Dragon's Gold - Screen Based Board Game

Dragon’s Gold is a board game by Bruno Faidutti. It is also known under the name Drachengold. It’s a negotiation game with a fantasy theme; players use their hero-cards to kill dragons and then negotiate about how the dragon’s treasure should be divided.

The main task for this project was to transfer the original physical interaction of the board game into a digital one, for the online version, having thus new advantages and disadvantages along with the new media.

While creating the GUI, several interesting challenges appeared. One was related to the user's mental model of the physical game, along with its social aspect. As an example, because the brief stated that a voice chat option is not available in the negotiation process, interactive alternatives had to be created in order to accomodate the most common social interactions.

Collaborative Design with: Aurélie Rudnik, Fiona Rolander and Johannes Andersson
(Graphical Interfaces course @ Chalmers University of Technology, 2011)

We started the Design Process by playing the board game ourselves, in order to better understand all its rules and interactions, as well as less obvious behaviors that can occur during the gameplay.

All observations and ideas from the initial brainstorm were noted and analysed. Furthermore, the means of interaction and visualisation (mouse, keyboard, touchpad, display size etc.) also played an important role in the design, as we wanted the user to easily interact with the game and players during a break at work or a relaxing evening at home.

This is the second visual iteration, that is closer to the desired "look & feel", but please note that this is still a prototype.

At the top of the screen, the other players are displayed. The name of each opponent is visible on their platforms as well as which adventurers they have. The number of spells the opponent knows is shown in each opponent's crystal ball.

As it is now our player's turn, his/her platform is highlighted. By hovering over adventurers, they will be highlighted. By clicking and dragging an adventurer it is chosen for battle. If the adventurer is dropped anywhere but on a dragon, they will simply return to its platform. The selected adventurer is slightly diminished to give a feel of depth and approach to the dragons.

By clicking and dragging the adventurer to a dragon, the dragon is highlighted so that confusion of which dragon is to be attacked is eliminated.

When the adventurer is dropped on the dragon, the adventurer will join the battle against it, thus appearing in the battle
participant list below the life meter. The life of the dragon will be decreased and the battle sign moved closer to the life emblem.

Returned victorious adventurers will be greyed out to show that they are no longer in battle but neither ready to enter a new one. When hovering these, they will not be highlighted.

For the Negotiation round, the players' platforms are now empty to serve as a place to collect gems. Players not included in the negotiation are downplayed.
The hour-glass shows the time along with a regular timer. Your satisfaction with the current splitting of gems is expressed through the happiness-controls. Here you can select your 'mood' by clicking the corresponding face, and signal that you accept by pressing the 'seal of approval'.

Players can now start picking gems. This is done either by clicking a gem or dragging it. You can also click-and-drag to select multiple gems, and drag them to your platform.

It is also possible to give a gem to an opponent. This is done by simply dragging the gem to the players platform.

You can suggest a trade with another player. This is done by clicking one or more of his gems.Then a 'menu' appears that shows your gems, you select one or more of your gems and again click the players gem to confirm the suggestion.