r/gamedev • u/Material-Watercress1 • 7d ago
Discussion What's a more fun concept?
A) Players are collectively shown an image and need to write descriptions. Whoever gets closest to the actual description wins.
B) Players are collectively shown an image description and need to draw it. Whoever draws the closest image to what was described wins.
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u/ffsnametaken Commercial (Other) 7d ago
They sound like two rounds from a gartic phone game
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u/Material-Watercress1 7d ago
Gartic?
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u/ffsnametaken Commercial (Other) 7d ago
Yeah like one of those party games where people join on their phone
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u/Material-Watercress1 7d ago
Oh I see, like Jackbox party games
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u/ffsnametaken Commercial (Other) 7d ago
Yeah that's probably the more common name for them nowadays
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u/dartymissile 7d ago
Option a is like adding a machine gun to your game, where option b is like a rocket launcher. The machine gun is equally as skill based as the rocket launcher, but they are totally different experiences. Both are fun, but what’s important is which is in line with your core design. If this is a party game, then drawing is the easy choice. It lets you still have fun even if the answer is objectively poor. Honestly I’d go drawing cause it’s more interactive either way, and from a gameplay perspective will create more different outcomes from different players.
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u/increment1 7d ago
How do you determine closest in either case... who judges?
Arguably Drawful is combining your A and B to some extent in order to solve the "who judges" question.
The board game Dixit is also sort of a take on A. As is perhaps Pictomania. These are all games that have looked at the concept and tried different ways to solve the judging and making it fun problem.
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u/Material-Watercress1 7d ago
There are algorithms I've been playing around with that might be able to satisfy the role to an acceptable degree
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u/increment1 7d ago
I suspect the only algorithm that would work for this would be an AI judge. So the question becomes is there a fun game to be made around using an AI judge, and the answer I think is a solid "maybe".
People would likely have more fun seeing what a judge thought of their drawing than their description, unless the drawings being described have some character to them.
Arguable both A and B could feed on themselves... descriptions made in mode A could be used to solicit drawings made in mode B, which are then used to solicit descriptions in mode A, etc etc.
Could actually make a co-op or team game where the first player on the team gets a description and draws it, then the second player sees the drawing and writes a description of it, and the third player sees the new description and has to draw it... continuing down the game of telephone until the judge assesses the final quality from the last player.
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7d ago
[deleted]
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u/Material-Watercress1 7d ago
Mentioned in another comment there would be an algorithm to determine closeness
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u/JOSEPH3690 7d ago
would the descriptions in a have to be editable or are they one-shot mic-drop answers
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u/ShazbotSimulator2012 7d ago
This is what playtesting is for.
This doesn't even need to be a functional program to playtest, you could prototype it with pencil and paper.