Prototyping of a Client for Board Games Automated Testing and Analysis

The process of tabletop game design is a complex iterative process that involves many tasks. Given the development of the industry, Computer Aided and even Mixed Initiative Design (MID) practices appear more and more often. Moreover, the academic field produces a variety of tools relevant for game designer’s assistance. However, the question arises: to what extent these tools meet the needs of modern tabletop game designers and do they fit into the current structure of the board game development process. This work aims to identify tabletop game designers needs and based on them prototype tabletop game design assistant (TGDA). We conducted in-depth semi structured interviews with tabletop game designers and described needs with a Job Story framework. Then, we partially implemented and prototyped them within a Jumanji Game test case for reliable interactive system assessment (Wizard of Oz). Findings demonstrate that game designers do not use any specialized or academic tools, even though the tabletop game development requires computer assistance. We indicate several reasons for that and propose principles of close-to-end-user production approach for convenient and reliable development. We also provide list of uncovered tabletop game designers needs for future implementation together with overall TGDA system requirements and areas of potential academic interest regarding tabletop game design.