3/29 Flushing Out Physical Games
We started out the class talking about storyboards that we’d developed between the Tuesday and Thursday class
While going over the storyboards, Stacie joined us and commented that it might be better to design for a physical activity rather than a digital one due to upkeep and maintenance. Even if we ultimately decided to do a digital experience, it would still be interesting exploring what a physical game would look like and later adapting it if we chose to. Or it could be a physical game with a small digital (mobile) component. We really liked the empathy and kid-friendly nature of the animal personification of the last storyboard and decided to base (most) of our ideas after that one.
We flushed out the physical game experience on the board, mainly based off of the 4MAT and Magic Circle learning models.
Brainstorming on the board possible game options. 1 is why, 2–4 is what.
The ideas we came up with were (1) a mad lib game using elements that the player is given, (2) a matching game of environmental problems and solutions with ranks for effectiveness, and (3) a guessing game where a player doesn’t know what animal they are and are given clues of the species’ problems to guess.
The most flushed out idea that a bunch of us liked was (4) a cooperation game where there’s an environment, the players pick animals that exist in those ecosystems and decorate their masks to match, and are to move across a board. Depending on what they land on, they’ll pick up cards with environmental factors that will influence one or more of the animals (presumably with some sort of health, territory, resources, and food tokens). There will also be spots where the animals collect points that as a group they can spend on calling a human ally to resolve a problem (ex: deforestation, over-fishing, polluting) that will benefit the animals living there. If an animal dies, however, their points will be lost to the team and it’ll take them longer to get the human’s aid. Hence, they must work together so that everyone survives.
After class I also realized there’s a few more learning models that could help in the actual board game (if we go with the cooperation board game that a bunch of us like the best).
The biggest downsides to the board game is duration of play-through and the multiplayer requirement. If it’s being used as a waiting room game, as soon as a patient is called, the entire game will have to halt. On the other hand, if the game is too short, it won’t make much of an impact on the players.
