This week, we talked a lot about our first project, which will require us to create our first game from scratch. To begin the week, we found what makes a tabletop game fun by trying out a few different games for ourselves. While trying out these games, we were tasked with thinking about the Fullerton chapter, “The Structure of Games”, and how these games can put a message or idea into the players’ heads. “Procedural Rhetoric” exists in every game, whether that be in a video game or in tabletop games, yet this message can be quite subtle while getting wrapped up in a tabletop game. A video game make its messages quite obvious through dialogue and gameplay, but some board games weave their notions into gameplay, making them so minute that they become invisible to the naked eye (in most cases, a game like Monopoly makes it message quite clear). On top of thinking about Procedural Rhetoric, we also took a shot at designing small games on the fly. It illustrated to me that games made on the spot can be fun for a short burst of entertainment, however, creating a game with replayability and long lasting appeal requires a lot more time for execution. I have been witness to many projects being created in the tabletop world, as I have funded numerous card and board games on Kickstarter, and the process of even coming to a solid idea can take months of testing and thought. I was a bit overwhelmed by this juncture at first, but an idea came to me for a card game, as if by magic during class one day. I immediately had to write it down in my Discord server for my friends to see, so we could discuss what the game could be like. The idea spawned from something me and my friends have been doing quite a lot recently for fun, making tier lists. Tier lists originate with fighting games such as “Street Fighter”, “Mortal Kombat”, and “Super Smash Bros.”, but have become popular to create for all sorts of topics, such as with foods and places, by the YouTube community. My friends and I could get pretty heated making these tier lists, arguing over which ride at Disney was the best, or why grapes were objectively better than apples. This is where the idea came to me, conflict can be a huge part of tabletop games, and making tier lists create lots of conflict. What if I were to explore the idea of making a tier list card game, where argument and personal opinion are in the forefront? It seems the most important part of the design of games is the initial concepts, and I hope to explore some more of my ideas in the future.