Description:
It’s a simulation card game that was developed on Tabletop Simulator by David Tran, Matthias Ramos, Annas Shazad, and myself (Kitty Chen). The theme we chose was hell, and we wanted to deliver a unique sales experience [in hell] to players.

About the Game:
What’s the most secure job in the world? Game designer? Cooking chef? Operator? The answer is none of the above. Not in real life and not even in Hell! Welcome to hell! The place where you can start your new career as a store clerk! It's full of competition, and all you can do is sell, sell, sell. However, be careful with the tricks, be smarter, be more ambitious; so that you can climb to the top of the corporate ladder.


Role
Game Designer:
We decided to make a connection between hell and real life, so we designed our game as a corporate ladder, where each “demon”(player) had an opportunity to climb to the top. We listed and collected various game references and generated a core and distinct mechanic which players were allowed to sell by customizing prices and purchasing items from others. The following challenge was how to make the game balanced. I created a model to analyze all the numbers and probabilities in Excel. We also host several playtesting sessions to gather all the issues that we had, through observation and players’ feedback. I amended the different types of cards [and number of cards] to increase or decrease the quality of cards that could be drawn to create a good balance.

Project Manager:
I was responsible for writing an intuitive and clear rulebook. I illustrated a game board, cards, and tools with proper explanations to describe all pieces of assets that were included in the game. I also highlight essential scale, colour and contrast rules to raise players’ awareness. After completing all the pieces, I implemented them into Tabletop Simulator and altered the theme to a volcano. It gave a sense of horror.

Takeaways:
1. The brainstorming stage should not be limited, and it’s the most important phase for producing creative thoughts.
2. Observing a playtest is an excellent way to answer your doubts and questions, and it directly displays players’ behaviours that act as powerful pieces of evidence and proof.
3. Establishing a model to simulate the game for massive times could get more accurate results.