Whispering Pines Campground
Alana Fusaro
Hunter King
Lincoln He
Contents
Project DescritionConcepts & PrototypePlay TestingFinal Game DesignReview & Reflection
Project description
To start to develop our camping theme our group brain-
stormed about what part of camping we wanted to focus on.
We decided on “telling ghost stories around a campfire”.
From here we wanted to make the game a bit scary or at
least creepy. We looked at different scary board games
online and even bought one called “The Last Night on
Earth” and took inspiration from it. From this game we
realized that in order for the game to scare people it had to
accomplish two things it needed to immerse the players in
the world of the game and it needed to have a large amount
of player interaction. So we worked to make every part of
the game as immersive for the players as possible. At some
point we realized that trying to make the game scary through
graphic imagery was really an impossibility so we instead
tried to make it a more tongue and cheek type of creepy.
Alanna stumbled across the aesthetic of old Boy Scout
manuals and we tried to develop that style into our game,
mostly into the rulebook and character cards. Being a Boy
Scout I was able to get some of my old uniforms mailed to
us to use for our imagery. By combining a clean and orderly
look with tongue and cheek violent imagery I think we were
able to accomplish our aesthetic quite well.
Play testingPlay testing played a very important role in creating our
game. Our original idea was to have ghosts and campers
battle on a grid, and consider the entire are the camp ground.
The problem with this idea was that the ghost players ended
up being afraid of the campers and were running away from
them. Logically this didn't make any sense. So we changed
it so that the ghosts were more powerful, and campers had to
rely on cards in order to survive. We also were struggling to
make our game more interactive and dimensional. So we
changed our game objective to having the campers go out
into the forest and bring wood back to the fire. This allowed
our game to be more dimensional because the campers had
to leave the campground (a grid) and travel down paths
(similar to candy land, which adds another layer of creepi-
ness). Also, it allowed us to keep the fire the main focus. It
was important for us to have the players connect with their
character, so that out game was more interactive and com-
petitive. So, we gave each character and identity and
allowed the player to choose who they wanted to play as
based on their unique advantages during game play. We
prototyped this idea and then tested it out. We found that
people became more involved and excited about the game.
After this play test, we only needed to change a few
things.in order to make our final game fair and enjoyable.
First concept & prototype
Second concept & prototype
The rulebook played an important
role in our game. We designed it to
look like an old fashioned boy scout
manual. This adds a creepy aspect to
our game. Inside the rulebook there
are photos of members of our group
and class dressed as boy scouts. This
adds humor and helps make the infor-
mation more interesting. We designed
the packaging for our game to be as
compact as possible. The canvas
wraps around the game board and
then ties. Also, there is a bag made
from canvas to keep all the small
pieces.
Rule book
GHOST DeckCAMPER Deck
Play to move a ghost using a die instead of its normal move.
Ominous Advance
Matches
Campers may use an extra die in a fight. On the roll of I or II, the light burns out (discard)
Ominous Advance
Play to move a ghost using a die instead of its normal move.
Matches
Campers may use an extra die in a fight. On the roll of I or II, the light burns out (discard)
CAMPER Deck GHOST Deck CAMPER Deck ` GHOST Deck
Play to move a ghost using a die instead of its normal move.
Matches
Campers may use an extra die in a fight. On the roll of I or II, the light burns out (discard)
Ominous Advance
Play to move a ghost using a die instead of its normal move.
Matches
Campers may use one extra die in a fight against one ghost. On a roll of 1 or 2 , the light burns out (discard)
CAMP
ER Dec
k
Ominous Advance
Use a die to determine how many spaces your ghosts may move.
GHOST
Deck
Development of cards
Going off our minimal and clean aesthetic we developed
from the old boy scout manuals, we designed our board to
be simple to understand, with clear divisions of sections.
This is important for our game because, player strategy is
highly dependent on the players ability to understanding the
different sections and the ability navigating them to his or
her advantage. In the final set of rules we changed the game
play so that campers and ghosts were not directly pitted
against one another, in this way we were able to avoid some
of the problems we discovered in our play testing, such as
ghosts being afraid of campers. We accomplished this by
giving the campers the objective of collecting wood to make
a bonfire that would drive away the ghosts, and the ghosts
the objective of killing all of the campers before they could
accomplish their task. In this way the campers would have
no incentive to hunt ghosts because they could not be killed,
only fended off, and the camper would receive no reward for
fending off a ghosts. What this also accomplished, but what
we didn’t intentionally plan for, was to create two very dif-
ferent and fun play experiences that the player could choose
from depending on what type of game he or she wanted to
play.
Final game design
Reflection
Overall we feel as though we succeeded with our
game. We created something that people were
eager to play. Every single detail was thought
through, from the wording in the rule book to
making game play completely fair. Making this
game challenged us to use everything we knew
about design and rely on each other's strengths. We
made a great group because we were all dedicated
to the project and respected each other's ideas.
