Hridae Walia > Sophomore Review > Spring 2018

Digital to Analogue Hridae Walia

IxD Foundations
Fall 2017
Table of contents
• 1 - Cover
• 2 - ToC
• 3 - Why I chose this game
• 4 - Formal Elements
• 5 - Player profile
• 6 - First prototype
• 7 - Questions and Original testing
• 8 - Insights
• 9-16 - Tests and iterations
• 17 - Final Game Kit
• 18 - Game Manual

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The game I chose and why
The game I chose is Fallout Shelter. It is a mobile game that is a part of the bigger Fallout Franchise,
set in a world where all major countries nuked each other and people took shelter in Nuclear Fallout
Vaults. I chose this game because the Fallout series is one of my favorite game series of all time and I Fallout 4 Screenshot (PC)
figured that if I am going to do create a game I should base it off something I have passion for so that I
am motivated to do justice to the series when I convert Fallout Shelter into an analogue game.

The base game is a free mobile game which means that its mechanics were made to be short,
simple, fun, and addictive. Even though it is one of the more complex mobile games out there it still
remains basic while maintaining the feel and story of the Fallout franchise. In the game you play the Fallout Shelter Screenshots (Android)
‘overseer’ who is the leader of a vault, your main objective is to run the shelter in a manner that keeps
your occupants happy.

A major component of the game (and what I like most about the game) is the looting mechanic
where you can send Dwellers out on missions so that they can come back with loot and resources to
give to other Dwellers or to keep for themselves. Weapons allow you to attack other areas like raider
settlements and fortresses so that you can get more precious loot. Sometimes your vault will be
attacked by raiders and if you are not able to defeat them, they will destroy your Vault and you will
have to start over from scratch.

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 Formal elements - Fallout Shelter Procedures
Players • The game starts with you getting 5 dwellers and a vault with 1
Single player mobile game - Player v Game room, and a few bottle caps to start building
• Build a room for power, food, and water to start your Vault
Objectives • Send Dwellers out once they are ready so that they can collect
loot and come back to the Vault
• Exploration - Explore the wasteland to collect loot • Send Dwellers out to missions of increasing difficulty once they
• Construction - Build your base in order to get more Dwellers are capable or have better loot
• Strategy - Choose who to send according to their skill level
• Objectives - Special Missions that bring better loot
Resources
Outcomes • Vault
• Bottlecaps
• Get more resources to get more Dwellers to get more loot • Dwellers
• ‘Thriving’ sense for the player • Wasteland
• Successfully running a Vault • Loot
• Getting valuable loot • Enemies (Raiders, Mutants, Ghouls)
• Stimpak (Health kit)

Rules
Boundaries
• Can only send 1 team out at a time unless you buy an upgrade
• In battles, characters hit each other one by one until one of them dies • Dwellers cannot live outside a vault
• If a Dweller dies in the Wasteland, they can be revived for a few
Bottlecaps (in-game currency)

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Player profile
Matt Peake
Age: 20

Occupation: College Student

Hobbies: Video Games, Reddit, Youtube, Rap Music, Basketball
Usually spends 20 hours a week playing video games, been playing since childhood. Likes open world games for the
freedom they offer.

Game devices Top 3 favorite video games Current favorite

• PC • The Witcher 3 • Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds
• Xbox One • Dishonored 2
• Nintendo Switch • Fallout 4
• Google Pixel 2

• Occasionally plays board games with family and friends Favorite board games
• Casual play style, plays for fun and not very serious while playing
• Monopoly
• Likes games with a light strategy element so that it is slightly challenging
• Battleship
• Does not like games that are too simple like snakes and ladders but also does not
• Chinatown
like games that go on for too long like Dungeons & Dragons

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Original prototype

➤ Basic map design where the players have vaults located in the 4
corners and have to take over the rest to win
➤ Players use basic card stats to see what a dweller can do
Perception = how far they can shoot, Endurance = how far they
can move
➤ Players get a new Dweller after every turn. A vault can hold a
maximum of 4 dwellers, forcing players to make difficult
decisions on who to let go
➤ Incentive to go in the middle is to get the draw 5, which lets you
pull 5 random items that could be weapons or armor
➤ There are Draw 1 spots on the way
➤ Loot is completely random, only way to get better loot is to
draw more cards.
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 Questions for the players
• Are you familiar with the Fallout series?
• If yes, which Fallout games have you played?
• What are some of your personal favorite video games?
• Do you play board games often?
• What are your favorite board games?
• Do you like strategy games?
• What do you think about games that are significantly influenced by luck?
• How long do you prefer a board game session to last for?

Who I tested with (8 people) (Original prototype only)

Round 1 (Thanksgiving) - 4 people
• Sohraab Walia (Brother) - Likes casual strategy, Favorite game - Halo 3, Monopoly
• Harnoor Oberoi (Cousin) - Casual but wants to win, Favorite game - Mortal Kombat, Loopin Louie
• Gurman Oberoi (Cousin) - Very competitive - Favorite Game - Gears of War, Chess
• Kabeer Walia (Brother) - Plays for fun and doesn’t care about winning or losing - Favorite Game - Fallout 3, Monopoly
Round 2 (In class) - 4 people
• Natalia Girling - Has not played Fallout before, likes very casual games and mobile games
• Jay Wang - Casual but likes to think while playing, likes strategy games like Age of Empires
• Tiger Zhou - Casual player, likes action games. Does not play games much.
• Yuan Gao - Plays for fun, does not play many games.

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 Insights
Board needs to be more complex 10/10
Players need better incentive to take risks 6/10
More paths 10/10
Need an actual health bar 10/10
Need a better way of keeping track of the Dwellers when they are out in the wasteland 8/10
Add new items, needs more variety 5/10
Need a new way of adding Dwellers to the game 4/10
Reduce the damage of special weapons (sniper and rocket launcher) 2/10
Change moving and shooting mechanic (how many things can you do in one turn) 6/10
Add health bar for vault 8/10
Remove the Endurance stat 4/10
Simplify Dweller cards (Only show essentials) 4/10
Remove Strength stat so that you can only attack with a weapon 6/10
Add a way to upgrade stats 5/10
Add rare loot areas to give guaranteed loot, to create more conflict 3/10
Increase size of Dweller cards 2/10

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 Patch-notes from v0.1 to v0.2
• Use colored dots to show health of Dweller and Vault
• Changed map layout to be more complex, added shortcut going directly to enemy vaults
• Added new areas that have a higher chance of having rare loot (Rare loot spots)
• Increased dweller health because too many weapons can instantly kill them
• Added damage range for some weapons, determined by dice roll
• Added danger paths that players can go on to get to the draw 5 faster, but they risk getting damaged by a trap or mine
• You can move, then shoot in the same turn.
• Removed endurance stat, player movement is now determined solely by single dice roll (Stat will be erased in final
card design
• Printed bigger Dweller cards so that loot cards fit under them
• Added new Dwellers
• Added Rule sheet

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 v0.2 Rules Feedback
Fallout Shelter Board Game Rules
● Last settlement standing wins • Rules are difficult to understand, organize them
● A vault can hold a maximum of 4 people, if a player has • Explain that the Dwellers are meant to be
extra dwellers they can release them or replace existing commanded by you, they are your minions
dwellers. A dweller who is already out in the field cannot • Change ‘Settlement’ to ‘Vault’
be replaced • Explain perception further
● Weapons can be exchanged when dwellers are within 3
spaces of each other
● Each settlement gains 1 new follower after every turn
● Each dweller has a maximum amount they can move which
is determined by the Endurance stat. If a dweller has an
Endurance stat of 3 and the player rolls a 6, the dweller can
only move 3 steps.
● IF a dweller has a weapon, they can shoot as far as their
Perception stat. If one dweller is 7 steps away from an
enemy and their perception is 6, they cannot hit them
because they are 1 point short.
● If a dweller has no weapon, they can only attack people 1
step away or on the same step as them
● Weapon damage adds up to the existing Strength stat of the
dweller
● If a dweller dies in the field they leave all their loot on the
spot of their death, it can then be picked up by anyone who
goes there
● A dweller can have a max of 1 weapon and 1 piece of
armor

● Dwellers have 25 health

● Vaults have 100 health

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 v0.2 Test
Who I tested with (2 people)
Round 3 (In class) - 3 people (I added myself as a 4th player)
• Elijah Haines - Likes to strategize and plays semi-seriously. Used to play the old Fallout 2 game on PC
• Tianyi Huang - Slightly competitive but casual gamer, likes Batman games and Assassins Creed. Has heard of Fallout Shelter but never played
• Jay Wang
Repeated 1 tester to see how the game changed for them

Insights
Board is too complex 3/3
Game is unbalanced 3/3
Better paths 3/3
Colored dots for health are not a good idea 2/3
Need a better way of keeping track of the Dwellers when they are out in the wasteland 3/3
Too many bad items (BB Gun) 2/3
Need a new way of adding Dwellers to the game 2/3
Remove strength, requires too much calculation 2/3
Players should not be able to be in the same spot, allows them to hog loot 3/3
Add upgradeability 2/3

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 Patch-notes from v0.2 to v0.3
Focus: Fixing gameplay and balancing and experimenting with new map
• Need to go back to the drawing board and create a completely new map
• Experiment with ways to track Dwellers in the Wasteland - Use color coded shapes (unique to each dweller)
• Limit to 4 dwellers, you do not get new dwellers anymore since you can upgrade the ones you have
• Remove Strength, now there is only health and perception
• New player cards
• Reduce bad loot items and increase rare items to make the game more exciting and fast
• Added armor in loot to increase health
• Added new weapons (Sniper and laser pistol
• Added individual loot spots to pickup single weapons

Very low fi map because I wanted to iterate and get it right quickly
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 v0.3 Test
Who I tested with (1 person)
• Jay Wang

Repeated 1 tester to see how the game changed for them

Insights

• Map needs to be more dynamic

• Still too simple
• New Loot spots are a good change
• Add a currency to purchase
• Limited number Dwellers reduces confusion
• Tracking was easy
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 Patch-notes from v0.3 to v0.4
Focus: Adding Polish and completely redoing map based on learnings from
previous test
• Created completely new map following the successes and failures of experiments
• Added new game pieces
• Color code Dweller cards
• Redesign Dweller cards
• Re-print loot cards
• Increased rare loot again
• Added in game currency, gold coins
• Bought poker chips for health and perception, each team has a color (red, blue, yellow, white, and green for Vault health)
• Added new ‘Warzone’ in the map which changes the map and changes the rules
• Players inside the war zone cannot shoot outside and outside cannot shoot in
• Players can only move 1 space at a time, perception stat is halved in the Warzone
• Warzone has higher concentration of loot and allows for direct passage to any vault

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 v0.4 Test
Who I tested with (2 people)
• Jay Wang
• Olivia - Has never heard of Fallout, mainly plays casual mobile games

Repeated 1 tester to see how the game changed for them

Insights
• Map works well
• Elaborate rules very clearly
• Warzone is a unique feature that greatly improves
• Color coding isn’t enough, something needed to identify
individual Dwellers in the Wasteland
• Limited number Dwellers reduces confusion
• Elaborate on rules very clearly since the game has a
unique feature now
• Sniper is too powerful
• New movement mechanics need to be thoroughly
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 Old

Patch-notes from v0.4 to v1.0 (FINAL)

Focus: Fixing small balancing issues, fixing Dweller management, creating
comprehensive game manual
• Ran out of poker chips for the perception stat so changed to nickels
• Created full game manual
• Redesigned Dweller cards to make it easy to identify by linking them to their game pieces
• Bought gold coins for currency

New

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 Final game Kit
Dweller cards, 4 per team, 16 total

Currency - Gold coins - 30 coins,

1 coin stands for 10.

Team chips, 28 each color, 1 stands for 5 health

Vault health chips, 20 for each Vault, 1 stands

for 5 health

Game pieces, each design

has 4 colors for each team, 16
total

1 green die

Pennies - Used to show

perception stat, 160 total

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