Super Power Hour is an ongoing collaborative project initially created in the Game Design Workshop class. A four-week-long experiment in collective world-building and complex systems, it begins with each participant conceptualizing a “Character,” and what agency it may have in a world. After all the characters are presented the group builds the world and designs all of its rules and systems needed to accommodate all vectors of agency. The characters are then all revised to build rules that describe their possible actions and vulnerabilities to interface with the world’s systems and all of the other characters. Finally students design a playable deck of cards and miniature game pieces, and scenarios that make up mini games in the world.

Characters

Scenarios

Ch’ckn Chase

Matthew Tjokro, Nicholas Ismael Martinez, Samia Saad, Iris Chang, Yaozheng Song

Ch’ckn chase is a chaotic restaurant simulation. Players start by chasing down “live” chickens, racing each other to capture one, cook, and serve it first. Sabotage, where players attempt to thwart each other’s progress by stealing chickens or attacking, is encouraged. The chicken tokens have both a “live” side and a “cooked” side, and players try to bring the fully cooked chicken to the table, but certain events are considered “high risk,” like fighting in the dining area, and result in having to draw a “high risk” event card. These cards have potential consequences for single players or the whole group, depending on what’s drawn, and if luck’s run out.

Summit

Stella Strader, Patton Janssen, Yeon Joo Nam, Junie Kim, Bennett Nelson, Bela Chauhan

Summit is a competitive 4-6-player game where players race to the top of a mountain and fight each other to bring the gem with them. The first player to reach the summit with the gem in hand wins the game. The gem is hidden in one of the mountainous caves, which potentially have traps. Throughout the mountain, as players try to heal, they face monkeys who try to steal the gem. If the players attack each other too much, an avalanche is triggered, causing players to move down the mountain.

Yellow Snow

Ayumi Bergan, Ella Chen, Sid Francis, Angela Zhang, Dylan Wan

Yellow Snow is a capture-the-flag type game where players split into two teams with the objective of placing as many pee tokens on the opponent’s territory as possible. The pee tokens represent an offensive move that gains you points, whereas the snow tokens are considered defensive. Snow tokens do not earn you a point but they do slow your opponent’s movement and cover a spot for an opponent to place a pee token. The board is set up with four zones, a neutral zone in the middle of the board where no one can place any tokens but players can attack each other, and three zones within player territory that gain more points per pee token depending upon how deep it is in enemy territory. Players are encouraged to use their cards and abilities to slow the opposing side from moving into their territory and placing pee/snow tokens. The winning team is decided by the amount of points derived from the pee tokens that were placed in the opponent’s territory.

Canvas Caper

Julian Hamilton, Nikki Tanaka, Trinh Ha, Alicia Caldera

Canvas Caper is a competitive team 4-6 player game where two teams play as either the security guards protecting priceless art or theives stealing the museum’s treasures. Taking place in the museum, this setting presents a lot of challenges and opportunities for both sides. Depending on what side you’re on, you will either protect the art and remove the threat as security guards or successfully infiltrate the premise and escape with historical valuables as thieves. By utilizing portals and switching rooms around with the art pieces, the game rewards good strategy and luck.