Postmortem - Firing Line

 This about wraps up the final project for Group 4. Our goal was to create a version of solitaire that was faster and more fluid, with more of a focus on rapid movement and fast decision-making. We wanted to create a game that was more interactive and faster paced than solitaire, and by adding a timer we hoped to add necessary tension to the game to make it feel less like just shuffling cards around. 

By creating a player-versus-game that emphasized timing, we hoped to attract the kind of player that's interested in tasks like speedrunning and cupstacking, emphasizing fast, precise, movements and rapid-fire decision-making abilities. The use of a running timer could attract Achievers, as faster times could easily be recorded thanks to the timer and there are many aspects of playing solitaire rapidly that can be optimized for the sake of that crowd. 

 

The iterative design process could've gone better. I would've been happier making more versions of the game, and I feel like the game would've benefitted from more playtesting overall. I wish I had the time to properly figure out the consequences of some of the later additions, as I feel like the one or two playtest runs given were not adequate to determine the effects of king-swapping or the jokers had on the game itself. In a game like Solitaire where what cards you have initially are random, it's difficult to playtest, as your ability to know how new features affect the game are entirely dependent on the luck of the draw, which requires lots of playtesting to get a strong opinion on whether something is good or bad for the game.

However, all other tasks were completed, and the group as a whole seems to have functioned extremely well with the workload. Proper time management could easily give the time needed to playtest in later projects, and setting aside time to playtest would be important. Additionally, playtesting by creating a desired game state and going from there could be beneficial to see how different features affect the game at different points in time. How a joker affects the field at the beginning of the game is much different than when tableaus are opened up and when foundations are starting to be built. 

In the future, I will set aside more time for playtesting, and keep track of new features and the desired situations in which I want to see them playtested in, along with running normal playtests to catch any unique sensations they could be used in over the course of normal play.