Over the last 30 days, I have built a card game. I named it “Mission Complete”. I’ve learned a lot all along the way.
1. The community I designed for: Freelancer
According to Freelancers Union “53 million” report, the U.S. independent workforce increased dramatically in nearly a decade.“The majority of the U.S. workforce will soon freelance — At its current growth rate, we will reach this milestone by 2027.”
Freelancers are specialists, not generalists. Most people can only be specialized in one specific field. Because of this, we heard a lot at work:
“I do not understand what the engineers are doing all day.”
“What are the designers thinking?”
“It’s not feasible.”
“The design will not work.”
“This thing is not codable.”
Developers and designers have a hard time understanding each other. But in reality, they have to collaborate with each other to accomplish projects on a daily basis.
This card game attempts to reinforce the spirit of teamwork, help talented people develop more empathy, make fewer complaints, and create a better working environment.
2. Game Structure: How it works
There are two kinds of cards: “The Pitch” and “Team Member.”
Number of players: 3–4
Playtime: around 15–20 min
Goal: The player gets the exact “team member” cards listed on his/her “the pitch” card.
Instructions:
- Each player draws a red “THE PITCH” card. Read through your card. Remember the roles needed to complete the pitch. Do not reveal the details to other players.
- Shuffle the “TEAM MEMBER” card stack. Following a clockwise direction, each player draws three cards from the stack of “TEAM MEMBER” cards.
- Each player takes one card from the top of the “TEAM MEMBER” stack, one at a time, clockwise.
Actions:
Discard two cards in the same role: draw an additional card from the “TEAM MEMBER” stack.
Discard three cards in the same role: draw a random card from one player next to you (either the left or right one). You can’t ask the other player to reveal the cards.
3. Design Process
The First Draft
The first draft was very rough. I made 4 versions of “The Pitch” card based on my personal experience. I listed out all the roles needed to complete the pitches in the real world.
What worked well?
The game did not get to the endpoint in the first round. Since it was based on real cases, the number of roles was too much. The original rules were too complicated as well. When discarding cards, the player can only draw an extra card from the other players, not from the stack on the table. Due to all these factors, nobody won in 20 minutes. But the players reported that they got a lot of fun by interacting with each other, especially drawing cards from other players’ hands.
Next, I asked people I met at IxDA conference to playtest the game. Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos to document the process. But I did get valuable feedback.
I also tested the revised version with a group of motion graphic designers.
Here are some of the feedback I got:
- The cards need to be well designed.
One player tried to hide behind a chair to manage the cards in her hand without revealing them to other players. - The number of roles needs to be cut down.
There are too many roles to manage. - The pitch needs to be fairer.
Some pitches are more difficult than others. - The cards need to be printed on thicker paper.
The cards are printed on regular printing paper. When playing the game, some players reported that they could see through the cards and knew what other players have, especially when they needed to draw cards from other player’s hand. - Study the visual design of poker cards.
Players reported that when holding the cards, it’s hard to see which card it is. They suggested that I should look into the visual design of poker cards.
4. The Next Step
- Print the next version on thicker paper.
- Refine the instructions.
- Figure out how many cards for each role of the “Team Member” cards.
- More play-testing: Probably go to some freelancer meetup events to playtest the game.
