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Should you make a game for children or adults???

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Fri, 03/09/2018 - 21:09
questccg
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I've realized that I could CHANGE the audience of a game depending on the formulas or how the rules are presented.

For example: Visually have three (3) Yellow Cubes -> 1 Green Cube.

Or simply state: 3 Income -> 1 Boon.

Obviously the 2nd version while still lisable, is not as OBVIOUS as the first case where we showed what "Cubes" are used in by the engine...

So I'm curious, which of these two methods would you prefer to see???

Is it a "Graphical notation" which kids can understand and play??

Or is it a more "grown-up" notation that requires players to read the rulebook at least once?

Cheers!

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Sat, 03/10/2018 - 10:22
#1
X3M
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MO

I would say "Picture for the kids." Since adults would understand either way.
But I am curious if any one else has an opinion about this.

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Sat, 03/10/2018 - 11:16
#2
polyobsessive
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Usually graphics > text

I wouldn't see "text vs graphics" as being an adult vs child thing only. If you represent everything graphically with icons then you remove language barriers for playing the game: all you need to do is provide a key for what all the icons mean in various languages (your player community can be your friend here, doing this job for you) and your game can be played by people who don't speak English.

In general, if all else is equal, its a good idea to at least seriously consider getting rid of text from your cards and other components.

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Sat, 03/10/2018 - 14:04
#3
chris_mancini
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In addition to age of your

In addition to age of your audience, how can you design your game to widen that audience as well? Make it as accessible as possible to different languages through clever component design and rules layout? Is it possible to make one rules sheet in EFIGS - English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish, thereby making your game "universal?"

This would allow you to maintain whatever you feel is critical to the gameplay, theme, complexity, etc. Personally speaking, any time you can use iconography and images to explain the rules of a game, the better. Nobody particularly loves looking at a wall of text; the game rules should be part of the overall gameplay experience. With that, I'm much more interested in learning how to utilize my "Income" and "Boon" than cubes; provided I have a key to associate the components to their theme.

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Sun, 03/11/2018 - 00:26
#4
questccg
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Hmm... Never thought about "internationalization"

I understand and didn't consider "internationalization" as one aspect that "symbols & cubes" could make the game much more ACCESSIBLE.

I just figured that seeing "symbols & cubes" made the game more understandable. And maybe seem to appeal to a younger audience at the same time.

Whereas in the sense of the "resource" labels (such as Income, Renown and Favor) would require a level of abstraction to understand that "Yellow Cube" = "Income". And therefore three (3) "Yellow Cubes" = 3x Income.

So I guess I should go with "symbols & cubes" but explain in the rulebook what each symbol and/or cube actually means...

The question I guess I must ask myself is: "How simple do you want the game to appear to be?" Having a symbolic language might be interesting (as I have mentioned) ... but I'm not convinced just yet. I need to think about it some more!

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Sun, 03/11/2018 - 04:55
#5
polyobsessive
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Icons != Simplistic

Bear in mind that using icons instead of text doesn't necessarily make a game look simple or simplistic. For example, take a look at Race for the Galaxy, Anachrony, or Guilds of London.

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Sun, 03/11/2018 - 09:48
#6
gxnpt
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both

If you can use both icons and text, do both.

Multi-channel communication of an idea is better than single channel communication.

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