Tag: board game

OK.  If you recall earlier on, I have released a beta version of a board game to help learners like Cynthia and I to practice conjugating Spanish verbs.  This evening, we have given it a test drive.  Surprisingly, it is indeed pretty fun to play!  We have made some tweaks to the game and I have added 4 new maps to the board collection.  The official web page can be found in here.  Try it.  If you like it, share the link with your friends.  If you have suggestions, feel free to drop your comments here.  I will try to incorporate.

For those who are new to this simple board game or Spanish verb conjugation, the game has random tiles of a combination of “person” and “tense”.  E.g. one tile reads “we – past tense”.  Player #1 picks a card that has a verb such as “eat” and conjugates this verb as per the tile’s instruction.  Player #2 holds the answer that is hidden away from Player #1.  Following this example, the answer is “we ate”.  Believe it or not, it is not as simple in Spanish.  Far from it.

We have fixed a “bug” found in one of the special tiles.  The new rule now says that if you have landed on that special tile, you can pick another “person” to conjugate with the “tense” after you are given the verb (e.g. instead of “I”, you can switch to “we” if you want to).  This way, you can use it to your advantage to potentially gain a power up (x3) on an irregular form or to avoid a potential score loss.  Also, if all the players are new to Spanish verb conjugation, the one who holds the answer may announce if the answer is an irregular form or not once the verb is revealed.

45 minutes and we have managed to cover one third of the game board (about 34 verbs out of 99).  I reckon we can get it down to one hour for one complete game.  The rules are still evolving.  Stay tuned!

Related Link: Official Web Page to Human Spanish Conjugator™

For the past few weeks, I have been working on a board game.  It has been an exciting journey.  Got my creative juice running.  The link to the game can be found in here.  I call the game “Human Spanish Conjugator™” for now as I need something fun to help me practice verb conjugation.  Below is a short journal on how I go about creating this little game of mine.

I started by designing the score sheet.  That basically set out the fundamental of the game.  I wanted something that looks sleek and functional.  I think I have more or less got it.

Designing the board was a lot harder.  At first I wanted to use dice to randomize the combination of person versus tense during the game play.  But it lacks the spacial dimension of maneuvering across the board – an opportunity to strategize beyond conjugating Spanish verbs.  So I eliminate the use of dice and preset the questions (as tiles on the board).  I wrote a generator (using OpenOffice) to randomize a set of combination (98 in total) with the possibility of placing emphasis on certain tenses or persons (such as practice more on ‘you’ and ‘I’ forms).  To create the first prototype, it took me a while to manually copy and paste each tile onto the image.  98 times.  Later on, I found a way to copy the pre-randomized tiles across to the game board, in one go.  Imagine, how many randomized game boards I can create in the future!

As for the cards, initially I (or rather Cynthia) wrote the verbs on paper.  While it functions as intended, it does not look sexy.  I thought long and hard and have decided to print them out and stick them onto blank name cards.  And why stop at the verb?  Why not print out the answers as well?  Save us time to verify our answers.  Tons of frantic copy and paste but I think both Cynthia and I love the end result (of that deck of 63 cards).  Cynthia did the actual cutting of the papers and pasting onto the blank cards by the way.

OK, now that this new prototype is out, time for a test drive some time this week.  I am hoping that this game is as fun as I think it is.

Related Article: Human Spanish Conjugator – A Board Game (Beta)