Lucky Dragon
Lucky Dragon is a party board game made to be easy to pick up and play! With it's unique, eye-catching aesthetic, it was designed to fit the mold of today's most popular party games while delivering its own fresh and unique twist. Playing as a worker in a shady Chinese restaurant, your goal is to sabotage your co-workers so that you are the only one that may keep their job! But be careful, one of your own co-workers could snitch on you, lowering your reputation. But if they snitch wrong, then they could lose their own reputation!
Lucky Dragon has a short playtime of fifteen to twenty minutes. It relies on the player adapting to their role as desperate, minimum wage worker willing to do anything to keep their job. Its design encourages emergent gameplay, letting the players work together to earn more reputation, or to deceive whoever tries to snitch to the manager.
Gameplay
This project was developed in about five weeks on a team of four and was completed on November 24, 2017. I acted as the Producer, making sure each member of the team was organized and enthusiastic, and a Designer. My design focus was fine-tuning and balance, as well as promoting emergent gameplay through the snitch system. Lucky Dragon won SCAD's Entelechy competition's "Best Board Game".
Role and Development
This was the first project I did during my time at SCAD that was developed into a polished product. Because of that, we had to learn a lot about organization. None of our team members were prepared for the amount of work that went into making a game, something we had to quickly learn and adjust too.
Obstacles and Challanges
Prompted to make a board game, my team and I wanted to go against the grain. We didn't want to do feuding gods or feudal civilizations. Having worked as a pizza delivery driver the summer before, I suggest the players being minimum wage food service employs. The game-play was partially inspired by a story I told regarding a time one of my coworkers stole a large order from me. We changed the setting to Chinese Takeout because the sheer amount of it in Savannah.
Inspiration
Lucky Dragon was my first major project at SCAD. It was created at a time when I was unsure which direction my career should take and which role would be most important for me in the design process. I learned that I was a natural leader, embracing the responsibilities assigned to the leadership role. I was able to manage schedules, forecast tasks, and encourage my team members while helping produce a product to be proud of.
Lucky Dragon taught me that I had a knack for fine tuning within game design. The balance between the application of mathematics and player interpretation turned out to be a valuable skill to apply to my team.
What I learned
Simon Lauer- Game Designer and Artist
Leo Lo- Game Designer and Artist
Jonatan Rey-Brookes- Game Designer
