This was a question posed to us as part of Jesse Schell's Game Design class at the ETC. Hopscotch is a very old game that has endured through the ages and knows no boundaries. The rules are very simple and the game is ubiquitous among children on playgrounds. Hence, Jesse gave us this challenge to help improve our game design skills.

Let's get hopping

The goal of this assignment was to create an improved version of the game of Hopscotch and document the process as we go. This assignment was divided into 3 parts. The first part involved identifying the good and bad parts of the existing game of hopscotch and choosing one of the problems to solve. Then we had to use the elemental tetrad to brainstorm at least 50 ideas for our improved version of the game. The second part of the assignment was choosing three of the 50 ideas and elaborating the design. The last part was choosing one of the three from part 2 and actually building it and testing it.

Hopscotch is good because:

1. It is a skill based game. It requires you to be good at hopping on one foot, throwing the pebble precisely in the square.
2. It is good for socializing as it is a turn based game.
3. It involves some strategy as the board is continuously changing and you need to plan your hopping route.
4. The learning curve on the game is low and anyone can play the game.

The problems in hopscotch are:

1. The game can get too boring because of the waiting. The more players that join the more waiting you have to do.
2. If everyone plays a perfect game, the player that started first wins.
3. There is no interaction in between the players during turns.
4. The game might be too easy for some players.

Having identified what works and doesn't work in hopscotch, I went ahead with the brainstorming of 50 ideas. I then chose three of my favorite ideas to elaborate on and flesh out the design.

The first idea I fleshed out was Hopscotch while chanting hopscotch and on a timer: Keeping all the original rules of hopscotch regarding the pebble toss and hopping on the board. Once the player enters the board, they must continuously chant “hopscotch” and also every player has a timer for 30 seconds to complete the round. The chanting ensures that the player has to focus on one more thing while traversing the course and also the players waiting pay attention whether the player on the course is actually chanting or not. The timer ensures the quick turnaround of the round and that no player outside has to wait for too long for their turn to come around as it adds a little more pressure on the player on the board. The most promising candidates for fun are the timer as the players will have to take bolder and riskier moves to complete the round. Also, under the pressure of the timer, the players might stop chanting as it is an energy consuming task.

The second idea I worked on was Hopscotch with three teams and nerf guns: Keeping all the original rules of hopscotch regarding the pebble toss and hopping on the board. There are three 2 player teams each with some kind of weapon and a shield(Nerf/ soft balls). Each team starts the game at the same time. The player in the board has the weapon and must use it to eliminate the other team players. The players can only use the weapon while on one foot. They can also use the shield to block incoming attacks. If a player is hit, they must leave the board. The player outside the board is responsible for helping the player on the board reload the gun and switching out when they get out. Each player has three lives. The first team to complete the circuit or eliminate both other teams wins. The most promising candidates of fun for this game are the weapons as even though each team has the same weapons, the team with more skill will have an advantage. This game also ensures that there is continuous interaction between all the players and their actions aren’t isolated.

The final idea I developed was Hopscotch on a different board with red light-green-light: This game is different than a traditional game of hopscotch as it is played on a modified board. There are 4 players on the outside that are moving to the player standing at the goal line. The goal of the game is for the players on the outside to hop their way and tap out the player on the goal line without him noticing by using the rules of red light-green light. The first player to tap the player at the goal out is now the new light. This game is fun because, the board is unconventional and you are playing with more people. Also, you need to be very stealthy in your movements to avoid detection by the player at the goal line.

Hop Skip Jump and Shoot!

Of the three ideas I had worked on, I most liked the second idea which involved three teams and nerf guns. The formal initial rule-set for the game was:

1. Standard hopscotch board with numbers from 1 to 9 repeated 3 times, each at an angle of 120 degree from the other.
2. Standard throwing rules for the pebble and hopping rules for the player.
3. Three teams with 2 players in each team.
4. All three teams start at the same time and have only one player enter the board.
5. The player that enters the board has 2 soft balls and the other player has a shield.
6. The player outside the board is the support player helping his teammate with “reloading the weapon”(picking up the balls) and protecting them from attack.
7. The balls are to be used as a weapon and the shield as a defence against opponent attack.
8. A team cannot have more than 2 balls on the board at a time.
9. The players on the board can only use the weapon while they are on one foot.
10. Each player has 3 lives to begin with.
11. If a player is hit, they must swap out with their teammate that is standing outside and also lose a life. If the teammate standing outside has lost all lives when you are hit, you must start the round over.
12. Once a player loses all lives, they are out of the game and cannot help a team member that is still alive.
13. The goal of the game is to eliminate all the opponent team members or finish the board the fastest without dying.

I play-tested this initial state of the game with a few of my peers and recorded their feedback. The game started normally and there was some interaction between all the three teams but as the rounds went on one of the teams was completely ignored by the other two teams and they were able to complete the game without any obstacles and ultimately won. Also, it was very hard to keep track of how many lives each person had left. The induced chaos of the violence was really fun and having to be aware of your surroundings was nice. There was one team too many, when 2 teams got locked in a skirmish, the other team was relatively free to just play on without any disturbance.

For the next iteration of the game I tried play-testing with only two teams and the results were much better than the previous playtest, but the players did say that there was no incentive to attack and also it was hard to attack and move at the same time. This playtest removed the unwanted team and let the chaos and violence remain but still it was really hard to monitor the players actions. There was little incentive for the player on the board to throw the balls.

The second iteration was as far as I could get in the time-frame we were give for the assignment, but, if I were to continue I would switch the actions for the players and have the player standing outside be the thrower from a fixed spot and the player on the board have the shield and defend themselves against the opponents attack. This would introduce a risk element as when do you skip and when do you hold your shield up. I could also reduce the size of the shield so it is harder to defend yourself, thereby giving the opponents more incentive to throw. In this scenario, I might re-introduce the third team to give the shooting players more targets and introduce a little more dynamism to the game.

My game tried to solve the problem of the games being too isolated in themselves and the players not having any interactions amongst themselves. The action of throwing the ball and defending yourself from attacks introduced a significant amount of interaction among the players.

Lessons learned

The biggest lesson I learned was the importance of brainstorming multiple ideas in writing to find the ideas that work. Our brains our notoriously forgetful and the act of physically recording any idea that you had ensured that you could easily recall it later. I also learned the importance of play-testing and iterating on the game to make it better. Irrespective of how experienced a designer you are, the game will never be great in the first iteration and will always need more love and work to be improved. Finally, I learned the importance of balancing the game so that every player has a good experience playing the game. Everyone has different goals when they chose to play a game and ensuring that they at-least were able to achieve them partially will make your game vastly more enjoyable.