Stayin' Alive!

Hello. For this final Game Changers AP, I will be telling you all about Help, We’re Alive! - a game by SM, BD, and me. In the game, Help, We’re Alive!, one of two players is a group of scientists that are researching an alien life-form on a space station. Another team is a group of hackers who shut down the space station's power that released the alien from its stasis chamber. It is up to both teams to restore the power and get the Keycard to escape the space station before the other team does, without being caught by the alien. This game is recommended for families and friends, ages 12+, who like team building activities. The lesson of the game is that it is better to work through certain situations together than to do them alone.

Link to the Rules Here

The first draft of Help We're Alive! started out having all four players on the same team, and the alien with its own track that it follows. We did not want this game to be the same thing over and over again whenever players come back to play it, so we added the mechanic of customizing the board. After we introduced that, we got rid of the track the alien follows since the layout of the game will be completely different every time it is played. Once we did that, we had the players control the alien every turn when we play tested the game in these conditions; it was not fun. There is no challenge in the game if you are able to spontaneously move the threat away from you. So we brought back the fun by not removing the controlling the alien mechanic, but making the game into a team versus team game so that mechanic can be more useful for getting the other team caught. Playtesting the game in these conditions was really fun, even for the people we introduced it to for the first time. That is how Help We're Alive! became the game it is now.

Making this game was really fun. I really enjoyed seeing all of our ideas come to life right before our eyes. The game started out small, then we added and removed some elements from it, and it became the game we have now. Something I learned throughout this process was, when making a game, always expect it to change into something completely different than what you were hoping for in the first place. This is important to expect because nothing is ever perfect after the first try. Playing, editing, and changing a game is an important part of the game’s evolution - leaving in or adding what works, and removing the things that don’t. Something I do wish I would have done more differently in the process would be to split up the work a little bit more evenly. I took too much work on myself and wish I would have given more to my group mates.  However, we all got a lot of work done together, like when we were shopping for the game's materials and working through how we should customize the board. I thought this was a great accomplishment for our group not just as students, but as people, too. It is fun knowing that you made an actual, fun, working game with a full set of rules. I can picture it as something you would buy at a store if we hired a professional artist. I will never forget this class and what I learned from it.