University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Alternative History

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Alternative History

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Alternative History

Andrew Goldstein

CTIN 594B Master’s Thesis
Professor Laird Malamed
May 1
st
2014
Table of Contents
Introduction…………………………………………………………….……………………….…1
Goals…………………………………………………………………...………….………………1
Physical Vs Digital………………………………………………………………………….…….2
Preliminary Design………………………………………………………………………………..2
The Team………………………………………………………………………………………….3
User Feedback……………………………………………………………………………………..3
Play Testing Summary…………………………………………………………………………….3
Conclusions………………………………………………………………………………………..5
Prior Art and Literature……………………………………………………………………………6
Appendix……..……………………………………………………………………………………9
Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………………...32

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Introduction
Alternative History is a card game based on the concept that a player can influence and
change the story of the world utilizing famous historical figures, ideas that shaped civilization,
and cultural achievements to create a dramatically different history. It is intended to be a
thought-provoking experience which allows players to think outside of the narrow box that
history provides. Simultaneously, it is a competitive battle between two players and their
civilizations. Alternative History is a card game in both physical as well as digital form.
Goals
This project had two main goals. The first was to create a mechanically challenging and
interesting card game. The interactions between players should allow for strategic thinking as
well as competition. The game should be easy to pick up and play, but take time to learn and
master. The second goal was to create a game where players felt thematically engaged in the
material. Many people have an existing framework as to how they view historical people,
discoveries, and achievements. Changing this already ingrained paradigm to create a thought-
provoking conversation was a challenge that this project sought to overcome through narrative.
Besides creating a physical card game, Alternative History has a digital component for
the thesis show. While there are physical cards that visitors will play and engage with, there was
also supposed to be a digital version that people could interact with. The scope of this digital
version was ambiguous because the priority was on creating and designing the structure of the
game. The rules of the physical and digital games could be similar or different, but the intention
was to be working on both versions simultaneously during the production cycle. The reason the
digital component was left abstract was because a game in digital form can have different
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properties than a physical one. Without having a structured game already created, it was
problematic to know what should be included, enhanced, or changed in the digital product to
support the goals of Alternative History.
Physical Versus Digital
The proposal for this project was originally written as a digital card game. This was
changed very early in the production process to include a physical component that was
completed first. The rule set was tested and iterated upon using paper prototypes; it made sense
to iron out as many problems and issues as possible in a paper format before moving to digital.
Furthermore, the physical version allowed for significantly easier and less time consuming
testing of simple changes to system rules, player engagement, and general interaction. Due to its
evident benefits in both game design and user testing, the full physical product became the
priority of this project.
Preliminary Design
Prior to beginning full production, a few aspects of Alternative History were determined
through a preliminary design process. First, there are three types of cards. People are the basic
resource of the game; they add minimal benefit and can collectively create more powerful cards.
Knowledge is the second card type. These cards are more powerful than people and provide
more benefits in terms of abilities. Most people cards only have one ability of a small power,
whereas knowledge cards have two abilities of medium influence. The last type of cards are
achievements. These are the most powerful cards of all and give tremendous benefit. Besides
having influential abilities, they give players points toward winning the game. Achievements
required a sacrifice and whichever cards are used to create the achievement need to be discarded.
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The game has three different types of resources: military, science, and philosophy. All
people, knowledge, and achievements are composed of some combination of them. Card are
associated with their respective thematically appropriate resource type. For example, a famous
general is associated with the military resource.
The Team
The first step of creating the project was assembling a team. Initially Alternative History
was intended for a large group, but after evaluating the components of the game, it changed to a
smaller team. Fewer people created an agile group which could design, iterate, and create faster,
and make more rapid changes. The final team was comprised of four members: a designer, an
artist, and two engineers.
In retrospect, having a large team might have allowed for more assets and an expedited
process, but part of what was important with the project was having the ability to constantly
iterate and create new versions, which can be cumbersome with a large number of people.
User Feedback
To test and constantly iterate on the game, weekly play sessions of 2-3 players were
organized. Some were during the actual thesis class, while others were with play testers who
knew less about the game and thus could provide more organic feedback. A few of these sessions
were intended to test a single element of the game, while others were more open-ended. This
feedback was taken in note form with specific questions directed to the play testers afterwards.
Play Testing Summary
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There were a wide variety of rule and design modifications that resulted from play testing.
First, there were significant rule changes regarding how many cards players can put down during
a turn. The initial concept was to allow one person, knowledge, or achievement card per turn.
During an experimental playtest participants were allowed to put one card of each down. This
lead to significantly more fun, agency, and combinations, which resulted in more strategic
decision making. It also created some balance problems and caused players to get rid of their
cards too quickly, but this issue was addressed in later iterations and changes.
Second, the deck formation changed significantly. In the first version of the game, players
started with a random draw of 7 people, knowledge, and achievement cards. This lead to players
drawing unbalanced hands that they could not create a strategy from. For example, a player who
drew 5 achievement cards at the start of the game would be unable to compete because he or she
wouldn’t have enough resources to build these achievements. This randomization added too
much luck which inevitably destroyed strategy. The solution to this problem was to standardize
which cards were dealt to each player at the beginning of the round (4 people, 2 knowledge, 1
achievement) and to separate the draw deck into three distinct piles, each of one type of card.
Players were allowed to draw from a deck of people cards, knowledge cards, or achievement
cards. This enhanced strategy and agency, and removed a significant luck element from the
game.
As a result of play testing, abilities also went through multiple radical changes. In early
versions of the game, abilities were tailored towards individual cards. For each historical
character, his or her ability was an attempted representation of what he or she actually did. This
turned out to be too complicated and actually detracted from the strategy and overall intent of the
game. Because each card was unique, players needed to understand every single card in the deck
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in order to make a cohesive strategy which made the game too complicated. After numerous
ability iterations, which included making ability powers more active, each faction was given its
own unique set of abilities. These were thematic in nature and enhanced the strategy regarding
how a player would pick which cards to play. Military powers are now about controlling people,
philosophy powers allow players to draw more cards, and science powers enable players to use
cards more quickly.
Conclusions
In a recent GDC talk by Eric Dodds, the lead designer of Hearthstone, he summed up a
concept eloquently that Alternative History has been pursuing all year. He said, “Hearthstone
attempted to remove the complexity of the game without losing its depth” (Dodds, Hearthstone:
10 bits of design wisdom).This quote is the epitome of the struggle that the Alternative History
team experienced during the game’s production, which was to create a game that is simple to
play, but offers a tremendous amount of depth in terms of interaction, fun, and capacity to create
strategy.
In looking back at the creation of Alternative History there are a few main conclusions
that can be drawn from the project. First, it was difficult to do a digital prototype without having
a finalized and complete rules set. It was often a struggle to determine which tasks the engineers
could work on that would not have to be remade if there were rules modifications.
Another key takeaway was that Alternative History should have had more experimental
playtests. Some of the best feedback given was when participants were asked to try to play the
game in a new way. This feedback lead to numerous structural changes that aided gameplay.
These types of sessions would have probably created a better product and saved time. However,
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by the end of the first semester, more of these sessions were happening which provided valuable
feedback.
Alternative History has achieved one of its main goals and is working toward the other.
The competitive nature of the game is working well; numerous play testers have commented that
it feels polished, complete, and competitive. However, the team is still developing a sense of
narrative and connection to the subject matter. People have their own associations with historical
events, and providing the context to rethink this has been challenging. By leveraging the digital
aspect of the game and creating a system where historical characters have a conversation with
each other, the project hopes to embed more narrative that will allow players to get a better sense
of mixing and changing history. This process will continue and more narrative iterations will be
made with the objective of achieving the main goals of the project.
Prior Art and Literature
The following references are pieces that influenced the design, narrative, and overall
creative process of Alternative History.
Guns, Germs, and Steel
A Pulitzer Prize winning book published in 1997 by Jared Diamond examined the reason
why some civilizations conquer and others are conquered. In it, Diamond explains that societies
are not successful or unsuccessful due to simple creativity and ingenuity, but that they thrive
because of a chain of events which lead to a significant competitive advantage. These past
experiences shape the future of that society and also can predict the course that it is on. Diamond
states this when he says:
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The history of interactions among disparate peoples is what shaped the modern world
through conquest, epidemics and genocide. Those collisions created reverberations that
have still not died down after many centuries, and that are still actively continuing in
some of the world’s most troubled areas. (Diamond, 16)
Guns, Germs, and Steel, provides an explanation of the relationship between historical events.
History is not simply one event that randomly leads to another, it is part of a long chain that
affects the world. This idea of a chain of people and events was a major pillar of the design of
Alternative History.
Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer
A classic deck building game, Ascension was created by a Magic the Gathering
professional player who wanted to craft a game in a similar vein. It has flavors of previous deck
builders from the genre such as Dominion and Thunderstone, but what is important to highlight
is its eloquence as a digital card game.
The visual interface allows for the player to understand what is in his or her hand and
also what is on the game board. The mechanics are obvious and the visual scheme of card
relationships is easily identifiable. All of these principals work together to create a well-designed
experience that Alternative History can draw inspiration from.
Race for the Galaxy
One of the most popular card games to be released in the past decade is Race for the
Galaxy. Players are each in control of a galactic civilization, and attempt to grow it using various
actions such as creating and selling goods, exploring, and settling new worlds. All of the abilities
allow for the players to build on past actions and choices which create future benefits. For
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example, by choosing to pursue a constant course of military action, players can build up to
conquering larger and more powerful worlds.
This is a crucial aspect of Race for the Galaxy that must be carried over into Alternative
History. Players should understand that what they do in the present will affect the game state in
the future and there is a definite and direct causality between these two game states. While it will
intrinsically have an aspect of luck such as card draw, Alternative History was designed to
emulate the inherent causality present in Race for the Galaxy.
The Civilization Franchise
The Civilization series is one of the best examples of a game that has a robust sense of
progression that leads to an understanding of what the player has done and created in the
experience. By learning about and researching basic technologies, the user can create more
interesting and unique ideas which can differentiate one society from another. Alternative
History can take this idea and use it to show the player the progression of their newly formed
society, including what people worked together to create knowledge, or how a society can use
people and knowledge to create a large achievement. Civilization is one of the few popular
games that allows for a new sense of history to take shape. Alternative History will similarly
provide a medium for players to create and build a new society with a new history and a different
purpose.
Meeting of the Minds Television Series
Meeting of the Minds was an Emmy award-winning television series that aired on PBS
from 1977 to 1981. Hosted by Steve Allen, the show invited historical figures, played by actors,
to discuss topics such as philosophy, religion, history, and science. These shows were scripted
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but gave the appearance of a spontaneous conversation where a few historical figures interacted
with each other and provided the audience with a thought-provoking experience.
This show delivered a wonderful scripted background that allowed for entertainment.
However, it did not have any means of interactivity by which viewers could to play with or
utilize the ideas that these famous people proposed. Meeting of the Minds provided a single story
experience which did not change. Alternative History wants to take inspiration from this show’s
concept, but instead provide an interactive environment where the conversation can change every
play through. This game asks players to think about what two completely different people in
history would have in common, what unique ideas they might generate together, and ultimately
what that would mean for society.
The Meeting of the Minds television series was the framework for a conversation system
that was implemented in the later stages of the development of the online version of Alternative
History. Of all the resources that were examined in preparation for Alternative History, it
provided the most inspiration for a narrative context that could get viewers engaged in the
subject matter.
APPENDIX: More Iteration Notes
The following section is a more comprehensive list of play testing sessions and their
corresponding feedback. This is to aid in understanding the slight changes made to the game,
why these changes were made, and how these fared with play testers.thIt provides insight into
how the game was crafted and why it looks and plays the way it does now.
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To talk more in depth about the changes that were made to the game, it is essential to
understand the original rules that were written and utilized. Below is a summary of the rules that
were in place at the outset of the project.
1. Players use a shared 80+ card deck and draw a single card each turn. This card can be a
person card, a knowledge card, or an achievement card.
2. Players can play a single card each turn. This can be a person, knowledge, or
achievement card. A player must have the indicated amount of resources to play a card.
3. Abilities are tailored toward each individual card in a thematic way. There are lots of
different abilities.
4. There are active and passive abilities on cards.
5. There are three types of cards: people, knowledge, and achievement. People use their
resources to discover knowledge. Knowledge and people are then sacrificed to create
achievements.
The First Iteration
The first iteration of cards was visually very simple. A person, knowledge, or achievement
was written on a card and players would start the game by drawing seven cards. These were a
random assortment of the three categories, which immediately lead to problems. Players ran into
issues with developing any sort of strategy. In retrospect, it was clear that, because of the
randomness of what cards players were dealt, the game was too dependent on luck as opposed to
strategy.
It was interesting to note that players seemed to engage very well with the subject matter
even though there were few visuals. The idea of using Napoleon to create the American
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Revolution created humor, intrigue, and also discussion. It also created an environment where
players could make comparisons between historical societies.
In this stage, there were definitely problems with the system of the game. Players wanted to
interact with each other more. They also felt annoyed when cards they played did not have
abilities. It lead to a slower pace of general interaction and cumulatively to a slow game. The
experience took over an hour, which was significantly longer than intended.

Figure 1: Sample design from the first iteration prototype
Feedback from the First Iteration
There were three main lessons that I learned from the initial playtest of the game. First, the
abilities were too complicated or non–existent. Players wanted abilities for all cards and loved
the concept that each card had a power. Yet some of the initial abilities were too confusing.
Players also wanted abilities that had some effect on their opponent’s board state. Second, the
early game was simply too long. Players had difficulty finding cards that they actually wanted to
use and the overall initial play felt clunky. Third, the visuals were scattered and not cohesive.
Players wanted more visual identification as to what cards meant, what type they were, and how
to use them.

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September 6
th
Prototype
The first prototype of the school year focused on creating the basic mechanical system of
Alternative History. The September 6
th
prototype attempted to alleviate issues and concerns that
players had in regards to abilities of cards. First, abilities were quantified, meaning that a point
scale was created to determine how powerful each card was. Powers that were too weak or
strong were tuned to more balanced. This was also the first play test where a cohesive strategy
was created for each color of card. Instead of the individual card dictating how it would be
played, each group—military, philosophy, and science—was given a consistent theme.

Figure 2: Card design from the September 6th prototype
Feedback from the September 6
th
Prototype
The ability changes aided in gameplay. It allowed players to understand the strategy of the
game instead of relying on drawing luck. However, a new problem arose with strategy execution.
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Numerous times a user knew what they wanted to do, but were not able to do it because their
cards did not allow them to utilize the strategy they wanted to.
In this iteration, cards of similar ability types were tied together through color. Because of
this, players got more of a sense that people in a certain discipline were related to cards with the
same color. This was a good step forward because it changed the thinking in terms of how
abilities could be used to create common connections between cards. This became a staple of the
card design afterwards because having common abilities added to narrative context and made
more sense to players.
September 14
th
Prototype
As opposed to the previous playtest which was more about figuring out how to organize
abilities, this playtest was spent working on the types of abilities that would be useful from a
mechanical standpoint. Each major card had thematic ability attached to it. Military cards were
used to make opponent’s cards cost more as well as to destroy enemy people cards. Philosophy
cards allowed the player to draw more cards. While science abilities cheapened the cost of
knowledge and achievement cards. Any awkward abilities that did not fit into the play style were
removed. However, some of the more unique abilities were kept to add variety and improve the
narrative. For example, Jesus would aid in creating Christianity, which in turn helped a player
create the Christian State. These thematic through lines were supposed to add to the narrative of
the game.
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Figure 3: Design from the September 14th prototype
Feedback from the September 14
th
Prototype
This prototype provided a few key pieces of feedback, not all related to the changes made in
this prototype. First, the abilities were useful, but still not completely coherent. Players
understood the play paradigm that was set up with categories, but they wanted to use it to a
strategic advantage, which was hard to do considering that many of the cards given to them were
random and did not necessarily fit the style of play they wanted. Another important note was that
the game was not engaging enough. Play was slow, deliberate, and simple. It lead to very few
variations and allowed for a limited range of strategies that players could implement. Another
comment that was mentioned quite a bit is that players wanted much more interaction with each
other. They felt as if the game was almost a single player experience that two people were
enjoying. This seemed to be a direct comment about the specific type of abilities that were in the
game and lead to a rehashing of what those abilities should be.

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September 22nd Prototype
The September 22
nd
version of Alternative History was a major overhaul to the abilities
system of the game. First, the game was limited to nine specific abilities that were tied to each
class of cards. The military abilities were to destroy people of a specific color and force an
opponent to discard cards. Science cheapened knowledge or achievement cost and philosophy
allowed one to draw cards as well as protect specific colors of people cards from military
destruction. This was also the first prototype where all of these abilities were translated into a
visual language. Instead of reading what a card did, symbols were implemented. This lead to a
bit slower intake rate, but, once players understood them, they easily remembered what they did.

Figure 4: Design from the September 22nd prototype
Feedback from September 22
nd
Prototype
Changing the abilities lead to another round of feedback with some familiar notes. Primarily,
players still wanted more interaction. The defending abilities were nice, but they really did not
matter until the opponent went on the offensive. The usefulness of these abilities did not seem
extremely useful either, as players forgot about it on numerous occasions. Players again felt that
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these types of passive abilities were not as exciting as the active ones. There was also significant
feedback that these abilities did not create enough interaction between players.
The feedback from this prototype also revealed that structurally there were issues with the
power of cards. Philosophy and military cards were powerful while science cards were
underutilized. Players often forgot about the discounts that they had accrued from various cards
and would overlook their benefits. From a strategic standpoint, science was also weaker and
winning the game from just a science approach was much more difficult. At the same time, since
the abilities from this version were vastly different from previous iterations, they were
dramatically out of sync. Some cards would were just too powerful and would eliminate an
opponent. This led to a re-tuning for each card, as well as balancing how many abilities were on
each card.
September 29th Prototype

This playtest was very similar to the previous iteration, except it changed one major rule.
Instead of having a common deck where all the people cards, knowledge cards, and achievement
cards were mixed together, it separated them out into different piles. When a player drew a card,
he or she could pick what type of card they wanted. This could be a person, a knowledge, or an
achievement. This would apply to any time a player drew a card, which could be at the beginning
of his or her turn or from an ability. The rule change also set the standard distribution for the
initial starting hand, which was 4 people cards, 2 knowledge cards, and 1 achievement, rather
than drawing a random assortment of 7 cards.
Feedback from the September 29
th
Prototype
Players enjoyed this rule change profusely. It allowed for more strategy to take place and
gave players more agency. By taking away the randomness of what type of card would be drawn
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and limiting it to only the three different resource types (military, philosophy, science, or a
combination of them), players felt more logical decisions could be made with strategic planning.
There were significantly less moments where users felt unlucky or forced into a play that they
did not want to do simply because they did not have any better options.
October 6th prototype
After looking at much of the feedback from previous iterations that had happened over the
prior months, it was clear that there was a good amount of commentary that was not yet being
addressed. Many users had remarked that they wanted some sort of narrative in the game that it
simply was lacking. There were many different ways to how to do this and play testers suggested
anything from a domino style card game to a creating their own narrative. This iteration was an
attempt to incorporate some of those narrative elements into the game.
This version of Alternative History added a new mechanic, which was called the bonus
system. Each person card had a specific type of knowledge that he or she discovered, and that
knowledge led to an achievement. Whenever a player connected any of these, they were given a
bonus, which was a random ability from a separate deck. When players were able to connect a
person to an intended knowledge, or a knowledge to an intended achievement, they received that
bonus. Those connections were also listed at the top and bottom of the card so players knew
which card they were searching for to connect.
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Figure 5: Design from the October 6th prototype
October 6
th
Prototype Feedback
The bonus system was intriguing and its implementation resulted in quite a bit of
feedback. First, it was not visually prominent on the cards, so players had a tendency to forget
about it. At the same time, people did not play cards because of the bonus. If players ever
received a bonus it was more of a happy accident than anything else. On multiple occasions
people would be surprised when they played something that connected. It seemed as though
attempting to fix the problem that people were having was counterproductive, since play testers
did not necessarily want a mechanical fix to the issue. Instead, they wanted some type of
narrative that they could see or act out or engage with. Similarly, a few players felt like the bonus
added too many new mechanics to the game and there was too much to keep track of already.
October 27
th
Prototype
This version of Alternative History tested a few different previous problems with the
game. First, a new system was created for how abilities worked. Each faction of cards had three
abilities associated with it.
Military cards had three abilities: swap, kill a person, and take a person. The swap ability
was only associated with military people and allowed a player to swap a person on their board
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with a person on their opponent’s board. Kill a person was on military knowledge cards and let a
player destroy a person card on their opponent’s board. Take a person was on military
achievements and allowed a player to take a person from an opponent.
Philosophy cards had three abilities: draw to discard, draw a card, and scry. Philosophy
people allowed the player to discard a card from his or her hand to draw one. Knowledge
abilities allowed players to draw a card from the deck of their choosing. Scry was on philosophy
achievements and allowed players to draw a number of cards, look at all of them, and keep a
fraction of them.
Science cards had three abilities: play an extra person, play an extra knowledge, and play
any extra card. Science people allowed the player to play an extra person during their turn.
Science knowledge allowed another knowledge card to be played. Similarly, science
achievements allowed a player to put down any extra card they wanted as long as they could
afford it.
This new rule set was an attempt to give the cards many more active abilities and remove
some of the passive ones. Military became about controlling people; science emphasized speed
and playing quickly; philosophy prioritized drawing cards. This was intended to create a more
cohesive structure in regards to strategy and card type.
Secondly, this version was the first one where final art caricatures were incorporated into
the design. The reason for this decision was to examine if seeing characters aided in connecting
with the subject matter. As many players felt disconnected from the historical aspect of the
game, this was an attempt to see if art could aid in fixing the problem.
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Figure 6: Design from the October 27th prototype
October 27
th
Feedback
This version of the game provided a significant boost in the amount of positive feedback
for abilities. It was the first time that players acknowledged feeling a significant aspect of
control, and it allowed them to guide their choices based on the types of cards they had and the
kind of strategy they wanted.
The tuning of the abilities seemed quite good, as there were three separate games where
one player won a turn before their opponent was going to There also were playtests where
players came back and won after it seemed like they were losing horribly. These were both very
encouraging signs and it was a signal that the abilities seemed tuned well. That being said, there
still seemed to be a disparity between the science cards and military or philosophy cards. While
science provided some benefits, it seemed to lose quite handily to military and philosophy. This
led to redo of some the abilities in future iterations.
The art tested quite well too. When play testers saw images of characters, they were able
to identify more with them and it added to the ambiance of the setting, mechanics, and subject
matter. It did not completely fix the overarching narrative problem, but it provided some clues
that significant art could enhance narrative.
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November 3
rd
Prototype
Similar to the rules change prototype on September 29
th
, this test kept the cards the same,
but looked at changing a major mechanic rule. Lots of players had said that the early part of the
game and the later part of the game was exciting, but the middle part was lagging. While
changing abilities and streamlining the decks aided in this middle game lag, it still was a problem
in most playtests conducted.
The rule that was changed was in regards to how many cards a player could put down on
the board. In every game played so far, players had only been allowed to put down a person card,
a knowledge card, OR an achievement card. This rule changed allowed players to play a person,
a knowledge card, AND an achievement card during their turn. Thus, instead of playing one card
per turn, players were allowed to play up to three.
November 3
rd
Prototype Feedback
The rule change significantly affected play in both positive and negative ways. First, it
sped up gameplay. Before this, games would take 45 minutes to an hour; after this change, they
would take around 30 minutes. While this was a slight change, it made the game feel less clunky
and long. The most obvious change was that it allowed players to have extremely large
combinations that they could put together on their turn. In a single turn the board state could
change, which created a kind of positive volatility. Players enjoyed this combo effect because it
provided more strategic thinking and was overall more fun. Playing multiple cards and putting
them down on the board created a good deal of agency.
On the negative side, players ran out of actions very quickly. In the previous version,
players drew a card each turn and played one each turn. The overall net growth of hand size was
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zero. Because players were putting down multiple cards at once and still only drawing one card
per turn, this changed the net card growth into a negative. Because of the clear benefits, it was
decided to implement this mechanical rules change because it made gameplay more interesting.
Even though it did have some draw backs, the gross benefit of play going quicker, allowing more
interaction, and adding player agency was worthwhile. In later versions, the problems with stale
play, and players feeling like they did not have enough cards were addressed.
November 13
th
Prototype
Drawing from the positive feedback of the last version, this iteration of Alternative
History attempted to fix the card draw problem that players were having in the middle part of the
game. It introduced a new concept of passive abilities. However, instead of previous versions
where the passive abilities were reactive to an opponent’s play, these were abilities that one
could do instead of using a turn. These types of powers allowed for interaction to happen not
only from playing cards from one’s hand, but from specific cards from the board. It was an
experiment to see if these passives could make the middle part of the game feel more
meaningful.
Each type of faction had their own ability to play. Military cards could sacrifice a person
to draw two cards. The philosophy passive allowed for players to discard two cards from their
hand to draw three. Lastly, science allowed players to sacrifice a knowledge card to draw four
cards. The whole purpose of these passives was to allow players to restock their hand and
consequently speed up play.
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Figure 7: Design from the November 13th prototype
November 13th Feedback
The feedback from the implementation of passive abilities was mixed. While players
acknowledged that these were useful in the middle part of the game, there was a dislike for
sacrificing cards that one had already put down. Even though mechanically it worked fine,
narratively it did not make sense in terms of building a society. One play tester suggested a great
idea, which was tested later. The idea was to have some of the normal abilities be passives,
thereby giving players the same iconography as before, but not increasing the learning curve of
the game. This was incorporated it into the next iteration of the game.
November 30
th
Prototype – Winter Show
For the winter show, there were numerous changes to the cards. From an artistic
standpoint, there were quite a few alterations. First, most of the art was completed for people
caricatures. Second, the cards were formatted in a new way. Bonuses were stripped away, and
each card was given a color of marble to indicate its type. People cards were white marble,
knowledge were black marble, and achievements were gold marble. In the top left part of the
Goldstein 24

card was a distinction marker that showed what kind of card it was and what faction it belonged
to.
A few of the abilities were changed to allow the factions to be more in tune with each
other. In many previous playtests, science was significantly underpowered. A science strategy
would get players lots of cards into play, but one would very quickly run out of cards in a
player’s hand. The science knowledge ability of allowing players to put down an extra
knowledge card was removed. It was replaced with the achievement ability to play any card. The
science achievement ability was then replaced with the philosophy achievement ability, which
was to draw cards, look at them, pick one and keep it. The philosophy achievement ability was
replaced so that one could take a card from an opponent’s hand. While these changes were
minor, they seemed needed to balance the factions and tune the game better.
The passive abilities were changed as well. Military passives would be able to swap a
player. Philosophy cards would be able to get a player to draw two cards, and science would let
one look at three cards and keep one.
To fix the narrative element, players were also asked to say what they were doing when
they played cards. An example would be, “Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, and Isaac Newton
worked together and discovered gravity.” The aim was to instill a stronger narrative so that
players could connect with the idea of history more.
Goldstein 25

Figure 8: Design from the November 30th prototype
November 30
th
Prototype Feedback
There was quite a bit of feedback from the winter show that directly impacted future
iterations. First, there were tremendous positive comments about the art. When visuals were
presented, players created a natural attachment to characters, and even kept around ones that they
liked because of how they looked. The art added depth into an otherwise narrative void.
Many people who played said the game felt mechanically complete. Many games were
extremely close and there were several comments that the game was tuned quite well. The
problem that most people mentioned is that they wanted the characters to come to life. The
narrative seemed quite flat and users wanted more interaction.
It was interesting that numerous play testers wanted some type of bonus mechanic to fix
the narrative problem, which had already been tested beforehand. There were many remarks
from play testers that ultimately rehashed problems and ideas that had already explored and
tested in previous iterations.
Goldstein 26

From the feedback that was received two decisions were made. First, there definitely was
a narrative problem, and this issue could not be fixed in a mechanical way. Second, the
mechanics of the game were very good in a competitive sense and probably were not going to
get much better. This did not mean there would be no more playtests, but the cards were in a
place where they could be artistically polished and printed. The digital element of the game
would progress and attempt to incorporate a narrative element into it to solve the narrative issue.
December 6
th
Prototype
This prototype was more time consuming than effective. There was a complete overhaul
to all the art in the game. Also, a company was found to produce custom card decks. Using their
format and sizing, each card was resized in the deck and a play box and a rules set were
designed. Feedback from the winter show was incorporated into the game too, which included
removing the narrative component of having to say what cards you are playing. This iteration
also encompassed some minor fixes in tuning for a few cards. The purpose of this iteration was
to get the first version professionally printed, while allowing for more work more on the digital
version of the game.

Figure 9: Images from the December 6
th
prototype
Goldstein 27

December 6
th
Prototype Feedback
The feedback for this prototype took quite a long time, as production of a professional
printed game took around three and a half weeks. When this version did get to be played, the
main criticism received from an artistic stand point was that it felt very confusing and muddied.
There were abundant visual tropes happening and it made the eye wander all over. The abilities
were also too small and players had issues telling what ability did what. The art felt like it was
emphasizing the wrong elements. To create a connection with the card, the art should highlight
the picture first, whereas the amount of black on each print made the eyes go towards the border.
February 21
st
Prototype
Using critique from the past artistic session, a new art sensibility was devised that aided
in the visual display. Instead of having a small button in the top left, the color of the card was on
the outskirts of the frame. The caricatures were blown up to give a better image of the people.
This meant that in many of the pictures the legs were cut out, but this seemed to make the cards
come alive much more.
Goldstein 28

Figure 10: Images from the February 21st Prototype

Digital Prototype
While working on the physical prototype, the team was also simultaneously working on a
digital version of the game. This was initially intended to be more of a general prototype of how
the game could function in a digital format. However, once the physical version progressed to a
point of satisfaction, the Alternative History team focused on the digital aspect.
There was purposeful rational to have the digital version follow well behind the physical
form. This allowed for iteration to happen on the physical version of the game without any
negative effect in the digital form. It seemed much easier to change the rules and playtest on
temporary cards than to create that rule set and iteration in a digital format. The below dates are
major bench marks that the team attempted to hit and also times where major decisions were
made. Because there were not numerous formal playtesting sessions, the feedback is more from a
developer perspective.

Goldstein 29

Winter Show
During the first semester, engineers were working on completing a prototype that had some
of the basic rules from early iterations of the game. It was a two person game which allowed for
players to be dealt 4 people, 2 knowledge, and 1 achievement cards. Players could draw a card,
pick what type they wanted and play a single person or knowledge card. Achievement cards were
not working at this point and neither were abilities. However, as a skeleton of a digital prototype,
it showcased how the game would be played and was able to visually show a digital mock up.
March 1
st

The next iteration of the game incorporated ideas from previous narrative problems. The
engineering team developed a conversation system: whenever a user puts a person on their
board, this person has a conversation with another person in the society they are part of. This
version has yet to be tested because the implementation requires a great deal of writing that is not
yet complete, but it will be part of the final version of the digital prototype shown during the
thesis show.
Goldstein 30

Figure 11: An image of the digital conversation system
The Evolution of a Card
The following images represent the evolution of the Cleopatra card throughout all the
prototypes and iterations that have occurred so far.
Goldstein 31

Figure 12: An image showing the changes cards went through over time

Goldstein 32

Works Cited
Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer. Stoneblade Entertainment. 2010. Video Game.
Civilization. Micropose Software. 1991. Video Game.
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: Norton,
1999. Print.
Dodds, Eric. "Hearthstone: 10 Bits of Design Wisdom." GDC. California, San Francisco. 21 3
2014. Lecture.
Meeting of the Minds. PBS. KCET, 1977. Television.
Race for the Galaxy. Rio Grande Games. 2007. Board Game.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Goldstein, Andrew (author)

Core Title Alternative History

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Interactive Media

Publication Date 04/29/2014

Defense Date 05/14/2014

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Card games,digital card games,Games,History,OAI-PMH Harvest

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Malamed, Laird (committee chair), Roberts, Samuel (committee member), Vigil, Jesse (committee member)

Creator Email andymgoldstein@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-405372

Unique identifier UC11296589

Identifier etd-GoldsteinA-2443.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-405372 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-GoldsteinA-2443.pdf

Dmrecord 405372

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Goldstein, Andrew

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA