Photo Leap

Project Photo Leap is a board game I made during the class of Game Design Fundamental with Stone Librande at CMU. The goal is to build and playtest an individually designed boardgame throughout the second half of the semester.

DURATION: 2.5 MONTHS (FEB - MAY, 2020)

TEAM SIZE: INDIVIDUAL PROJECT

PLATFORM: BOARD GAME

TECHNOLOGY: TABLETOP SIMULATOR/ PAPER AND PEN

MY ROLE: GAME DESIGNER/PLAYTEST ORGNIZER

Photo Leap Rule Book

1. Introduction

1.1.  BRIEF BACK STORY

There is an evil wizard Helix who is transforming villagers into animals. Some victims formed the journalist union and are trying to find out the truth and cue. However, it seems there are some spies among them.

1.2.  GAME DESCRIPTION

Photo Leap is a hidden role competitive puzzle game for 5 players, including 4 players and 1 game master. Players will be split into two teams secretly at the beginning of the game, spies and journalists. Players will decide what to do with the card in their hand to unveil the truth or hide the secret.

1.3.  GENERAL COURSE OF PLAY

Players draw their role cards. All players close their eyes. Spies open eyes to identify truth and fake news. Each player draws a card that contains a piece of news. By investigating other player’s news, players collect information to determine if they want to publish it.

1.4. GOAL (HOW TO WIN)

• Journalists publish all 4 truthful news stories to win, or they find out all the spies and kick them out of the union. 

• Spies win by publishing 5 fake news stories.

2. Game Components

Laying out the game components

• 20 news cards, including 5 types (The Sheep, The Bear, The Wolf, The Deer, The Fox), each type has 4 duplicated cards. 

• 4 role cards, including 3 journalist cards, 1 spy card

• 4 additional role cards (use to indicate the second spy after bribing), including 3 journalist cards and a second spy card. 

• 1 lead editor’s pen, 1 associate editor’s camera.

• 1 counter to record the score

2.1.  BOARD 

Left panel: The board to publish news. 

Right panel: Place to hold unpublished news cards and score. 

News Card: The deck includes 20 news cards, including 5 types (The Sheep, The Bear, The Wolf, The Deer, The Fox), each type has 4 duplicated cards.

3. Setting up the game

3.1. SET-UP 

• Randomly pick a player to be the lead editor and give the editor’s pen to him/her.

• Each player draws a role card and checks their role in secret. 

• All players close their eyes and the spy opens their eyes. Among the 5 types of news, the spy picks 2 types to be fake news, 1 type to be the truth and shows them to the game master. The other two types will automatically be not related news.

• Shuffle the news card deck and place them facing down.

4. Turn Order

4.1. INVESTIGATION

4.2. PUBLISHING

4.3. INTROSPECTION

4.4. CHECK FOR VICTORY

5. Investigation

5.1. EXPLANATION

In the phase, players investigate to collect news and information.

5.2. DETAILS

• Players open their eyes and each draw a news card and check the card in secret. Then return the card to GM. Players all close their eyes. 

• Spy opens eyes and checks all four cards from the GM, they may swap one card from those four with a random news card from the news deck. 

  • After round 3, the spy may “bribe” (just pick one player) one journalist and turn them into another spy. The GM deal four new additional role cards to four players. Make sure the second spy card is given to the new spy, and the other three are journalist cards. But after doing so, spies can no longer swap cards.

• The spy gives four cards to GM.

• Then the spy closes their eyes.

6. Publishing

6.1. EXPLANATION

In the phase, players determine which news to publish based on the limited information they gathered so far.

6.2. DETAILS

• All players open their eyes. 

• After three rounds, the lead editor may interrogate one player they think is the spy. All players vote if the interrogation is valid or not. If it is valid, the player who is being interrogated flips their role card. If it’s a spy card, the journalists win. The game ends immediately. If it’s a journalist card, the lead editor is banished from the journalist union and can’t vote, investigate or be elected as editor anymore. But they can still participate in the discussion session.

• If the game has not ended, the lead editor selects one associate editor. (The associate editor cannot be the previous lead editor.) The lead editor collects four news cards from the GM and shuffles them. 

• The lead editor checks four cards secretly and discards one news card (put it in the “Discard” area), then gives 3 news cards to the associate editor. 

• The associate editor checks three new cards secretly and discards one news card (put in the “Discard” area).

• The associate editor publishes the rest of the two news cards. (put under the corresponding area, area 1 for turn 1, area 2 for turn 2, and so on.

7. Introspection

7.1. EXPLANATION

In this phase, players discuss the current situation and plan strategies for the next round.

7.2. DETAILS

• After publishing the news, the GM gives out the updated cumulative score based on published cards and updates the score on the counter. Truth +1, Fake -1, not related 0, without revealing which type is truth or fake.

• Players discuss freely what just happened and think about who is suspicious and determine any strategy for the next round.

8. Check for Victory

8.1. GOAL CONDITION

• After interrogation, if it’s a spy card, journalists win. 

• If 4 truth news cards are published, journalists win.

• If 5 fake news cards are published, spy wins.

9. End of turn

9.1. END OF TURN ACTIONS

• If there is no card in the news deck for the next turn, move discard cards to the deck of the news cards and shuffle them.

• The lead editor passes to the player on the right side of the current lead editor.

10. Tips:

• In the introspection phase, players can discuss, say whatever they want. They can talk about what they drew in the investigation phase, what they get as the lead editor or associate editor. However other than the introspection phase, players shouldn’t show their card to others or leak any information on the card.

• For two published cards, one fake news + one truth = 0 points, but two unrelated cards also get 0 points. 

• The lead editor may want to set up the set to test the associate editor. For example, if the four cards are 1244 (4 is true, and others are fake), if the lead editor is a journalist and wants to test the associate editor, they might discard a 4 and give “1,2,4” to the associate editor. However on the other hand, if the lead editor is the spy, he/she might use this as an excuse when being accused of discarding a truth. 

• In the first 1-2 rounds, the spy has the advantage of knowing which types are fake. Trying to utilize this advantage will help the spy in the later stages.