Um-uh-er

BY: Parker Crandell

Created in: UCLA SUmmer Games LAb 2016

Personal Significance

Uh-Um-Er was an autobiographical card game based off of my experience with social anxiety. It was developed while in a summer game design program at UCLA under a week long deadline.  Everything in the game was built from the ground up by me. All the art for the playing cards was hand drawn and the font I used for the cards was my own messy handwriting made into a ttf file (don’t worry it’s better now). It was my first real attempt to express myself through this medium and huge step for me as a designer. Looking back, it's a very loud and abrasive game which makes it a bit hard to play but I’ll always be proud of how it turned out and how far I’ve come.

Description

The game is heavily inspired by the card game Mao where the goal of the game is to empty your hand but the rules constantly change and are typically arbitrary  to anybody but the judge. I wanted to capture the stress I felt playing that game and craft a metaphor for the stress I used to feel while talking to people. The art style, consisting of abstract phrases and shapes, is inspired by sketches I used to draw as a kid which they were often alienating to anyone but me.

There is no talking allowed in the game, any player who talks has to draw two cards. Each player starts the game by drawing five cards and one player draws a rule card that dictates what is acceptable to discard on that round. Each rule card varies on what cards are acceptable to put down and who is allowed to know what to put down. Some rule cards even allow you to put down any card but require players act a certain way. The rules are constantly changing and there are typically exceptions to any patterns that might arise. All this is done to hopefully make the game more stressful and alienating.