Reintroducing The Golden Sausage
For my BCM215 Digital Artefact, I am analysing The Golden Sausage, a family card game created by Wollongong local Joel Bettson. Joel works in coal mining with my partner Brad, so I knew of him and the game before starting this subject. He originally created the game at home with his kids using blank poker cards and a Sharpie before developing it into the professionally produced game it is today (The Golden Sausage Card Game 2026).
Knowing of someone who has created a game from scratch has made the project more interesting, as I can apply what I am learning about game design and playtesting to a real example.
My aim is to investigate what can be learnt through repeated playtesting, particularly how the experience changes depending on who is playing, their age, familiarity with the game and how they approach the mechanics.
You can download or click the Canva link for better viewing:
https://canva.link/ozwdff8sgbyim8l
My analytical framework: Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics
The main analytical framework guiding my project is Hunicke, LeBlanc and Zubek’s (2004) Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics model. Mechanics are the rules, components and actions built into the game, dynamics are the behaviours that emerge when people actually interact with those mechanics, and aesthetics are the feelings and experiences that come from play.
I have enjoyed using MDA because it gives me a way to pull apart what is happening rather than just, deciding whether a playtest was “fun” or not. I have used the same MDA structure every week, and this has made it much easier to compare very different play experiences over time.
Chircop (2016) has also been useful because his work focuses more specifically on board game experiences and considers the relationship between elements such as rules, luck and player interaction. What I have noticed through my own playtests is that a mechanic can be written exactly the same way but have a completely different impact depending on when it appears and who is playing.
The Mind Reader card is probably my clearest example of this so far. During one family playtest, Brad’s mum was able to win the entire game because of one Mind Reader card. Mechanically, nothing unusual had happened. She had simply used the card as intended. However, the dynamic of the game changed instantly and the aesthetic experience was surprise, excitement and a lot of cheering. I even captured the moment on video and Joel later featured the reel on The Golden Sausage Instagram page.
This was one of the first moments where MDA really clicked for me. The wording and function of the card is only the mechanic. What became more interesting was what that mechanic actually did once it entered play.
Choi et al. (2016) has also helped guide how I approach my weekly playtests. Their discussion of purposeful playtesting made me realise that it is not enough to simply keep playing the game each week and write down whatever happens. There should be something I am paying attention to or trying to understand.
My earlier playtests were quite broad because I was still learning the game and the framework. As the project has progressed, I have become much more specific. I have looked at how new players understand the cards, how individual cards change a game, how experienced players develop strategy and how children can become involved even when they cannot independently play yet.
Applying MDA: does a simple game have to create a simple experience?
One area I wanted to investigate further came directly from my Assessment 1 feedback, which suggested considering the limitations of a game aimed at children and whether it can offer the same complexity as something designed specifically for adults.
This became the focus of my Week 5 playtest with Brad.
Joel has called Brad a “card shark” because he plays The Golden Sausage with him at work and has become very strategic. During our games, Brad used combinations such as the Evil Fairy, Portal and then Dice Cream to gain more cards. He also plans ahead, builds card combinations and keeps track of what I am holding, using cards like Search and Steal or Grass is Greener to disrupt my hand and improve his own chances of winning.
Through MDA I could see:
Mechanics: relatively simple action cards
Dynamics: combining cards, planning ahead and anticipating another player
Aesthetics: a more competitive and strategic game
This made me question the idea that a game has to have complicated rules to create a more complicated play experience. I definitely would not compare The Golden Sausage to a highly complex adult strategy game, but I also do not think it is simply a children’s game.
The target seems much closer to families, which makes sense considering Joel developed it with his own family. A child can understand the basic mechanics, while an experienced adult like Brad can find additional ways to use the same cards strategically.
Developing my DA: a weekly playtesting portfolio
My DA is taking the form of a visual Canva portfolio where I document every weekly playtest. Each entry includes the players and context, my playtest focus, mechanics, dynamics, aesthetics, an overall MDA connection, key findings, what I want to observe next and photographic evidence.
What I like about the portfolio so far is that the weeks are starting to connect rather than feeling like completely separate games.
Adams and Atman (1999) have been useful here because their research into iterative design behaviour looks at design as a process where information is repeatedly gathered, evaluated and used to influence what happens next. This made me think more carefully about the difference between repeating something and actually iterating. For example, I could play The Golden Sausage every week, but that alone does not make my project iterative. The useful part is when something from one playtest changes what I look for in the next.
Week 6 was probably the strongest example of this so far. Brad’s brother Paul was a completely new player, while Brad’s four-year-old niece Rosie was also involved throughout the game. Paul suggested adding a small symbol or image into the top corner of each card so players could identify the action while holding their cards fanned out, similar to a normal deck of playing cards.
Rosie created a completely different observation. She cannot properly read the cards yet, but the game has been played around her a number of times now. She rolls the dice, chooses cards, participates in rock-paper-scissors and is starting to recognise some of the pictures. She genuinely seems to think she is one of the players.
I found this really interesting because Paul and Rosie were both “learning” the game, but in completely different ways. Paul learnt through explanation and playing his own hand, while Rosie learnt through watching, repetition and being included in small mechanics.
Research so far and where the project is heading
All five academic sources have ended up helping my project in different ways.
Hunicke, LeBlanc and Zubek (2004) remain the foundation because I use MDA every single week. Chircop (2016) has helped me think beyond the written rules and pay more attention to luck and interaction. Choi et al. (2016) has pushed me to give each playtest more purpose, while Adams and Atman (1999) have helped me understand how those individual sessions can become an iterative process rather than a collection of unrelated games.
Bendixen-Noe (2010) has made me think about children and learning through games. Their research focuses on teachers using board and card games alongside academic learning standards; obviously, The Golden Sausage is not being used in exactly the same way. However, what I found useful was thinking more broadly about what children can learn while playing games. This is because I am an OOSH educator, and I often feel it is effective to teach kids new skills through playing a game at the boardgame table, because it allows their brains to explore new concepts in an enjoyable way.
Rosie is not sitting down to learn an academic skill, but she is learning how the game works through repetition and interaction. She is watching when people take turns, recognising repeated images and learning when she can participate. Her involvement has increased each time she has been around the game.
Another really exciting moment happened this week when Joel and The Golden Sausage made it into the Illawarra Mercury (2026).
I was honestly so proud of him. It is really cool knowing of someone who is “having a real go” and is building something from scratch. It has given me a different take on what we are learning in BCM 215. The article discusses the early blank-card version of the game, testing it with family and friends, unsuccessful BOX prototypes and how feedback helped Joel continue developing it (Ehsman 2026).
That connected really well with Choi et al.’s (2016) work on playtesting and Adams and Atman’s (1999) discussion of iteration because I am reading about these processes academically while also watching them happen with the actual game I am studying.
The online article is behind a paywall, so I have included photographs of the newspaper below for anyone following the project who cannot access it:
At the beginning of the semester, I thought this project would mostly be about understanding how The Golden Sausage works. What I am finding more interesting now is how differently the same game can work depending on who is sitting around the table.
Image from: www.thegoldensausagecardgame.com
References
Adams, RS & Atman, CJ 1999, ‘Cognitive processes in iterative design behavior’, FIE’99 Frontiers in Education. 29th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference. Designing the Future of Science and Engineering Education, vol. 1, pp. 11A6/13–11A6/18, doi:10.1109/FIE.1999.839114.
Bendixen-Noe, M 2010, ‘Bringing play back to the classroom: How teachers implement board and card games based on academic learning standards’, Proceedings of the European Conference on Games Based Learning, pp. 13–18.
Chircop, D 2016, ‘An experiential comparative tool for board games’, Replay: The Polish Journal of Game Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 11–28, doi:10.18778/2391-8551.03.01.
Choi, JO, Forlizzi, J, Christel, M, Moeller, R, Bates, M & Hammer, J 2016, ‘Playtesting with a purpose’, Proceedings of the 2016 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY ’16), Association for Computing Machinery, New York, pp. 254–265, doi:10.1145/2967934.2968103.
Ehsman, J 2026, ‘How a coal miner invented a card game to help his kids ‘wind down’ at bedtime’, Illawarra Mercury, 10 September, viewed 11 September 2026.
Hunicke, R, LeBlanc, M & Zubek, R 2004, ‘MDA: A formal approach to game design and game research’, Proceedings of the AAAI Workshop on Challenges in Game AI, AAAI Press, San Jose, CA.
The Golden Sausage Card Game 2026, The Golden Sausage Card Game, viewed 11 September 2026, https://thegoldensausagecardgame.com
Mikaela San Giorgio's - Digital Portfolio 
Leave a comment