Memefection Devlog

Short Description:

Memefection is a board game where you play as a local meme lord and try to conquer the city through influencing the internet culture through your memes. The game requires minimum 2 and maximum 4 players to play. Your goal in game is to control as much of territories as you can and battle your opponents. 

Project Goal:

Game inspired by Plague inc. (board game version) and Risk. We started with the goal to make a game based on the Plague inc. where player's goal is to control the board through placing tokens and upgrade themselves with skills that would grant more tokens and point for them. We added the combat system based on Risk over what we've got from the Plague inc.  We are planning to make a game that involves today’s internet culture, strategies, and balance for the players to play.

Development Notes:

Aug.27.2019-Brainstorm

Setting: Fictional world with multiple countries. Players play as Internet meme lords whos mission is to spread thire meme and influence the internet culutre around the globe.

Each countries would have their unique characteristic, which includes:

•  Population with different avaerage age
• Internet speed
• mainstream social media

Some countries would require players to meet its characteristic in order to enter them, players need to use cards that grant them these features to meet the requirement of each country.

Memes: Player’s character, each come with an unique set of goal, the types of memes includes:

• Pictures and Texts
• Video
• Gifs

Players get points through the gameplay and spend them to upgrade their memes.

Aug.29.2019:

Board Design: Instead of making country cards like what the Plague inc has, we decided to put the countries directly set on map. The goal of the Plague inc is to eliminate countries on the board as much as possible, but memefection is aim to control the board by spreading players’ tokens over the map. We don't need a deck on country for players to constantly refresh countries on the map. It would be easier and less time consuming for us to just make the board that just have all these countries on it.

Each country contains these informations:

• Control spot---where players put their token on, the number of control spots a country has indicates the amount of tokens the player can place in this country.
• Additional Features: function as a road block for player to enter certain countries freely.

Sept.1.2019-Playtest#1

Playtester: Daniel, Costas

Goal: Play the prototype, see how the cards works and what we need to improve.

Oberservation and Feedbacks: 

• Textpost meme need a buff of it’s trait in order to be more special to use.
• Players can’t do much at the beginning of the game.
• Rework the point system. Changing the amount of points player can get and spend.
• Mark the requirements/characteristic of the countries on the board.

Idea from Daniel: increase the amount of player would spend after certain amount of time.

We Playtest with only two types of memes (Video and Text Posts) for this playtest since we weren’t able to make all four of them before the meeting. We are thinking about keeping only two memes type for players to choose, making the game less complicated to understand.

Prototype version of the board

Sept.3.2019-Playtest#2:

Playtester:Costas, Daniel

Goal: playtest on the new board and observe the flow of the game.

Obervation and Feedbacks:

• More neutral countries for players to place their tokens at the beginning of the game.
• Maybe spawn zones for each players?
• Rework the winning condition: players are playing without a clear goal in their mind.
• Player spawn freely on any countries they want at the start?
• Combat system and rewards-
• Attacker:+1 token in the countries if winning a combat
• Defender:Remove 1 Attacker token from the country after winning a combat.

 We decided to only have two types of memes compares to the original four, our rules right now feel a bit complicated and we are working to cutting some mechanic out of the game.

Sept.5.2019-Playtest#3:

Playtester: John, Jib, Harris,Costas

Goal: Get feedback from outside of the group, test out the new combat system.

Observations and Feedbacks:

• Better instructions and identification for countries requirements on the board and the cards.
• better symbols with stronger thicker lines on the board.
• The attack/defense and support rules sounds confusing. Players are having a hard time understand it.
• Video meme feels underpower compares to Text memes, it could only earn equal or lesser points from the text meme through its traits. 
• The board need more neutral countries for the player to start. 
• Winning condition suggestion from David: First player who had controlled half of the board wins the game. (There are total 20 countries on the board that make the winning number 10.)
• The rules are still hard to understand…
• cut the side mechanics out and put more focus to the core mechanic
• reduce the currency (tokens and reweets) 
• Give player Extra points for entering a new area they never been into, encourage them to play aggressive.
• Allow players to use multiple token to attack

We are planning to take out the player meme card from the game since we can’t find a good way to balance them. Also their traits didn’t really affect the gameplay and make them special…

After the playtest I decided to change the map into a city rather than a whole world, and used heavy color coding to indicate the characteristic/ requirement of each districts of the city. I use the New York map as a reference but rotate it a little bit to make it fit better on the board.

final version of the board

Based on the feedbacks, we decided to cut the total amount of points player can get from 100 to 50 since there is no way for a player to gain so much of points through their playtime. 

Instead of drawing our original symbols for the power up cards, we decided to use already existed memes as the image on the cards. The meme will fit the context of the card and we think it would be a nice addition for the cards.

Rule Book:

Objective - Fill in map with as many tokens as possible. Once you control 10/20 or more areas you win the game.

START- 

• The last person to be on social media(from there go clockwise).
• Players are dealt 5 cards each (3 from the Requirement deck and 2 from the Attack/Defense deck). 
• Players take turns to choose where to put two free starting tokens on the map . 

CARD REPLENISHMENT- At the start of each round, players are allowed to draw up to 2 cards from either deck. Players are only allowed to have 5 cards at a time.

MOVEMENT- 

• Players can move their Tokens to any Neutral area on the map, whether adjacent or not.
• Players have to be in a neighbouring area in order to enter a restricted area, even if they have its requirement card (ex. Wifi, Rural or Young areas).

POINT SYSTEM- 

• Retweets are acquired when a player occupies a spot in a city (1 retweet for every token and 3 for complete areas).
• Retweets are earned at the start of a player's turn.

SPENDING SYSTEM - Use Retweets earned to purchase Upgrade and Combat cards, as well as Tokens.

Token cost 2 retweets each. After ROUND 10 they cost 4 EACH.

Attack/Defense System- A player can attack another player's occupied area by adding a token in that area (Players can stack these attacks by using more tokens to attack - up to 5):

 - Roll one dice for every token you choose to attack (or defend) with. 

 - The attacker loses ties, the defender wins ties.

 - Defenders can use additional tokens from neighbouring areas to increase their defense. However, if the defender loses, they also lose these extra tokens.

A player can attack an enemy’s completed area if they have tokens bordering that area. 

Upgrade/Requirement Cards (Max 3 per player):

1) Faster Wifi: Earn double the points for any tokens you have in Wifi areas. - 10 retweet cost 

2) Telephone/Networking: Earn double the points for any tokens you have in Telephone areas. - 10 retweet cost 

3) Young Population: Every two turns, add an extra token in any Young area. - 6 retweet cost 

4) Rural Area: Gain an additional retweet for every Rural area you control. - 2 retweet cost 

5) Old Population: Roll a dice: If the roll is 4 or higher, add an additional token within an area with this upgrade. - 6 retweet cost 

Attack/Defense Cards (Unlimited):

(one time use)

1) Negation: Negate an opponent’s attack on your token (Playable at any time). - 2 retweets

2) Removal: Remove one of your opponent’s upgrades at random.  - 6 retweets

(permanent powerup)

3) Devastation: When attacking another player and attack is successful, remove 1 extra enemy token. - 8 retweets

4) Fortress: Choose one of your controlled areas. In case of an enemy attack on that area, negate one of your opponent’s dice throws - 4 retweets

5) Unbreakable Defense: When defending against an attack and the attack is successful, the supporting token is not lost. - 4 retweets