Name: Bright Night
Number of Players: 4
Map:
Objective:
This is a victory conditional and art board game. There are co-operative mode and competitive mode. In co-operative mode, players have to spend and spread all their "brightness" in the same round; and in competitive mode, players have collect all the stars on the map and whoever has the most brightness wins.
How to Play:
Players first decide the game mode, co-operative or competitive. In general, each player starts off with 15 brightness pieces and any player can view and know the amount of pieces each other player has anytime during the game. Then, one of the players places 9 stars on the map randomly. The game begins with 4 players starting from each corner, and they take turns to roll a 6-sided dice to move. Players can go any direction they besides diagonal, and they are not allow to land on/ pass by a block where another player is landed on. It counts as one round when all 4 players have made a move.
Co-operative Mode:
In this mode, players have to play the game in silent, with no strategy or any form of communication. Then, they have to co-operate to spread(discard) all their brightness within 2 rounds. There are 3 different types of block on the map, which costs different brightness to land on or pass by. Players can take less steps than the number of steps they have to make, for example, if a player gets 4, he/ she can take as many steps he/ she wants up to 4. However, players have to move at least 1 block each round and cannot move backward(the block they land on/ pass by from the last round). When players land on/ pass by a star, they can gain 7 brightness plus the number of their roll and the star is removed from the map. If a player runs out of brightness, he/ she loses immediately and the rest of the players can only win if they can spread the rest of their brightness pieces within 2 rounds.
Dark Block: a block where light could not reach and appears really dark on the map. Players have to light up this block with 3 brightness pieces in order to move on or land on this block.
Normal Block: a block that receives some light and appears normally on the map. Players have to brighten this block up with 2 brightness pieces in order to move on or land on this block.
Light Block: a block that receives light directly from the star in the sky and glows on the map. Players have to spread 1 brightness piece to keep it bright in order to move on or land on this block.
Competitive Mode:
In this mode, players have to compete and collect brightness to shine the brightest in the night sky in order to win. When players take their steps, they have to spend their brightness and put it on the block that they want to land on regardless of the block type. Therefore, players will leave a trail of brightness after they have made their moves. When players land on a block that already has a brightness on, they do not have to put another brightness down. When players land on/ pass by a star, they also gain 7 brightness plus the number of their roll and the star is removed from the map. The game ends when all the stars on the map are collected.
Tile:
Star: A Shinny star that shines brightly in the night sky. Star block is placed by a player randomly on the map before game starts and it provides brightness pieces to players who can reach it.
Brightness: A small twinkle light that provides small clarity in the dark night. It is required for players to make a move on the map and the amount is different depends on which game mode players choose.
Concepts & Ideas:
Interpretation on The Starry Night:
The Starry Night is one of the well-known painting painted by Van Gogh in 1889 and it is during the period where Van Gogh was sick.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Starry_Night) The Starry Night provides lots of emotions to its audiences through Van Gogh's use of colours and composition, which provides lots of possible theme for the team and me to make an art game with.
We discover 3 major themes in The Starry Night.
Hope vs Depression:
The exaggerated bright sky makes a contrast with the gloomy town. This happens might because Van Gogh was sick when he painted it, which his sickness might had impact on how he viewed things and how to present it. This could explain why the starlight is extremely bright and surreal. Also, these bright stars might be the metaphor of hope(because of the use of yellow and white, and the symbol star) to getting better from his sickness and it seems trying to overcome the depression he might came across by brighten up the gloomy town.
Peace of Mind:
The use of colours also reflects a lot of emotion about this painting. The dominant colour scheme is lots cool colours with blue and yellow. Blue itself provides a lot of emotion such as sadness or depression. However, with the use of yellow, it creates a sense of calm and peaceful feel. It is evident as Van Gogh's "use of the word 'quiet' and reference to Tolstoys book indicates that the night sky made him feel calm and brought to mind eternity." (http://www.artble.com/artists/vincent_van_gogh/paintings/starry_night/more_information/analysis) This also shows what Van Gogh might try to express through the painting when he saw the view. Also, according to John Buck's HTP (freehand drawing house, tree, and a person) test he invented in 1948, the light from the side of the town houses represents Van Gogh was seeking for comfort while he painted it.
Faith:
Lastly, the use of composition and metaphor might refer to Van Gogh's mindset during that time. In the painting, there are a gigantic tree on the left, pointing to the sky, and a normal size church that also points to the sky. There is no coincidence in painting, and these might be metaphors that represent something beyond. The tree might represent the force of nature, which could be referring to his sickness, something that he cannot predict or control and it is dominating a big part of his life at that point as the tree is presented so huge and surreal; and the church might represent his belief at that moment or anything that could help him stand against the difficulty he might be dealing with.
From The Starry Night to Bright Star:
Since we have discovered and understood a lot about the painting, we are ready to design the game and send the message/ feeling to players through the game.
Nothing can get the players involved than having them also be part of the game. In this case, they will play as the stars on sky and spread and share the brightness across the town as the meaning of what Van Gogh tried to express in The Starry Night. Therefore, I design the map of the board a bird view version of the town in the painting, to set players into the scene and participate with what Van Gogh has created. Then, we design 2 different modes for gameplay to approach different messages.
For co-operative, we hope to unite the players to win the game by playing in silent, to achieve the purpose of showing how Van Gogh speechlessly expressed his feeling through stars and painting. As players would lose brightness every turn, this negative feedback loop can bring the feeling of frustration or depression that Van Gogh might had, and players need to plan out their moves carefully in order to win.
In competitive mode, we hope to present Van Gogh's battle with his sickness or even downfall by having players to compete with each other and be the brightest star of the night in order to win. Therefore, we make it a survival kind of game and have players to race each other to collect stars. This way we hope players get the feeling of how Van Gogh struggled and searched for hope during the time The Starry Night was painted.
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