Blog Post 10: The Best of the Showcase

At the DTC Showcase, there we numerous video clips shown to us that we made by groups of students in other classes. Some of them were quite well done, while others were decent overall, but there were still a small handful of rather incomprehensible videos created. There was also the group of our classes games waiting outside the showcase room, one of which I have chosen to discuss. The game in question is one I played on Monday and was quite intrigued by, one boardgame called "Draco's Quest."

Draco's Quest interests me so possibly because of the unique concept that it holds. To play, one picks a dragon token, a player token, and draws a "dragon card." Depending on what character you draw, your dragon token, which moves around the board, gains a special ability. You explore around the board, originally only able to move 2 spaces per turn, and only 1 in you enter or exit a special form of terrain. While exploring, you pick up food tokens around the board by walking onto them, which are portrayed as black hexagons. At the end of your turn, if you have two food tokens, you can use them to "level up" your dragon. On top of this, there are 10 levels overall, and reaching certain benchmarks on your leveling progress results in you gaining an additional movement space. There is also a "random event" pile, which is gotten from picking up a food token with a silver dot on it's underside. Possible events range from positive, such as a free food token, to negative, such as losing a food token, to horrendous, such as Lord Cthulhu the Deep One interrupting the game and attacking everyone for a loss of a level. The game itself has several win conditions that I can recall. These conditions are to be the only surviving player, to have the highest level when the game ends, and I believe reaching Level 10 before anybody else.

Aside from interesting me in terms of game play mechanics, Draco's Quest also linked to several of the things we had spent time learning this semester, most likely due to the fact that it was created by a group within the DTC 375 class. The one that first leaps to mind is the concept of "value" from the Weatherford reading. While it seems strange because there isn't an actual currency in the game, the term value still holds true due to the player's desire to collect more food tokens for their dragon, which they can lose or gain through a variety of events. It creates a desire of sorts in the minds of the players, therefore creating the concept of value about these little black hexagons meant to represent food.

It can also be said that the concept of "pranks" from Bogost also has it's place in the game. Recall the above comment about Cthulhu being a possible random event card? It's not the only ridiculous event card on can pull. Others spring to mind in the form of the WSU Creamery technically being part of the game through said random cards, and one that I actually drew into myself was a card that described you being so shocked by your best friend introducing their latest romantic partner to you, a chicken, that you actually lose your next turn.