My Board game concept

WARNING THIS CONCEPT WILL OFFEND WOMAN WHO ARE SENSITIVE TO SEXISM & DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.

Original Concept
My board game will be based on the sexist jokes or slander towards woman in modern society e.g Get back to the kitchen. Make me a sandwich. Each Character are the stereotypical woman and how "Man" sees Woman. The game end when one of the wives have been beaten to death.


Research on stereotyping woman & Domestic Violence.
I downloaded a PDF file from this site about domestic violence-
www.womensaid.org.uk/core/core_picker/download.asp?id=1602‎
This PDF states there are no known reliable national date on the general incidence of domestic violence in the UK. As the statistics are based on reported incidents.
In 2011/2012 7.3% of women (1.2 million) and 5% of men (800,000) report having experienced domestic abuse.
Domestic violence accounts for !0% of emergency calls.
1 in 5 women (20%) have been victims of sexual assault since the age of 16.
 90% of the victims of the more serious offences knew their attacker, 56% of these attackers were partners/ex-partners. 
Only 15% of these victims reported it to the police.
In 2011 2,873 men were prosecuted for rape and 40% (1153) were convicted.
At least 750,00 of children a year witness domestic violence.
Every minute in the UK, the police receive a call from the public for assistance for domestic violence. averaging to 1,300 calls each day that equates to 570,00 calls each year. 
Many young people view violence as a normal aspect of an intimate relationship.  

Acceptable sexism in the 50's

Urban Dictionary is a very good reference to look up modern slogans and slang and there meaning of today and not what it use to mean, more of a cultural dictionary. On this website a very long list stereotypical "facts" about woman
examples of this is -
1} "Women never have anything to wear. Don't question the racks of clothes in the closet; you 'just don't understand'."
2}"Women will always ask questions that have no right answer, in an effort to trap you into feeling guilty. "
3} "Women think all beer is the same."
10 of the most sexist advertisements in the 1950's -
All of these images suggest that a woman's place is in the kitchen. She loves nothing more then to clean and look after her husband. It also shows that violence towards women is acceptable and not uncommon.



















reference - http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=50%20facts%20about%20women&defid=455573

Typical woman pet names- 
Names in bold = where most hated by my female peers.
                                            Babe
                                            Babes
                                            Sweetie
                                            Poppet
                                            Honey 
                                            Dear
                                            Gorgeous 
                                            Sexy 
                                            Love 
                                            Sweetheart



Board game style


A monopoly layout style of the game
Original board -
 Clean board that I will use as a guide line -
Image reference- http://callagator.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/lets-talk-about-monopoly.html


I will need (make)
The game will need 2 dice.
Skill point stacks
4 different stacks of cards
Up to 6 player tokens 
Playing board
                                          Point System 
Instead of having a curacy games such as monopoly there will be a point system instead. -
"Good" woman points
Social points
Vanity points
Self esteem points
 Health points 

 If becomes to controversial I can change health to just self esteem. 
Making the game is over when the first woman has a mental break down rather then when the first woman is hospitalised.

Scenarios 
You added mayo instead of mustered, You have angered husband, you must roll a double to dodge the backhand.
If you do not dodge the backhand -10 beauty points and -10 health

You can only receive 2 black eyes, after that your health points lost will be doubles e.g.
Husband is displeased after an unsatisfying "night", you get the back hand = -10 health points This would mean your health decreases by -20

Concept for game goal - 
The aim of of the game is to balance out your skill and points the best way you can to obtain the "Perfect" house wife status. 
When a player loses all of their health points the game is over. You then will revival what type of woman you are the one with the most balanced points will be demand as the  Perfect Woman and will survive a survive a long and "happy" marriage. 

To survive a long and "happy" = The game is over when a player loses all of there health.



Game Rules

Goal-
The object of the game is to gain "perfect" house wife status. You can achieve this by balancing your skill points equally, whilst travelling around the board and throughout the different events. 
It does not matter how many cards you have on each skill as long as your points are all equal to the same amount. This excludes health. 
Example -
+50 “Good” woman
+50 Social
+50 Vanity
+50 Self esteem
(+10 or more health.)
If you have no health you are hospitalised, there for cannot achieve this status.

Ending the Game-
The game is over once one house wife has been hospitalised. 
A player is hospitalised when they lose all of their health points. Even if this player has balanced points they cannot achieve perfect house wife status as they have displeased their husband too much.

Equipment-
The equipment consists of 
Game board
2 dice
6 tokens
20 Marriage cards
20 social cards 
10 date night cards
Skill cards

Preparation-
Place the board on a table.
Put the marriage and Social cards face down on their allotted spaces shows on the board. Each player will need to choose one token to represent them while travelling around the board. 
Each player will start with 10 +10 health and no other skill points. They will be obtained whilst playing the game.
All remaining skill cards will need to be placed back into their holder as you will need to keep this on hand whilst playing the game.
Other equipment will need to go back into their assigned spaces within the game box.

The Man-
One of the players will need to take on the roll as “The Man.”
"The Man" is in charge of giving out the starting skill points. Plus giving and deducting skill cards as the game goes on.
“The Man” must keep their personal Skills separate from the skill cards that are not yet assigned.
"The Man" never runs out of skill points. If he does "The Man" may issue out more skills by writing on any ordinary paper.

The Play-
Starting with "the man", each player in turn throws the dice. The player with the highest total starts the play. Place your token on the corner marked "Go", then throw the dice and move your token in the direction of the arrow, the number of spaces needed to move will be indicated by the dice.
After you have completed your play, the turn passes to the left. The tokens remain on the spaces occupied and proceed from that point on the player's next turn. More than one tokens may rest on the same space at the same time.
Depending on the space your token reaches, you may be entitled to skill points or skill points may be deducted, draw a marriage or social card, Go To the kitchen, etc...

If you throw doubles, you move your token as usual, the sum of the two dice. You are subject to any privileges or penalties pertaining to the space on which you land. However you are now entitled to an extra turn, which must be taken immediately after your original turn. Retaining the dice, throw again and move your token as before. If you throw doubles three times in succession, move your token immediately to the start of the kitchen, marked with a red boarder.

Go-
Each time a player's token lands on or passes over GO, whether by throwing the dice or drawing a card telling the play to pass go or advance to go, "the man"  will give the player any +10 skill card you need. 

Back to the kitchen... woman! -
You get sent back to the kitchen when...
(1) Your token lands on the "Daddy's hungry.”
(2) You draw a card stating you have to go back to the kitchen.
(3) You throw an unlucky double = 1 & 1 three times in one turns.

When you are sent back to the kitchen you must place your counter on the space that states 'kitchen' (the solid blue space,) you must go back to the kitchen without advancing through the board.
Your turn ends immediately when you are sent back to the kitchen.
If you are not "sent back to the kitchen" but in the ordinary course of passing through the kitchen space by space, you are - "Entering the kitchen," There for you can pass through the kitchen moving ahead in the usual manner and leave the kitchen area as usual. You will be able to collect any positive and negative points in the kitchen area because you are "Passing through".
When you are sent back to the kitchen, you can only stay within the kitchen area. This means if you get to the end of the kitchen you must then go back on yourself, back to the start of the kitchen and so on till you are allowed to leave again.


A player that has been sent back to the kitchen can only leave by the following scenarios -
(1) Rolling a double
If you succeed in doing this you immediately move forward the number of spaces shown by your doubles throw. Even though you had thrown doubles, you do not take another turn.
(2) Using the "Leave the kitchen with no re-persecutions" card picked up from one of the 3 piles of cards.
(3) Purchasing this card stated above in bold from another player for a negotiated price (negotiated between the two of you.)How ever perching this card will take up a turn so you will only be able to play the card on your next go.
(4)If you are lucky enough to roll a double six, you can carry on through the kitchen as normal and continue round the board 12 spaces. If you land on the daddy’s hungry space after rolling a double 6 it is counted as void you are free to move on. However you must still take the punishment on the board e.g. -10 self-esteem.
If you do roll double in your next 4 turns you must chose to do one of the following -
(1)Making it up to your husband by taking your punishment resulting in -10 of each skill card including health.

The Office-
If you dare enter the man cave you will be deducted the amount stated on the board.
Plus you must also roll an even number (the total of the 2 dices) to avoid being backhanded by your husband, resulting in -20 health. 
  
Date Night, Home and Social cards-
If you land on a space with a photo on it you must pick a card with the corresponding photo. This will reveille a scenario that the player will have to read out and do what the card says.

No More Health Points-
If a player runs out of health points, it's game over!
Will any of you be lucky enough to achieve the 'Perfect House Wife' status.


The Point of the game and info for the Winner, if there is one!- 
You can play this game numerous amounts of times and have no one achieve "perfect" housewife status. This is essentially the point of the game. To be "perfect" or to have a "perfect" marriage is virtually impossible in most respects.

However if you do manage to obtain "perfect" housewife status...... WELL DONE!




Perfection?

Games Design Document

Core Concept
Tag-Line
The Core Concept
Game play Overview
Board Design
Movement
Competitiveness
Rooms and points

Special Cards
Game Over
Target Audience 
Artwork
Box design
Tokens
Skill card artwork

Board artwork


Core Concept
Tag Line:

My Hollywood tagline, in keeping with my games theme is extremely sexist towards women. I chose this particular line because men in the 1950’s saw women as inferior to them. Therefore say that it’s so easy that women can play, states you don’t need to been very intellectual to play it because women are stupid. I chose the women because she is so ridiculously happy. I also felt she looked very patronising this also went well with the theme of my game.
The Core Concept:
Perfection is a 2-6 player board game in the style of monopoly, however rather than player’s competing to get the most money, my game based on luck rather than skills and tactics. The aim of the game is to play thought the game as a 1950’s style house wife collecting skill points. Players have to gain skill points and keep their skill points as balanced as possible throughout the game. The games will end when one woman is unlucky enough to lose all of their health points (more details of this come later)
The game is written in a deliberately sexist way this is to highlight sexism against woman and how degrading this is. I hope this will highlight some of the still standing issues of sexism against women such as sexist jokes consisting of get back to the kitchen or make me a sandwich.
My game is done in a 1950’s style because this era was known for its sexist advertising and general opinion of women being stay at home wives how love doing nothing more than pleasing their husbands.

Game play Overview
Board Design:     
The board consists of five rooms of varying lengths, each room has a ‘safe space’ (excluding the office) this safe space that has no points or scenarios on it. ‘GO!’ is also a natural space. This space is where the player can rest for a go. This will come in handy as the game progresses and players have lots of points they don’t need to gain. The office is a room player would be better off avoiding; this is The Man’s space. In this area player will lose health and lots of skill point’s one space even sends the woman back to the kitchen to stay there until she is aloud out, the rules explain how the woman can leave the kitchen again.
In strategic places around the board there are spaces with an image, 2 of which are a couple and one of a woman on the phone. These signify Home, Social and Date night Cards.  When a player lands on these images they will need to pick up a card with the corresponding image. They then will need to read out the scenario for example, ‘you use day old bread to make your husband a sandwich, is that what you think is good enough?’ the player will then have to have play out the consequences of that card, resulting in -10 Health and -10 Vanity. 
Movement:
Each player will roll two dice to determine the amount of spaces they will me around the board. Players can be moved back and forwards in a game by scenarios written on social/home cards. For example – Your husband hits you so hard it knocks you back 3 spaces. 
Competitiveness:
I have not added any aspect to my game so that player can sabotage or help one another without any personal gain. I found when beta testing player where extremely competitive. I found that this was because the game ends when a single player loses all of their health points. Meaning the game could be over in any amount of time, considering a single player could be very unlucky or everyone could be very lucky and lose health points slowly. This makes it harder for player to win because it means they have to keep their points balanced until someone is hospitalised. So rather than, for example monopoly players hope to buy the houses they want or have the most value before anyone else. In my game you find people wish that player will land in the office or pick up cards that will lose health so they are closer to winning with balanced points. This made the game quite comical because player would shout yes if another player landed on ‘Daddy’s hungry’ in the office. Then hope they wouldn't roll an even number so they lose -20 health points. Although this type of reaction wasn't intentional I am very happy with this outcome.
Losing and Gaining Skill points:
A play on the majority of spaces on the board, other than those that are ‘safe spaces’ can gain or lose points. The living room has only gained points this was deliberate because the majority of player will have gain some will points on their first though. I rolled 2 dice 25 times and found that the most common number of moves rolled was a 7 or an 8(this backed up my theory.)
The Kitchen is the area where players are more likely to lose points then gain them this was because a lot of player will be spending some time stuck here. As frustrating as it is not to be able to progress thought the game it isn't always a bad thing. I found this when beta testing my game with 4 players. If a player is trapped in the kitchen, I found that they were far more balanced than players able to progress though the game. I also did not add a home card square in this area. This was also deliberate, as a player is far more likely to lose health points if they pick up a home card. Social cards have more social events in them making them more positive than negative.
The office is the most negative if my game this is where player will lose the most amount of health. I found that the majority of married men had their own space within a house where women left alone.
Hallway is neutral pace with both good and bad points and one social space that is equal in its negative and positive cards.
The Bedroom is a mostly positive space other than the one negative space that is ‘Daddy’s hungry’ sending the housewife back to the kitchen. There are 3 spaces that allow the player to pick up a card this is ‘date night’ These cards can be both negative and positive. 
‘Go!’ is a positive space this is because if you land on ‘GO!’ or pass this space, you are entitled get to pick a skill card of your choice, this excludes health. I added this to the game so that players have a better chance of balancing out your skill points. It also give the player some control in this game of chance. 
Special cards:
The only special cards I have included in my game is ‘leave the kitchen with no repercussions’ this allows the player to leave the kitchen at any time without any repercussions, this means the player will no longer have to lose any health points or skill points if they do not roll a double in there next 4 goes.
Game over:
A player starts with 10 health cards; each card is worth +10. Health points are the only points players can’t gain back though out playing the game. When a player loses all of their health points this causing the housewife to be hospitalising. The game is over when a single player becomes hospitalised.
Target Audience:
My target audience is 18+, this is because my game includes violence towards women and can be offensive. I advise that people who are sensitive towards sexism do not play my game. My game is not intended to be offensive towards woman. Its purpose is to show people that on woman cannot be perfect nor can anyone. Its purpose was to take modern day jokes such as “Get back to the Kitchen woman” and “make me sandwich” and mix it with 1950’s humour and sexist culture to create 


   Artwork
Box design:
My game has 8 sets of cards; 5 points cards Health, Vanity, Self-esteem, Social, “Good” woman points and 3 scenario cards Date night, Social and Home. I need to store these cards neatly within my box. So that it makes it easier for players to set up and put way. I hated setting up monopoly as a kid and all the cards being missed when someone rattled the box. I wanted to avoid this as best as possible. I started by looking at greeting card storage boxes.


















I took this concept and adapted it by taking the organisation of sectioning off different types of cards. Added this style of organisation and added it to a part of a box. 

This was my outcome of my box design-




Card Artwork:
I took 1950’s-1960’s styled advertisements to create my cards. The 1950’s set the theme of my game. This was a time of extreme sexism provided as ‘Man’s world.’ A woman’s place was at home doing house work looking after the children and weighting on her man hand and foot. Today’s jokes still suggest this, this is why I combined the two. Each scenario card has its own coloured boarder that goes with the image. Home card has a red boarder to go with the red skirt. The social cards are blue, to go with the walls of room. Gold on the date night cards to go with the woman’s dress. With my skill cards, I found a 1950's styled advert relevant image. I found this to be more difficult than originally planned.







Item list:
Board Size: A3
Players: 2-6

Contents:
Board game box
Game Board
2 Dice
6 Game tokens
60 Skill Cards (10 of each)
20 Date Night Cards
20 Home Cards
20 Social Cards

References:

·         http://shadytreediary.blogspot.co.uk/2011_04_01_archive.html
·         http://blog.lulusvintage.com/2007/10/1950s-makeup-ad.html


Evaluation
 I am happy with the overall design of my game. However I would have liked to of added more skill points and rooms to my game, along with some more varied scenario cards with different outcomes depending on the player. I would have liked to of added, bathroom, stair case, dining room ext. making it more of a full house rather than just certain rooms. Skill points I would of liked to of added, cleanliness for example.
The tokens I have used in my game aren't how I envisioned them when first planning my game. I wanted them to be silhouette of women that stood upright. However I managed to find silhouette of a woman’s head, with different coloured settings, originally used for jewellery making. If I felt I wouldn't have been straining myself I would have made my own tokens rather than outsourcing for them. However I was well are I would not have had time to make them by my deadline. I would of extended my board and made it A2 rather than A3.
I felt my colour scream worked well however if I added them rooms I missed out, I would have to make alterations to this. I chose colours to represent different rooms for example blue was for the kitchen, yellow for the living room, peach for the bedroom. I felt this matched the era I was representing 1950’s.
If I was to make my game again, I would try to cut down the cost of the production as I found it to be quite expensive. I don’t feel that the project took too long to make. I found that once I had worked out how my player where going to navigate though the board (the rooms of a house) It was very easy to start producing.
When beta testing my game, I found that where a lot less problems than I originally predicted were. The game played though better than I expected, the rules where interpreted as planned and understood making them a success. The game lasted approximately one hour and forty-five minutes. Player where so diverged in the game they felt this time had gone quickly and where pleasantly surprised. Player found they became frustrating fun, in the séance that they would get out of the kitchen after spending 4 turns pacing the area, only to roll a double and realising that amount of spaces landed them back into the kitchen or pick up a home card that sent them back to the kitchen. Player commented when asked that they ‘ didn't find this unfair or anger them. Player also commented that it was a very well executed concept. That they hadn't heard of a game like it. Despite the fact I had been influenced and inspired by monopoly. They quite enjoyed the concept and found it humours.’ One other female played my game and she was not offended by the theme and didn't find it to be distasteful or too over the top. This was one of my fears when making my game that it would be too offensive that this would blind people from the message behind it.
After Beta testing I only need to change some spelling errors that I had missed. I also found it to be too unfair with 4 back to the kitchen cards in a stack of 20 so I cut them out by half. This made it fairer for the player, as cards go to the bottom of the pile to be reused. I need to reword some of my scenario cards as they were too wordy and didn't read very easily. Making it harder for player to read them aloud. I predicted that I would run out of skill cards at one point in the game, however this did how happen and they amount of cards I have printed where sufficient. Over all I am proud of my outcome and the feedback I have had from my game. Any problem I predicted I would run into where easily avoided or didn't happen. 


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