In the previous posts, I talked
about what may be done to change the Japanese Flower cards used in the game of
“Go-stop. Now let’s go talk about what should be changed in the game itself.
- The Game “Go-Stop” in Korean History (Project: Localizing “Go-Stop” #1)
- The Game “Go-Stop” and its image in Korea (Project: Localizing “Go-Stop” #2)
- The Mechanics of the Game “Go-Stop” (Project: Localizing “Go-Stop” #3)
- The Cards of the Game “Go-Stop” (Project: Localizing “Go-Stop” #4)
- What to change? “Go-Stop” (Project: Localizing “Go-Stop” #5)
Go-Stop is a game with a rather simply
mechanism. Essentially, you are given a set of cards which are used to collect matching
pairs from what is essentially a portion of the remaining card deck. The random
factor is introduced by taking a card from the remaining card deck and either
playing it or leaving for the other players to take depending on whether there
is a matching pair available on that specific players turn.
Once again, the mechanisms are rather simple.
The interesting aspects of the mechanisms are related to the point system.
There are two major aspect of interest. First, the base points are calculated
using a point threshold system rather than am incremental point system. Just
collecting a card does not automatically give a player points. The player has
to collect more than the required number of specific type of cards to score
points.
Second, there is a bonus point system that
could radically add or multiply the base points one has. These bonus points are
usually generated by collecting a specific combination of cards. Theoretically,
these bonus points could add up to several thousand points. For a 3 player
game, a player can end the game after accumulating 3 points. You see the
difference!
If you agreed to pay $1 per point, the money
one loses could not much higher than one expects. This is why Go-Stop is so
popular in Korea. Koreans have a tendency to easily get addicted to things
since we, as a culture, do not have very balanced lives. It could be
traditional gambling, women, or computer MMORPG games. We get addicted it. The
fact that a lot of these bonus points are generated by the random card draw
after a card is played from the player hand, it the real attraction of the
game, Go-Stop. Koreans and our addictive personality go crazy for random
factors that make a serious impact to one’s fortunes.
However, this fact does make it more difficult
for non-gambling card gamers to accept Go-Stop. For hard core card gamer of the
non-gambling variety, there is too much randomness. At least for Poker, there
is more strategy and skill associated with the game. With Go stop, it is more
of a play as many games while minimizing losses until you get that big
combination of cards that win you big money.
For the casual card gamer, the gambling aspect
of Go-Stop is a turn off. At the same time, without the gambling aspect, there
is not much value to the rather arbitrary bonus point mechanic. What is the difference whether you win with a
100 point lead or a single point lead? In a game like scrabble, the point
system does work better because a game does last longer and thus the points
mean more to the player. However, a game of Go-Stop is rather short. If
everyone knows what they are doing, it only takes 5 minutes to end the game.
So, what should be done?
I think you need to add more into the base
mechanism of the game and I am not talking about the bonus point mechanisms. I
do think that the basic mechanisms are interesting and robust enough for this
to work.
On the simple side, you could actually turn
the game into a dice roll game. This would add another active element to the
game albeit a random one. But still it gives the players more to do and lengths
the play time. This would be keeping the game as a micro game which is a genre
of game that is played for a short period and does not include many components.
In this manner, poker could also be considered a micro game.
On the medium side, you could turn it into a
card combat game. I think, with a little adjustment to the game mechanics, the
combo bonus point system would be actually interesting in a two player combat
setting. You could also sell card expansions.
On the more drastic side, you could try to
incorporate some of the mechanism into a larger meta-game somewhat in a
monopoly style but not as archaic. I have some ideas about that.
What do you think?
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