The First Game

We played the first game today in class after setting up the first hard playable copy of our game. We played one game as a group and started to realize that the shape of the pie wasn't very accurate since most of the pieces landed very close to the shooting area and not many landed farther from the back. We re ordered our felt pieces to the shape of a rough triangle, and that is the shape that our first players used. The ratio of action tiles to blank tiles seems to be a good mixture, however there were not as many bites/slices taken out of each players pie as we had expected. The approximate game time seems to be a good length and the amount of tiles that must be moved also seems to be a good amount. The following ideas came to mind:
• do the players decide which bite goes back into their pie when they land on the action tile?
• "one extra shot" action tile is better used right after landing on it (?)
• add an ability to skip a turn and get a bite put back, or another way of earning bites back instead of just chance
• add more opportunities to lose bites since the maximum amount of slices that were missing at any moment was 2 out of 9. Perhaps by making landing on a fly action tile giving you the ability to shoot 2 flies, but at the same time making more opportunities to earn them back
• possibly give one player the option of switching shooting zones and pies during game play
• find a more secure way of locking the ramp in place than using paper clips since they get progressively weaker and cause the box to pop up, blocking certain shots.

The Rules

“Sicilian Shoot Out”

Object:
To flick, and successfully land as many of your toppings onto your half of the pie every turn, in order to move around the board one full rotation from start to finish fastest. The winner is the player who reaches the finish first.

Players: 2

Game Pieces
Each player will be given 5 of their own “toppings” which they will keep throughout the entire game, and one token, which they will move around the board each turn. In addition to the toppings there are 2 “flies” which are not claimed by either player for the entire length of the game, but are only utilized when a player lands on the appropriate “action tile”.

How to Play
Movement of the token piece is determined by however many of your toppings you can successfully land onto your half of the Sicilian pie. The pie that each player must land on in order for their topping to count as a movement is the one that is directly in front of them. The toppings are to be flicked from the base of the shooting zone which is marked, and divided down the middle. Toppings can be flicked from anywhere within the designated shooting area. Each topping that lands on the pie corresponds to one movement of the token.

1. The first player is determined by a shoot out. Each player gets their 5 toppings and shoots at the same time. Whoever lands the most of their 5 pieces on their pie gets to go first.
2. Each player will alternate shooting all 5 of their pieces and moving the corresponding amount of spaces with their token. If they land on an action tile, the action will be taken immediately before the next player has their turn to shoot. Before the next player shoots their toppings, the previous must clear theirs off the pie and game board.
3. Around the board, there are the previously mentioned action tiles. Written on the action tile is a description of what the consequences are for landing on it. Consequences can be good or bad for you or your opponent.
Action Tiles:
• Fly piece: When a player lands on a “one free fly piece” tile, that player has the opportunity to shoot a fly piece from their shooting area to their opponents pie. Whatever slice the fly lands on on the opponents pie will be removed, thus shrinking that players pie. The fly piece must be entirely on the pizza, and if it borders on several slices, the owner of the pie (not the shooter) may choose which one is removed.
• One Slice Back: If a player lands on this tile, and they are missing a slice from their pie, they can replace it immediately. If they have no missing slices, then there is no action taken.
• One Less Topping: When a player lands on this action tile, for their next turn, they will only shoot 4 out of their 5 toppings. This is only effective for the following turn, and then the normal amount of 5 toppings is resumed.
• One More Topping: When a player lands on this action tile, for their next turn, they will shoot their original 5 toppings, move however many spaces they land, and then immediately re-shoot one more topping.
• One Less Topping for your Opponent: When a player lands on this action tile, when their opponent shoots next, they may only shoot 4 out of their 5 toppings. This is only effective for that turn, and then the normal amount of 5 toppings is resumed.
• Opponent Decides Your Fate: When player “a” lands on this action tile, player “b” has the ability to move them backwards. Immediately after landing, player “b” can shoot all 5 of their toppings, aiming for player “a”s pie. Player “a” will immediately move back however many spaces as player “b” lands on the pie.

Other Rules
o In order for a topping to count for a movement around the board, it must be at least half on the pie.
o If a player lands all 5 of their toppings in one turn, their opponent must move back 1 space.
o If a player moves backwards and lands on an action tile, no action is taken.
o A players pie can not shrink down to less than 1 piece at any time.
o If a player knocks one of their own toppings off of their pie, that topping does not count. Only however many toppings remain after the last topping is shot count.
o If the topping doesn’t clear the launching zone, that topping can not be re-shot.

Sicilian Shoot Off

Although our original design called for players shooting their pieces and landing them onto pizza slice shaped targets, after today's trial run, we changed that. We realized that most of the pieces tend to go too far, and the triangle shaped pizza was not helping that problem. The initial idea was to change the "slices" to a round pie, but once again we found that this design was too small. Then the idea of a square Sicilian pizza pie came up. Each player would lose "bites" from their perfectly square pie depending on game play.


Today we were using smaller checker pieces than we had intended. The smaller pieces are lighter and fly farther than we had intended. Thus we've decided to double the amount of pieces each player gets to flick from 5 to 10.



After realizing the flicking motion packs a little too much of a punch for these light pieces, we've decided to explore other alternatives to pushing the pieces. We are currently tossing around two ideas. One is to implement the use of a pushing device almost like in shuffle board (show in above picture as a pencil). The pushing device gives the player a little bit more control over how much force they apply. The device can be type of pen or pencil with the pizzeria's telephone number on it. The other option would be to continue flicking the pieces as originally intended, but to attach Velcro to both sides of the checkers. We've realized that the idea is somewhat similar to shuffleboard, so we tried using a makeshift shuffleboard "shuffler" (see above photo) using a ruler and a binder clip.





We also realized that a pizza box does not open up in a way that creates a slanted ramp that we were looking for. The remedy for this problem is quite simple, but yet, still needs to be included in assembly instructions. We simply fixed the box closed using 2 paper clips, one on each side (see photo to the right).









Over the weekend we will need to:
-buy felt to create removable pieces of the Sicilian pie
-test out how the surface of the felt changes the gameplay as far as the pieces sliding/stopping on it
-test using poster board instead of felt, while still applying Velcro to the bottoms.
-use paper layouts to explore different game designs as far as amounts of tiles necessary, and the amount of "special" tiles that would make a good balance of gameplay

Progress of the Game

Based on the size and weight, we have decided to use checkers as game pieces to flick off the pizza box. One team will have red checkers to represent their topping as a pepperoni slice. The other team will have sausage slices as their topping, and the checkers will be spray painted accordingly. The goal of the game is a race to the finish and the theme we've applied is two rival pizzerias racing to complete a pizza pie from creation to delivery. Each side of the 4 sided board represents a different stage of the process. Each of the sides will have one themed tile that relates to the actions going on on that side. That specific themed tile will have a little bit more severe consequences than the others. We went over the specific actions that can occur on each of the regular action tiles. We decided to incorporate a penalty action tile that allows your opponent to move you backwards depending on how many toppings they can land, as opposed to simply being told to move back 4 spaces. We realized that there needs to be a direct relationship between the number of specific action tiles, and the amount of "bites" that may be taken out of one's pizza slice. We realized that we need to begin testing the game very soon because it seems the best way to decide how many of the tiles will be "action tiles" is to just play the game and see how long it takes. We are going to test how easy it is to shoot the "toppings" in order to decide 2 things. First, we want to see what size the pizza slice that you're landing on needs to be, and secondly, we want to see how quickly it is possible to move around the game board. We also decided that the rule book will be printed in the form of a menu.

The game begins

Today Jay and I decided to work on his pizza box game. This game involves some skill and chance. Players will have to flick "pizza" toppings off of the ramp that is provided from the box and try to land them onto their pizza. Every player is trying to be the first to reach the finish line. You can advance toward the finish by moving up the board the same number of landed toppings on the pizza. Players can also hinder their opponents success by shooting fly pieces. These are acquired by landing on specific locations on the board. We have high hopes for this game!