Objective
At one stage of development, I realised that although the game was about empathy and intergenerational understanding, I still did not have enough mechanics that actively encouraged players to talk during play. So I started testing a few additional systems that could deliberately generate conversation. In total, I experimented with three different mechanics: story prompts embedded into the Life cards, secret objectives that ask players to discreetly extract information from others, and generation-specific communication rules that tell players what they can or cannot do in conversation. Only one of these survived.
Process Breakdown
Story Prompt on Life Cards
This mechanic turned out to be the strongest by far. When players draw certain Life cards, they also have to answer a story prompt related to that event. This worked because it connected conversation directly to what was already happening in the game, so the prompt never felt random or forced. Players responded naturally to these questions, and the mechanic blended well into the flow of play. Since it successfully supported the communication aspect of the project, it remained in the final version.Secret Objectives
The second experimental mechanic was a secret objective system, where each player receives a small information goal that they have to learn from another player during the game without making it too obvious. On paper, this sounded like a good way to subtly encourage curiosity and questioning. In practice, however, almost all players forgot about it. There was already enough happening in the game that this extra layer became easy to ignore, and because it was not tightly integrated into the main loop of play, it felt optional even when it technically was not. For that reason, I decided to remove it.Communication Rules by Generation
The third mechanic gave each generation a communication rule that controlled how they were allowed to speak or respond during the game. The idea was that this could simulate generational tendencies or limitations in communication style. However, this ended up being much too hard in practice. Rather than helping players talk, it made them self-conscious and disrupted comfortable conversation. Since the project is trying to open up communication rather than hinder it, this mechanic was working against the main purpose of the game. It was therefore removed as well.Learning from What Failed
Something important that came out of this process is that not all conversation mechanics are equally useful. The ones that worked best were the ones embedded directly into the existing rhythm of the game. The ones that failed were the ones that asked players to remember an extra task or perform conversation in a way that felt artificial. For user testing, I made these systems modular so they could be removed mid-session if they were clearly hurting the communication aspect of the game, and I am glad I did, because this made the comparison much easier.Key Takeaways
- Failed mechanics were still useful because they showed that conversation prompts need to feel natural, timely and tightly connected to the main game loop in order to actually work.