Week 7

Creating a social deduction game, or a game in which the goal is to mislead and deduce the misleadings of other players in a social context requires making two goals for the players. “A game’s goals give shape and purpose to play experiences by giving players objectives.” (Macklin and Sharp, chapter 2). These objectives include having a secret you must keep from other players. This may be a specific card in your hand, for example. This shapes the experience the player has. To create this experience, you must ask yourself “What does the player do when playing? . . . what does the player get to do? And how does this make them feel physically and emotionally?” (Macklin and Sharp, chapter 5). For example, in the game Warewolf, the player may be the werewolf, and if the other players figure that out, the player loses. Thus, the player uses the discussion phase of the game to attempt to convince the other players that they are a villager, which makes up the bulk of the gameplay. They can also target other villagers at night to get closer to their goal. This may make the player feel anxious since it makes them lie, which the player may not be comfortable with. This may also cause a rush of adrenaline, as it makes the player feel sneaky and smart if they succeed.

The other objective is to deduce information, typically from the other players. A player can do this by searching for verbal and physical clues, such as avoiding eye contact and trying a little too hard to come across as innocent. This takes the player through the Layers of Player Experience “Players move through five different interpretive acts when playing a game: the sensory, the information, the interaction, the frame, and the purpose” (Macklin and Sharp, chapter 3). The player can use the interaction phase to try and single a player out as the werewolf and the purpose phase to find and vote out the werewolf. Incorporating all of these elements would make for a great social deduction game, but also presents itself with quite a challenge. 

The theme of my social deduction would be a card game with numbers. There are three of each number between one and ten. All players would have three cards in their hands at all times. The goal of the game would be to get all three sixes in your hands by trading with other players, discarding, and drawing from the deck. The game would be called Devils Hand, and the objectives would be to figure out which players have a six in their hands so you know which player to trade with, but if you have a six in your hand, you don’t want other players to know. The moment a player has all three sixes in their hand, they win. The gameplay would consist of using powers that give a player the ability to swap cards with another card of their choice, look at another player's card, or discard and re-draw a card. If all cards have been discarded and no one has all three sixes, the game is over and no one won.