Experimental Game Design

Artwork #2: Appropriate

Sims Scandal – Appropriation Artgame

by | Oct 23, 2025 | ,

When creating this project, my primary catalyst of inspiration was our show and tell class. As I watched my classmates and I present our ‘found’ subjects of appropriation, I wondered what other modern applications of appropriation there could be. It reminded me of the many gaming youtubers I watch, who make their careers out of playing video games and finding new, innovative ways to use them – one of the most prolific of these being the Sims franchise. Being a sandbox life sim, there are an infinite amount of challenges (aka, games) that have been invented for the Sims – the 100 Baby challenge, Legacy challenges, and Rags to Riches, to name a few. I even found this reddit post with hundreds of comments suggesting their favorite challenges – all uniquely different, creative, and chaotic: Reddit: Your Favorite Challenge? . Yet, the most timeless Sims challenge – as old as the game itself – is to lock your Sims in a room and let them fend for themselves. Thus, I was inspired to create a multi-faceted appropriation game – appropriating both the Sims 4 and the likenesses of real-life and fictional people; and what better way to keep people engaged in a game then giving them someone to root for? I brought the interactive aspect to my game by asking my classmates to submit their own ideas for our cast of characters – much like a youtuber or twitch streamer would do with their audience. This also creates an opportunity for chaos and hilarity – some of the most comedic partnerships being Chris Barney + Elon Musk, and Helen Keller + Macho Man Randy Savage (Who I had not heard of until this challenge, and had the most fun making). I also wanted to broaden this challenge to be enjoyable for all types of audiences – those who enjoy chaos and carnage, and those who prefer the creative aspect of the Sims. Therefore, the reward for surviving the deadly trial was a makeover for their children.

Once the challenge actually began, it was surprisingly uneventful for many days. I was hopeful that the gnomes from the playtest would return – but they were sadly missing from this run. I even bought a few gnomes halfway through, but they still didn’t produce any carnage. Nevertheless, the sims eventually brought their own carnage. I kept intervention minimal, and let it run for many hours on it’s own. The biggest problem I encountered was when the children aged up to toddlers. Due to of the mod I was using to increase the household size, the game was prone to more bugginess than usual. This caused the children to get stuck in an infinite birthday loop where they would keep aging up straight through to elderhood. I eventually got around it, but it ate up a ton of time. If I were to run this challenge a third time, there are a few changes I would make. First, I found a cheat afterwards that would enable me to disable pop-ups that pause the game and let me truly be hands-off. Second, I would start the challenge earlier in the day or let it run overnight, so I could thin out the crowd even further. Third, I would set the lifespan to “long” rather than normal, which would keep the children as infants longer and thus avoid the problem of aging-up glitchy-ness. Finally, I would have people write down their names with their suggestions, so I could include them in the presentation and add another layer of investment/interaction. Ultimately, despite these nitpicks, I had a lot of fun running this game and felt like it was a great way to engage with my class. It was interesting to try to figure out who proposed each character, and try to  creatively combine the interests of two completely different personalities to make their children.

Finally, I present to you the culmination of our collective efforts – the results of Sims Scandal: Sims Scandal – Appropriation Artgame

 

 

 

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Artwork #2: Severed corpse (objects)

by | Oct 23, 2025 |

For my appropriation piece I created a simple type of audience performance game with the usage of objects with different forms of value and allowed players to do any action they wanted to the objects. I reference in this piece a couple of ideas from multiple artists and movements. For starters, what gave me this idea in the first place was Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece performance where she had members of the audience one by one to cut pieces of her clothing off of her. Another piece, I drew inspiration from was the Fountain piece, where the artist Marcel Duchamp showcased a porcelain urinal on it signed “R. Mutt” and presented it as taking an everyday object and giving new meaning to them. Lastly, a piece that is similar to my idea, is the Exquisite corpse game, created by Surrealists in 1925 where they added to a composition one by one to then reveal the final outcome at the end.

So, I took these ideas and slightly arrange them together into my artwork. In this game, players are presented with an object of a particular value that either has a backstory or personalized, and an assortment of tools that they can use to do actions to the object/s (players can also use anything in their possession to do an action). Players one by one are given the opportunity to do something to the object/s, while the other players watch. Players can do anything they want to the object; it can be something simple or extreme. After the first player has done their action, the next player will do an action and so on. The game ends once each of the players are satisfied with the number of actions they had done to the object/s or when the object/s no longer is usable in its original purpose. 

During the in-class playtests I have brought different objects with a different range of values, from a brown paper bag to a random piece of wood, but the objects I’ll mostly talk about were the actions that were done to the wooden manikins that I brought in during the final playtest. During the playtest, I presented the 2 manikins to the players (one that was already damaged from the prior playtest and a manikin that hasn’t been touched) and gave them some background on why I owned them. Then I told them that they can do whatever they wanted to the manikins using the tools I provided and other tools they may have until they felt satisfied with all they have done or till the manikin was no longer usable for its original purpose. Each player kept adding to the manikin or removing from the manikin, such as drawing on it with markers, adding string to the manikin as hair, pulled apart the limbs, and so end till they no longer wanted to do more to it anymore. At the end, I asked the players if they felt anything after committing to their actions, one said they felt bad for me since I was the owner of the object, but none of them felt bad for the object itself. The purpose of this appropriation was to see how far people are willing to go to completely change an object knowing it will no longer be what it once was.

Start of Playtest and process

End Result

    

 

Artwork #2: Appropriation – Rock, Paper, Scissors – Final Presentation

by | Oct 22, 2025 | , ,

The idea of my game would be that players would go about playing rock paper scissors, however there are many alterations to the original game itself. For the game, each person would bring 5-7 different items that they will hide against their opponent and have to argue is better than their opponents item that they selected. Afterwards an audience/judge will vote to determine who had the better argument. Another rule for the game is that the players are not able to bring any items/objects to represent rock, paper, or scissors, but you must start the round similar to rock paper scissors by saying the phrase to start the game. This game was inspired by the idea of Ping Pong Table rackets idea of altering the game experience such that the original concept is not their, but the function/mechanics of the game remain. Below are images conducted during playtesting to highlight the game and the components of it, as well as pdf of my presentation for my final project.

Playtest images:

Artwork #2 – Appropriation_ Final- Joel Bernardes

Red, White & Iron

by | Oct 21, 2025 | ,

Materials

  • Early Event Cards
  • Late Event Cards
  • Resource Cards (influence cards, support cards & tool cards)
  • 5 People

Rules

  • 5 Players- 2 Fascists, 2 Socialists, 1 Anarchist
  • Each player starts with 3 Influence cards, 3 support cards and 3 tool cards
  • Influence card- allows players voting power. More influence cards= more voting power, no influence cards=no vote.
  • Support card- allows player to stay in the game. No support card=out of the game
  • Tool card- used as negotiating tool and purchasing other cards from players.
  • Each player picks up an event card going in a circle. Finish all early event cards before moving to the late event cards deck.
  • Players are allowed to trade, negotiate & debate.

Win Conditions for:

Fascists- Get as many resource cards possible/ make sure everyone else loses their resource cards.

Socialists- Everybody has fair distribution of resource cards.

Anarchist- Both Fascists and both Socialists have lost all their Influence cards.

1st Iteration

The first iteration of the game used 2 fascists, 2 anarchists and 1 liberal(socialist). It also used food cards instead of tool cards and influence cards. the roles of the tool cards were too vaguely defined. The event cards were also vaguely defined. I think the first iteration was too chaotic and loosely defined. I think the idea for this game came from various places like the game mafia, the current political climate & lot of early dada movements that rejected governments systems and satirized them in their art. I also think each event card acts as a score itself taking inspiration from Yoko Ono.

2nd Iteration

For the 2nd playtest I continued to refine the content of my event cards, and appropriated images instead of using text for the resource cards. I appropriated real life events in the event cards such as the capitol riots. This iteration worked a bit better but still needed several adjustments for smoother gameplay.

Second iteration in gameplay

 

 

Some event cards from the second iteration event deck.

Final Iteration

The final iteration of the game seperates the events cards into 2 decks- early event cards & late event cards unlike the first iteration. I also changed the the event cards to include cards that allow more cards that allow winning events which was missing in the previous playtests. I also tweaked some minute details that allowed for smoother gameplay, like the content of the event cards.

FInal game play in class, debating with no words!

Some event cards from the final event deck

Artwork #2 Appropriation show and tell

by | Oct 3, 2025 |

My work is called “echoes from the past”. It was inspired by the concept of recycle and reuse—-turn a trash into something useful again. However, I decide to reuse the “meaning” or “memory” of the trash, therefore, I decide to let the players draw the meaningful objects that they threw away for some reason. It can work both as a way to introduce each other, and it can also be use to regenerate new meaning and new stories through the use of AI.

The first prototype did not went very well, as the rule at the time was to only draw the lasting thing player threw away, and I eventually realize that this usually cause the players to only draw food & drinks bottles/packages, as these are the most commonly thrown objects. Though I guess it can still somewhat fit with the topic of appropriation, as they showed how easily are we throwing packages & bottles and created tons of trash at the same time; but I still decided to change the rules to make the game more fun and longer. Thus, I changed the rule of drawing “the last object that player threw away” to draw “an object that was meaningful to the player but eventually got thown away”.

Echoes from the past

Goal of the game:

-Create a new meaningful story based on the once meaningful objects that once gave the player some memorable experience. Those objects have to be important for the players, but were thrown away from their life for some reason.

1, Gather 3-5 players, and find a large canvas.

2, In an order, the first person will draw 1 meaningful object, and write down a short & brief story beside it, explaining the player’s experiences with the objects, why they were once important for the player but eventually thrown away.

3, After the first person finished the drawing and the explanation, the rest will repeat the process in an order. If a player has multiple objects they wanna draw, then they have to choose the one that can best fit with the topic/genre of the last person’s object.

4, The goal of the game is trying to create a story, and the last player will draw interactions between the objects after everyone draw their object (for example, if a person drew a bottle and the other drew a cup, the last players can freely add in some line to make it look like some liquid is transferred from the bottle to the cup).

5, After everyone finished all their drawing, the game hoster will take a photo of the canvas, and give it to an AI. The hoster will ask 3 questions:
-What is this?
-Can you make a story from it?
-Can you paint it better?

6, Record AI’s response.

After I changed the rules, the second and also the final runthrough went much better than the first try. Players created interesting drawings and eventually generated interesting new story.

Art Is Dead

by | Dec 11, 2024 |

Link:

https://noahwc.itch.io/objects-in-motion

Art is dead is a simple 2d sidescrolling platformer where every asset in the game is a company logo taken from the internet. Using the J and L keys, the player can manipulate the rotation of the platforms around them arranging their unique geometry in such a way that allows them to progress. At the end of the game, the player must choose to continue receiving stimulus or finally rest.

When designing this game, I wanted to capture the feeling of growing up in a digital era and tackle the commodification of attention. The two factors of the digital age I chose to highlight are the use of product placement making free entertainment lucrative, and how easy access to the internet at all times often distracts from mundane but necessary tasks such as sleeping. I’m sure we all have had late nights spent on YouTube or Netflix not realizing how many hours it’s been until the sun starts to poke through the window. The constant need to be stimulated isn’t a new experience, but the introduction of the internet has ensured that our engagement with the mediums that are the most stimulating can be commodified and engineered. This work was largely inspired by the Conceptualism movements anti-commodification of art sentiment as well as Vulture’s interview with comedian Bo Burnham where he talks about his take on growing up online (themes also present in his songs “Art Is Dead” and “Welcome to the Internet”).

Trending Now: Buddhism

by | Nov 12, 2024 |

Idea

Appropriation, more specifically cultural appropriation, has been a part of my many experiences throughout life. As a Vietnamese Buddhist woman, I’ve seen my ethnicity, race, and religion be appropriated by people thousands of times in person or through media. So, this assignment stood out to me and the idea for my art work came quicker than it would the last project.

The idea I came up with was the cultural appropriation and aestheticization of a religion, more specifically Buddhism. I had initially wanted to make a game about Asians, their fetishization, appropriation, and harmful stereotyping, but upon looking at my jade bracelet and pendant, two pieces of jewelry that is commonly bought simply for their aesthetics, I decided on Buddhism.

Buddhism is a non-theistic religion that teaches us how to reach enlightenment, a state where all desires, hatred, and ignorance is eliminated. It tells us that greed is the source of all suffering and has been passed down to many countries and cultures—India, Vietnam, China, Japan, Cambodia, Bhutan, and more.

However, in America, many people use objects that symbolize this religion and represent its teachings in ways that completely disregard any of its meaning. They use Buddhist objects for their own desires—For their desire to fit in, their desire for money, and their desire for beauty; materialism.

It’s a bit ironic isn’t it? To be quite frank, these people frustrate me. Due to their own willful ignorance and greed, they take symbols that are significant to millions of people and display it on their yard, sell cheap and fake Buddhist objects, or wear it on their body with no awareness of its significance.

So, I decided to make the game off of this; a sarcastic interpretation of the cultural appropriation of Buddhism. The game itself is the appropriation of Buddhism.

Inspiration

When creating this art work, I wasn’t completely sure on how I would implement the ideas and thoughts of Dadaism into my game. Compared to the previous art work, a score was something that already existed and I could simply take inspiration from Grapefruit by Yoko Ono. Of course it wasn’t easy, but at least there was already somewhat of a template for me to know how I should shape the score and its meaning. With Dadaism and this art work however, I needed to take inspiration from the movement to then make a game that was the epitome of Buddhist appropriation.

Nevertheless, I loved the anti-art and chaos that Dadaism exhibited. The movement displayed a defiance from artists and thinkers against societal norms and traditions, rejecting the brutality and political state of the world during World War I. What I was most inspired by Dadaism was the message that they sent. Their deliberate absurdity and satire in their art forms, showing freedom of expression, and developing so many other artistic movements such as my beloved surrealism was admirable and vitalizing. I wanted to make something similar; to mock the cultural appropriation of Buddhism and people’s ignorance.

Multiple art works from Dadaist artists inspired my game as well, most notably Marcel Duchamp. From his art work La Jaconde/L.H.O.O.Q. which mocked the famous painting The Mona Lisa and traditional art, to his structure, Fountain, which uses a urinal that is usually dirty, mundane, and never seen in art work. It’s satire and mocking, but it’s also beautiful and inspirational art. Another art work from a different artist stood out to me called A Victim of Society (Remember Uncle August, the Unhappy Inventor) by George Grosz. The art work was disturbing. It used mundane items, objects that wouldn’t be used in art for its “unaesthetic” properties, from the razor to the spark plug and machine parts. However, it somehow accurately shows a victim suffering from mental turmoil.

 

A Victim of Society ( Remember Uncle August, the Unhappy Inventor) by George Grosz.

Fountain by Marcel Duchamp

L.H.O.O.Q. or La Joconde by Marcel Duchamp

 

Furthermore, a game that had been stuck in my head since Celia presented it to me was the controversial table top game made by Brenda Romero in 2009 called Train. 

Layout of the controversial table top game by Brenda Romero (2009).

Players are tasked with loading what seems like a train with passengers and at the end of the game, they realize that they were loading passengers on the train towards concentration camps during the Holocaust. Despite its controversy for being too explicit or not accurately representing the experience of Holocaust victims, I felt like the game brought more awareness to the terrifying feeling and guilt of being an “ignorant bystander” and how much power Adolf Hitler had over Germany, to the point that many people did not realize how bad what they were doing was.

Front cover of The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness by Simon Wiesenthal (1969).

I’m still not educated enough on the topic, but the title of a book I read a few years ago instantly entered my mind, The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness by Simon Wiesenthal. This book discussed whether Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor, should forgive a dying SS soldier for his murders and atrocities on Jewish civilians. It writes about the history, morals, and conflicts of the soldier, but also recognizes the brutality and ignorance of soldiers. Many soldiers and people involved followed Adolf Hitler blindly. They knew something was wrong but wouldn’t do anything about it. They convince themselves that what they were doing were okay, labelling Jewish civilians as monsters. It was brainwash. This still doesn’t make what they did okay, but I believe Trains help bring awareness to that side of the Holocaust as well and the mental conflicts it had on bystanders and soldiers alike. The message and the way Trains conveyed it stood out to me and was a leading factor on how I developed this game.

Combining all these works created my game (and a little inspiration from capitalistic games like Monopoly). It has the satirical qualities of the Dadaism movement such as using karma as a currency, assigning monetary value to Buddhist objects, the upside down Buddha on the cards, and having to decorate a board with those Buddhist objects in order to gain favor and currency. Similar to Train, players are playing as the ignorant people that appropriate Buddhism, sitting uncomfortably as they realize what they’re doing and who they play as.

Playtests

So, the process of this game was long, with multiple iterations and playtests. In the middle of it, I also happened to get COVID so that was great. This game needed a lot of tweaks and feedback so with the amount of playtests I had, I think the game is starting to shape into a more fleshed out game. Here, I will detail a couple important points of each iteration and photos of the playtests.

ITERATION 1

For iteration 1, I did not have any of the cards nor pieces. I used pens and a wheel spinner to replace the die and cards. Evidently, it was a veryy slow process. We had to pass the laptop around, AND it was broken so its fan was so loud. It was a very comedic experience and we didn’t get past round 2 even two hours in. So, by the end of this iteration, I had to:

  • Make all physical cards
  • Grab an actual die
  • Have actual Buddhist objects

In the second playtest of this iteration, here are some more feedback from them:

  • The karma values of each object needed tweaks
  • The use of the die made the game unnecessarily longer
  • Fix the wording for cards to help players understand it better and make it more appropriating

Gameplay of the first playtest with friends.

Some of the important rules and things players should remember.

The pieces of the game, from the cards as a wheel spinner and a die found online, to Buddhist figurines being pens, and the rest being made of paper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ITERATION 2

In iteration 2, we have the actual pieces but I experimented and used a blank paper instead of actual interior design magazine pages. This brought upon more creativity and more fun when voting but didn’t send the message I wanted to send as much as it should.

Example 1 of Decoration Board

Example 2 of Decoration Board

Example 3 of Decoration Board

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View of gameplay

 

Some notes:

  • Change the voting system: The voting system had many, many iterations over the several playtests of Iteration 2. Sometimes, it wasn’t anonymous enough so players would vote according to how the person voted them previously. Or, it was too anonymous and players were just voting however they wanted, giving everyone 0s.
  • Make a design board
  • Balance the values more

ITERATION 3

In the final iteration, the pieces were completed. I added my pendant and buddha bracelet in as objects as well. There were tweaks to the karma values, what each card did, and the player count. There were other tweaks as well, but I will only show the rules and gameplay to the final iteration. After the final playtest, here are what I’ve noted:

  • Use a different form of design board, such as a doll house OR make all the objects 2D. However, if I decide to make them all 2D, then it will take away from the message that I want to send about cultural appropriation of Buddhism.
  • Get a frame around the quotes
  • Design the game in a way where there’s less calculating? More doing.

Here are the pieces and photos of the final playtest.

Paintings

Figurines

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some event cards

Voting cards

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Final Playtest!!

A player looking through her action cards for her turn.

Passing out karma tokens.

A player decorating their design board.

Some of the figurines.

Voting phase after the first round.

 

Gameplay

So, there were lots of tweaks made to the gameplay, but this is what we ended with! If I were to make changes, as I mentioned in the playtests section, I would make dollhouses the decoration board instead of the blank pieces of paper or magazine cut outs of interior design. This was the final iteration of the gameplay rules, pieces, and how to set it up!

GUIDE (3-4 Players)

Win Condition: Get all 23 Buddhist objects OR acquire 100 Karma tokens

Pieces

Karma Tokens: The monetary value in this game. Used to buy an object or win. Acquired through:

  • Selling objects
  • Owning objects
  • Events
  • Actions
  • Ranking of Design boards
BUDDHIST OBJECTS | KARMA TOKEN COST
FIGURINES (10) 3
QUOTES (7) 7
PAINTINGS (5) 10
PENDANT (1) 25

Karmaback & Karma Value: The value of karma tokens upon selling objects (Karma Value) and the amount of karma tokens Buddhist connoisseurs get back upon owning objects (Karmaback). 

Karmaback: There are specific amounts of karmaback certain owned objects get. After a “Buddhist”’s turn, the total karmaback for all objects owned by the “Buddhist” will be given to the “Buddhist”. 

Karma Value: Upon selling object(s), Buddhist connoisseurs get back the karma value of the object(s).

TABLE of VALUES

BUDDHIST OBJECTS | KARMABACK & KARMA VALUE
FIGURINES (10) 2
QUOTES (7) 5
PAINTINGS (5) 7
PENDANT (1) 10

Die: A singular 6-sided die to decide the order of the turns each round and to break tie breakers with the person landing the highest number winning the tie break.

Action Cards: Each Buddhist connoisseur will always have 3 action cards in their hand. Upon disposing or using an action card(s), grab more action card(s) until the Buddhist connoisseur has 3 in their hand. Used in order to gain an advantage against the other “Buddhists”.

Event Cards: Played after every round. Every “Buddhist” must act on the event card unless it addresses specific “Buddhists”. Discard the event card each time until they run out. Then shuffle all of them in again.

If Event Cards cannot be met by a minority of “Buddhists”, then they must pay a 10 karma token fee. If the fee cannot be met, they are now in debt and must pay off that debt.

If Event Cards cannot be met by a majority or half of the “Buddhists”, then they can pull a different event card and shuffle the other card back in. 

Design Board: Indoor and outdoor designs. Place objects on this board in specific, aesthetic ways in order to win other Buddhist connoisseurs favor and get first! Getting first in the rankings will give a “Buddhist” a boost in karma tokens.

Objects: Collect all objects to win. Can be sold, collected, bought, stolen, taken, etc.

Figurines (10)

Quotes (7)

Paintings (5)

Pendant (1)

Voting Cards: Point cards for Design Board. “Buddhists” will have numbers 1-3 with 3 being the highest points to be given and 1 being the lowest. If it’s only 3 players playing then the maximum points will be 2.

Action Cards:

QUANTITY| ACTION CARD
10 Steal any figurine from a Buddhist connoisseur 
10 Choose a “Buddhist” to skip their turn. Their next turn will be skipped.
10 Block any form of sabotage (Use any time)
5 Use this card to play an extra two cards (in your hand)
4 Collect tokens from a connoisseur of your choosing equal to the karmaback of all your objects 
2 Choose a Buddhist to lose karma tokens equal to the karmaback of all their objects combined 

Event Cards:

Auction Night! Players each auction up their most valuable object! The initial cost will be its karmaback. One object must be sold to move on.
Charity Event Every player must donate at least 2 karma tokens to prospect but poorest (aka brokest players) buddhist enthusiasts.
Magic Trick Everyone closes their eyes and chooses a number from 1 to the total amount of players. (EX: 2 players must choose a number 1-2 while closing their eyes). Display them with your fingers. If your number matches any other buddhist enthusiasts, trade all objects!
Natural Disaster Everyone loses their objects to the disaster… Your karma tokens are safe though!
Spin Master Quick! Spin 5 times and point at the pendant. First to touch it gets 15 karma tokens. Those who don’t spin lose 10 karma tokens.
Birthday It’s your relatives’ birthday! Each player must ‘gift’ their relative. Take an object and put it with the rest of the unowned items
Gamble Night Each player must bet at least one of their objects. Grab the die and bet on what it lands on. If a player is correct, they get the objects. If multiple get it correct, split/share evenly. If none get it correctly, lose all objects betted.
Art Showcase Show the object you love the most in your possession with a 20 second pitch. You will be awarded 10 karma tokens.
Insurance If any players are in debt, the debt is cleared and balances are back to 0.
BOGO For the player with the least amount of karma tokens, buy one get one free for figurines!

Setting Up

Each player will get:

5 karma tokens

1 Buddhist figurine

1 Design board

3 Action cards

Use a die to decide the order of turns. The “Buddhist” with the highest number rolled goes first, then the second highest, and so on.

Play

In a round:

  1. Each player takes a turn
  2. Rank Design Boards: Hand out the point cards to each “Buddhist”. After, add up all the points that each “Buddhist” gets and the highest amount of points is first. First place gets 5 karma tokens, all other players get 1 token.
  3. Use an Event Card

In a turn:

  1. Sell or buy object(s).
  2. Play an Action Card OR Discard an Action Card OR Do nothing.
  3. Grab Action Cards to have a total of 3 in your hand.
  4. Gain the karmaback from the objects you own.

 

Manga Monopoly

by | Oct 29, 2024 | ,

 

Manga Monopoly is a spin-off of Monopoly with the objective changed from attempting to gain as much capital and take as much from your competitors as you can to instead trying to create the best art with the resources you have available. It’s a game played with 3 – 4 people, who all go around a Monopoly Board, collecting manga panels as they go. Everytime everyone makes a full lap around the board, players use their manga panels to make collages, and then vote on which collage they think is best. People get different points based on whether they got 1st, 2nd, or 3rd which points increasing in the last round. The person with the most points in the last round wins.

 

 

Inspiration (In Class & Out)

 

The broad inspiration for this project was the desire to take something highly commercialized and contextualize it into something more creative and generative. Many DADA movements are concerned with the commercialization of art, and I think of few more obvious games to critique this with than monopoly, a game that in it’s earliest form started out as a critique of capitalism and is now one of the THE MOST commercialized games of all time (we have Breaking Bad Monopoly). So I thought that through appropriation I could shift the focus of the game away from wealth acquisition and thus bring it more in line with its original intent (I know a satire of that kind of wealth acquisition was originally part of the point but world conditions are such that that kind of satire isn’t effective because no one thinks its satire they think its normal). Additionally, I wanted to combine the playfulness often seen in earlier DADA works along with the more overt political messaging seen in later ones, and I believe this project accomplishes both of those goals well. Collages are an accessible form of art as all you need is basic motor skills and an eye for composition (whereas most often forms of art require those two things + way more) and I think they can channel childlike creativity well due to that. The political implications of a game where the purpose is to create from nothing instead of starting off as a millionaire and stealing (AHEM, “renting”) everything in sight feel rather obvious, but to elaborate, I wanted the art to foster collaboration and healthy competition rather than a desire to seek dominance. In this game, you need other players to like your art to win, and I believe making something people like requires on some level an ability to understand and reach out to people (I feel that with all artistic creation in general) and I hope the game inspires those feelings in people instead of making them want to selfishly own and hoard everything for themselves.

 

The desire to send this mix of political messaging and fostering of childlike playfulness through collage was additionally of course inspired by the Merz art of Hannover Dada, wherein much of the point was recontextualizing “useless” or “boring” objects (junk, everyday objects, found objects) into something else entirely with an entirely new meaning. That was the approach I took to the “materials” of monopoly and manga.


I chose manga panels because I wanted to create a pastiche of many different series and artists, but I also wanted them to be visually cohesive. Manga are all in black and white, and this allows for an easily achieved color palette (as every Mangaka works with the same exact one, unlike comic artists) while still allowing for great contrast in the collages themselves. Additionally, I have a manga wall at home which works for these same reasons, so the idea came naturally.

 

 

First Iteration 

 

At first, I was quite rushed, so my starting iteration was rough. Each of the squares where relabeled but with no visuals (just the series title) and I didn’t know what to do with the community chest and chance cards. Voting was simpler as well, with people just voting for their favorite and that getting one point. The in class playtest went well, as detailed below 

 

Pros

  • It was fun making collages 
  • It was fun looking at other peoples colalges 
  • Getting panels from series people knew made it more gratifying for them

Cons

  • Voting being simplified made the votes more boring and not work well with only 3 people
  • Many squares there was nothing to do, which slowed the game down 
  • Players wanted more interaction with eachother

 

Second Iteration 

 

For the second iteration, I added many visual elements and tried to address player feedback. The game was made more visually interesting by me taking the volume covers of manga and placing them over the monopoly board. That way, each series was recognizable at a glance. To address the problem of community chest spaces and chance spaces having nothing to do AND to address the issue of players wanting more inter player interaction, I added a new set of cards to the game that allowed players to steal, force trades, take more cards, and more. This allowed for more dynamism in the gameplay as the actions of players could affect other player strategies in real time. I changed the voting to allow for points to be allocated based on whether it was 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, and allowed players to pick from the top 3 cards on the pile when choosing their card. Overall, this increase of player agency and visual facelift helped make the game more interesting and I am happy with the result.

 

Final Playlets Results

Despite having three people, the final playtest was very lucrative. I got to playtest with both a manga fan and a non-manga fan, and seeing them both enjoy and have different takes on the game was both validating and interesting.

The non-manga fan liked the game and took a storytelling approach to her collages, trying to craft funny or interesting mini narratives with her manga pages. This was aided by this player just happening to get a lot of manga pages. From her feedback, I definitely would implement an “Explain” part of the voting phase where each player is required to give some brief intro for their collage.

The manga fan that played also enjoyed the game, and took a more impressionistic approach with their collaging, trying to make something visually appealing and leveraging text less. They suggested even more interaction, with players perhaps gaining physical tools like scissors, glue, or tape to further elevate their collages.

 

Playtest Collages

 

Rules

 

Cards

Quick Complex Chip Duel

by | Oct 25, 2024 |

Game Components

Quick Complex Chip Duel

The game was converted from Texas Hold ’em Poker, changing the game from the idea of Texas Hold ’em Poker to a points system. Inject more strategy and flexibility into the game, so that the game can not only retain the mental game and strategic thinking of Texas Hold ’em. It also increases the depth of direct interaction and decision-making between players, making the game more compact and varied to suit different types of players.

  • Chips: Six colors of chips: blue, red, black, white, yellow, and purple.
  • Playing Cards: Two decks of playing cards shuffled into one pile.

 

 

 

Chip Allocation

Each player receives the following number of chips:

  • Blue Chips: 2
  • Red Chips: 2
  • Black Chips: 2
  • White Chips: 1
  • Yellow Chips: 1
  • Purple Chips: 1

Game Setup

  1. Chip Allocation: Each player receives chips according to the above quantities.
  2. Card Preparation: Shuffle two decks of playing cards into one pile and place it in the center of the table.

Game Rules

Turn Sequence

  1. Draw Cards:
    • At the start of their turn, each player draws two cards from the pile.
    • Players can only hold a maximum of three cards in their hand. If a player draws more than three cards, they must immediately discard the excess cards.
  2. Use Chips:
    • Based on the drawn cards, players can choose to use chips. Each color of chip has a different effect:
      • Blue Chip: Gain 1 point.
      • Red Chip: Gain 2 points.
      • Black Chip: Reduce opponent’s score by 1 point.
      • White Chip: Protect yourself, negating one attack, steal, or extra draw from the opponent.
      • Yellow Chip: Draw two additional cards.
      • Purple Chip: Steal one card and one chip from the opponent’s hand/pool.
  3. Card Effects:
    • Hearts and Diamonds (Red Cards): Allow the use of red and yellow chips.
    • Spades and Clubs (Black Cards): Allow the use of black and blue chips.
    • Face Cards (J, Q, K): Allow the use of white and purple chips. Additionally, when playing a J, Q, or K, the player may also draw one additional chip from the chip pool.
    • Ace (A): Allows the player to choose any one chip effect to use, providing flexibility in strategy.
    • Joker: Allows the player to copy the last chip effect used by the opponent, adding an element of surprise and adaptability.
  4. Chip Replenishment Mechanism:
    • When a player uses an Ace or Joker card, they can replenish one used chip from the chip pool.
  5. Steal Mechanism (Purple Chip):
    • When using a purple chip, a player can randomly steal one card and one chip from the opponent. The opponent can choose to use a white chip to defend against the steal.
  6. Discard:
    • Used cards are placed in the discard pile.
  7. End of Turn:
    • The player ends their turn, and it is the opponent’s turn.

Special Rules

  • Defense Mechanism: Use a white chip to negate one attack, steal, or extra draw from the opponent.
  • Quick Mechanism: Each turn involves drawing two cards, increasing strategic choices.

Victory Conditions

  • The first player to reach or exceed 10 points wins.
  • If the card pile is exhausted and no player has reached the target score, the player with the higher score wins.