Devlog #5

This week we made several minor adjustments to the board itself. We created an in-color version of previous iterations and tried to optimize the numbering system to ensure a smooth gameplay for our players. We also made the board much larger due to previous feedback.

Here was one of our updates:

And here is our final version of the board: 

This final board version includes roads per our feedback from previous playtests, allowing players to move to far away lake regions in a truer-to-reality type of way. In reality, people do not have to exclusively travel by boat to handle invasive species in the lakes, and in fact, boat travel is largely responsible for many invasive species in the Great Lakes Region. 

In this version, we also decided to include endemic fish species of the Great Lakes to hopefully improve empathy for the species and ground the information in real fauna. Each fish on the board is one that has been the recipient of significant damage at the hands of invasive sea lampreys in the Great Lakes. The species are as follows: Steelhead Trouts, Lake Trouts, Whitefish, Chubs, Burbot, Walleye, Sturgeon, Salmon, and Catfish. Most of these fish are also well-known and highly desired to fishermen and recreational boaters in the area. We believe that by utilizing these species, we can further build empathy for the endemic species. 

We also created a digital version of all of our cards, creating individualized and color-coded maps for ease of use. These include many spawn cards as well as special action cards, broadening significantly the takeaway information. 

Another quality of life update for our game came from adding player turn cards, which track the step each player is on and allows them to reference their options. 

We also had another playtest this week and filmed a few videos to utilize during our presentation. We started at round 3 to show what a game may look like after some progress has already occurred. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19i2pGwITGMRomAp2CW_ioOqFwyPGDimY/view

Some of our critiques included that we should further consider the context of this game, where to play it and who the player should be. We were given the suggestion by our guest critic to figure out how to do guided play sessions of our game in connections to relevant organizations as a way to lead players toward more direct action after they play.  An example of a setting like that would be a guided high school trip to an aquarium as part of a full educational program there.