Purrista

​My work on this project began as a playtester among a group of friends to help Elizabeth test an early prototype of the game. I gave layered feedback after multiple playthroughs on what I believed was and wasn’t working, before offering suggestions for possible edits to improve the game from my perspective. Fast forward a few weeks and as midterm deadlines get closer Elizabeth approached me requesting I work on the project full time in order to assist her with achieving the gameplay milestones she had set by midterms. I agreed and officially joined the project as a designer and editor, quickly working to produce another version of the game by midterms before leaving for GDC 2024.

I set out creating revisions for another playtest while abiding by a handful of design restraints that Elizabeth believed was the core identity of the game. Firstly the use of tokens, referred to as “toe beans,” had to remain no matter what. Secondly the game had to be built with cards as the primary component. Third, an element of being able to directly attack your opponents was desired. And lastly that the game needed to remain simple enough on the surface that it could be played by families casually. 

In a matter of a few weeks I produced multiple renditions of a new rules document to suffice for several more playtests, with small variations to each rule set in order to determine which was most enjoyable and least fiddly. The playtest went extremely well and we made plans for what final components and assets would be necessary. In the latter half of the semester I worked with The Game Crafter and their custom component production tools to produce various cards, tokens, a game box, and rules booklet for the final version of the game. I formatted these final ready to print files in Adobe Photoshop using art assets created by Elizabeth. Additionally I formatted a box to feature key art, gameplay information, and wrote the rules booklet detailing the finish rule set we went with according to our second serious round of playtesting. The game was then uploaded to The Game Crafter in June of 2024 and featured for informal play sessions at Origins Game Fair 2024.

Overall I played a significant role providing feedback on the first serious draft of the game and helped to design the second draft based on my feedback and others. I was a playtester, designer, writer, and editor on the project, while using my expertise in Adobe Photoshop to format the final products. Examples of the cards and components can be seen below.​​