinks of a word with both letters in as great a number as possible.
3. Each instance of either letter in the chosen word gains the player a point.
4. After 3-7 word creation phases, the story creation phase begins.
B. STORY CREATION:
1. Players roll a 6-sided theme die which gives the theme of the story phase.
2. Each player writes a story themed after the roll, including each of their chosen words once.
3. After writing for 2-3 minutes, stories are shared aloud.
C. VOTING:
1. Players vote for their favourite stories, with each vote being worth an additional point.
2. A round of Once Upon a Dice Roll has been completed.
In subsequent rounds, players pass their stories and expand the story they receive with a new theme and words.
A full game typically lasts 2-3 rounds, with the winner having the most cumulative points.
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1. DESIGN CHALLENGE A: APPEALING TO YOUNG & OLD
To appeal to the target audience, the design focussed on wordplay and storytelling, two intergenerationally appealing and accessible themes. Building on this, the moldable nature of the gameplay allows players to shape the words and stories into whatever they find fun. This allowed us to write erotic fanfiction, while kids wrote light-fantasy.
2. DESIGN CHALLENGE B: CONTINUED SESSIONS
Continued sessions were tiring players out during testing, which was undesired. We found the tiredness was sourcing from work being abandoned at round's end. To counter this, we added a rule where players passed their stories around post-game and built on those next round. Engagement rose, and continued sessions were more frequent.
3. DESIGN CHALLENGE C: ENCOURAGING INTERACTION
Facilitating interaction between generations was important to our team, we wanted the elderly and young to share their experience through our game. By having players pass their stories around, each generation was exposed to the creations of the other. As such, younger generations learned about the old, and the old learned about the young.
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2. PROGRESSION
TEAM WORKFLOW:
STAGE 01: CONCEPTUALIZATION. DAY 1.
STAGE 02.
PLAYTESTING & ITERATION. D2-4.
STAGE 03.
PLAYTESTING POLISH. DAY 5.
Ideated mechanics and themes, prototyped appealing concepts.
Playtested for appeal, flow, and the best ways to teach how to play.
Polished information, continued iterating. Pitched game to judges.