Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Pass GO for the Goal

  On "Game Day," my group and I played Monopoly Empire. In this game you can own some of the biggest brands in the world. Every space on the board is an iconic brand such as Xbox, Nerf, Samsung, and many other brands. The objective of this game is to fill your empire tower to the top with billboards. In order to reach the top first, you must make hard decisions and smart actions and also play by the rules.
 The rules of the game are very simple to help you achieve the goal. Starting the game, each player gets 1000 monopoly money to spend on the billboards. You also receive a tower. This tower is placed in the center of the board and after you have bought your first billboard, you place it in your tower. On the tower there are money values. This means that if you have already bought Xbox and/or Nerf and have placed them in your tower and I roll the dice and land on either one of them, I have to pay you the amount of your tower value. The more billboards you buy, the more money you collect.This is feedback to the player. In Monopoly Empire, it is impossible to be bankrupt. If for some reason you have to pay someone or the bank, all you have to do is turn in your top billboard. This is also feedback to the player. Both of the examples for feedback can evolve into conflict/obstacles. To elaborate, passing “GO” and receiving the money value of your tower is positive feedback. Spending all of your monopoly money would be an example of negative feedback. You also get two empire cards. These cards are advantage cards that could stop you from going to jail or taking somebody's  top billboard in his/her tower that can be used at anytime during the game. There are also chance cards which can be a major conflict. To receive the chance cards, you must land on the space with the question mark on it just like the original monopoly. These cards can either put you in jail or take you out.  Another conflict in this game is the "sneaky swap" die. On this side of the die, there is a picture embedded in the die of two hands shaking. When this is rolled, you have the choice of moving however many spaces the other die is rolled or taking another player's top billboard piece and choosing not to move. In this game you can also roll doubles and get the opportunity to roll again; however, roll doubles three times and you're sent to jail.

   Interactivity is present all throughout this game. This mechanic used while trading and taking billboards, auctioning off billboards and stopping people from taking billboards. Interactivity is caused by the fun of following the rules to achieve the goal.