Solitaire with a Twist Post 2 (Postmortem Unit 1)

 Solitaire with a Twist Post 2 (Postmortem Unit 1)

Group number Seven

 

Our game consists of Playing a similar play of Solitaire but with a twist. We decided to make a few changes to our version and with trial and error we found that our version turned out to be very entertaining and simplified.

 

In our game the Joker cards are used instead of being disposed of.  The usual cards Queen and King cards are the ones being put on the waste pile instead (Fig.1).

 

Figure 1 shown below.

 

The Joker cards play an important role in our game because of the way they are used in the gameplay. The Joker cards are used as a substitute for a card not present until that card is made available. Once it has fulfilled its purpose the Joker card can be placed in the waste pile after it has been used (Fig. 2). The only restriction with these Joker cards are that they cannot be used to substitute for an Ace or a Jack card, but it can be used as a place holder for any other card needed in the piles.

 

Figure 2 shown below.

 

The card piles need to start in either ascending or descending order but cannot be both. The also have to be placed in an alternating color mode. This method made the game easier to play, we originally tried playing with only one color instead of alternating and that did not work too well, it ended up making the game harder, which was not our intention, our objective was to make the game easier.  Our game was also modified to be by 5 piles instead of the original that was 7 piles, this helped make the game play faster and less time consuming and easier play for the players (Fig. 3).

 

Figure 3 is shown below.

 

 

“Our Solitaire” with a twist is intended for a target audience of young adults over 20 years old and over but can be understood and played by teenagers if they are card game fanatics. The rules are clear and easy to understand but they are not intended to be played by any player younger than teenagers due to the attention this game requires from their players.

 

I found that this game appeals to already solitaire game card fans or people who overall like card games in general and have always wondered what it would be like to play with Joker cards and have the King and Queen cards be unplayable.

One of the early problems I noticed along with my group partners was a consistent main recurring issue we had with digital cards; we were limited on how we could move our cards online.

 

We attempted to play via a website that gave us access to cyber cards to try out our changes in our modified new version of Solitaire. But we realized that it limited, and time consumed our game play because the cards were not easily moveable as they would be with physical cards. Due to this set back, we eventually were able to get physical cards to our availability thanks to one of our project partners. This made the game so much easier to execute and test out as we moved forward.

 

As mentioned above our solution to our limitation in movement with digital cards causing us to struggle to have a more efficient gameplay was resolved when one of our team members bought cards and we finally had a physical set to practice with less movement restriction and facility to play the modern version of Solitaire we created.

 

What I would change about my own development process going forward is to try to use the physical version of the game product first instead of a digital version. Because the use of physical cards from the beginning, especially when you are still trying to practice and execute your gameplay would help facilitate and cut down time in the game process making it more manageable in every step of the way. 

 

Another thing I would change in my process as I go forward would be to seek out advice and a different perspective from friends and family. They would need to try out our game since my team and I will have biased views on our game, not being able to see in hindsight other things we might need to improve or clarify in our rule sheet and the overall gameplay.

 

A new and unbiased perspective, with a fresh pair of eyes from different people can give you a better view of what you might have missed to modify or edit in order to improve and put in your game, giving you some sense of clarity about your game creation process.

 

Thankfully we had a chance to have our classmates freely pick what games they wanted to test out and a few people chose our game to test play. We got valuable feedback which we were able to use as guidance on what worked and what did not in our game and what needed to be given more clarity for any type of confusion experienced by our classmates.

 

For instance, some of the classmates were confused on what to do with the Joker cards once used, would it be meant to stay on the pile or tossed to the waste pile after finding the replacement that was pending? Of course, we couldn’t see how this could be a confusion which is why I mentioned having other people test out our game besides the creators comes in handy. We did not realize the Joker cards could cause confusion but we were happy to clarify and fix that in our rule sheet so they would know what to do with them after they had already served their purpose.