Evaluation - "Amazon Attack" Board Game

Evaluation

“Amazon Attack” Board Game

For my GCSE coursework “The Destruction of the Amazon Tropical Rainforest”. I designed a board game. I was in a group with two other people. In this group I designed and painted the playing board, the questions graphics and the instructions. How I did this was I bought a piece of wood (MDF) 60x60cm. I then had to draw the actual layout for the board game. I came up with several ideas and chose one of them. The idea was split in half with one half being native and the other was a logger. The native side was going to be painted in natural/environmental colours. The loggers’ side was going to be painted with dusty/desert colours. The loggers’ side has a triangle in the middle to separate that side of the board and on the native side a “L” shaped river will be used for separation. I drew this idea in full and then had to decide how many spaces were going around the board. I ended up with a total of twenty-six spaces for each side. This then gave me enough freedom to add the things that I wanted. The symbols that I used were a question mark, on board instructions and written words. These symbols show the player what they have to do on every move they make. I painted the board with brown, blue, golden brown, and dark green. I painted the outside of the board dark green to show the forest area. For the native side I painted a blue “L” shape to separate the playing board from the non-playing parts. I painted around this river in brown colour for a dirt path. The loggers’ side I drew a rough triangle and then painted around this in a golden brown colour. Inside the triangle I filled it with sand as I thought it would give a good effect. After doing this I started to put the sections in. To do this I used a felt-tip pen and drew lines where the sections were. I put the symbols in the places I designated. When this dried I put a varnish over the board. The varnish smudged some of pen marks but it came out quite well. When this was dry I made a grid for the trees/stumps and a rectangle for the questions.

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The question graphics were made on Publisher 2000. The questions were made up by one of the group members. Yet I had to go through them to double check. Once I checked these I then could design the graphics. The back of the questions is a question mark, which has been made at a slant. The front face of the questions was time consuming, as I had to copy the questions from another program and paste them into Publisher. This gave me some trouble as it got confusing and sometimes I lost my place. I used a business card wizard for the design and then chose the colours I wanted. These colours are a preset called “Rainforest”. The questions are presented extremely well. The type of question is shown in the dark green title box. Below is the question and in the bottom-right is the answer. Some different types of questions have the answer revealed in the green writing. Each question has its own picture underneath the question to

make it more professional and to fill the blank spaces. I then backed these on green card.

The instruction book was based on a “Monopoly” rules book. The instructions show detailed descriptions of how to play the game with the use of graphics for examples. It is laid out which is presented professionally and legible. The rules can be followed by people of all ages, which is useful so this means that a large age range can play the game. The instructions indicated different text with the use of assorted typefaces.

I presented this information this way because it is original and is different from other students. It shows that this project can be done in different ways for a great affect.

The advantages of presenting it this way is that it can be used for many different ways and it can be played various ages. To do this all that need to be done to the game is changing the questions. By doing this the game can be played by children aged 7 (Key Stage 2) to people aged 16 (Key Stage 4).

The disadvantage of presenting it this way is that it could not challenge the players to the full extent of their knowledge. Another disadvantage is the questions will have to be changed frequently as the questions could be memorised quickly and easily.

I could improve my work if I had more time by developing the board. I could have made power cards so you are able to take trees/stumps off his opponent and add to your own side, etc. I could have developed the board by using computerised graphics to enhance and bring effects to the game. If I had the resources the questions could be laminated to protect them and present it nicely.

The things that have worked well are the graphics for the questions. They have come out better than I expected and I think they add a nice finish to the game.

The varnish was the only feature that did not work very well. As it smudged the writing and symbols which prove to be difficult to restore.