Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
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- Creators: Loebenberg, Abby
For my thesis project, I joined a pathway course in Game Design. The goal was to design an analog game based upon principles learned in class and through experimental gameplay. Tasked with designing different game types and provided different styles of games to test, I was able to explore and develop my own game idea, Covers.
Color Theory is an abstract strategy game, a genre that emphasizes decision-making and strategic thinking without elements of luck or hidden information. This game utilizes primary and secondary colors to represent players' pieces, with the objective to move each player's pawns to the opposite same-colored spaces on the board. Developed through rigorous playtesting, Color Theory introduces a color ranking track that dictates the synergy between the move and jump actions. Players must strategically maneuver their pawns, while also taking into account the position of their colors on the ranking track. It strikes a balance between clever movement and player interaction, providing an accessible and enjoyable gaming experience. In the end, the first player to successfully move three of their six pawns to their opposite spaces wins the game.
For my creative project, I designed an original board game. The game is titled Poise, and it is categorized as an abstract strategy game. Throughout the year, I researched board game design and experimented with game mechanics. The creative process of designing a new game was both challenging and exciting.
For my Spring 2022-23 Barrett Honors College creative project, I designed and created my own analog game. The created game is a tile-management game for 2-4 players called Plash. Players collect tiles and manipulate the board to complete goals and win the game. The paper for this project details the inspirations and research done for the game’s design, the game's design journey, and detailed instructions on how to play.
Community Garden is a board game developed as a creative project for Barrett, The Honors College. The fully-functional board game's design allows relaxed gameplay between players with the zen imagery of a community garden. The written component of this thesis project details the mechanics of the final product, the design process, and the supporting documentation of the playtesting and research that went into developing Community Garden.
In Isle of Thrones, you must build up your kingdom to avoid being dominated by your opponent. Players start with a castle as their initial piece of land and draw cards from two decks, Event and Effect, which can influence the game. Each turn involves drawing an Event Card, playing Effect Cards, taking actions such as placing land tiles strategically on the board to expand territory, and potentially drawing more Effect Cards. Players earn points by placing land tiles with different named pieces of the same point value next to each other, and the game ends when the board is filled or when a player can no longer place more pieces. Land pieces can be destroyed and returned to the Land Pile, and the player with the most points at the end of the game wins.