We had a project where we had to develop a real, well looking board game. In three weeks! Before that, the task would look almost impossible to me, as I was software guy rarely dealing with physical design objects.
Were were four people in team, and I was the only one European (we actually did this project in Umeo university as the guests). I worked with three talanted girls from Canada, Brazil and China.
So here is the basic indegrents that experienced during our project.
- Choosing a dilemma as an inspiration,
- Setting a team,
- Brainstorming on the idea of the game,
- Developing a concept
- Testing on users
- Reiterating to 4th point and making improvements
- Finishing product by making user instructions
1. Choosing a dilemma as an inspiration
We made interviews with local companies, searching for dilemmas they have to deal with in everyday life. In our case we chose the multitasking dilemma, where employees have to deal with tasks they were not hired for. How to deal with own tasks while in the same time helping a team?
A game should be interesting enough to engage players for a longer time, it should provoke people for discussions as well.
2. Setting a team
We set a team based on the similarity of our dilemma (we had three seperate dilemmas for all members). However, this reason for setting up a team is not enough. As it turned out (not only in this project), it is much easier to work if all team members know each other’s background, skills and wishes. Based on that it is possible to divide the roles and not overlay work of other members thus saving the time.
Forgetting the roles is useful in brainstorm session, defining strategy of the project but it is not effecient way of actually developing something.
And it is always much better to see not only team’s success but also your own (speaking about roles).
For us, it helped a lot, that we all were willing to work and interested to make that game as interesting as possible.
3. Brainstorming on the idea of the game
We started working by choosing a (multitasking) dilemma and brainstorming on that together. We came up with different concepts and discussed if it would be engaging, intellectual enough and relevant to our dilemma. Of course, we also needed to keep in mind that we had only two weeks for making that game with requests of making two prototypes from user testing sessions.
We managed to get along only with writings / drawings on the paper and talking. But in brainstorming a post-it sheets and even an acting could be efficient as well.
4. Developing a concept
In the same day when brainstorming was held, we made a quick-and-dirty prototype to test on our selves if ideas would be viable.
5. Testing on users
We had two user testing sessions where we got a lot of feedback and new ideas on how to improve our game’s concept. It is surprising how many variations users discover on how to use the game.
So basically we were not alone the the team. Users made a great part of source of inspiration. After each of two sessions we had a large amount of improvements to concept. Watching and listening user inspired us for new ideas and provided as additional constraints to consider, for instance, the physical limitations of the body. There were cases when short persons played together with long persons, and it made the playing unequal (people with long hands had better chances to win).
6. Reiterating to 4th point and making improvements
After each user session we had full notebooks of ideas and reflections, so it was necessary to return back to concept making. In that point we also decided how to make the game, user instructions and box technologically. We made a sketches in Adobe Illustrator and InDesign.
7. Finishing product
Almost all parts were made by wood. It was cut precisely with a laser cutter which was fed up with Corel Draw sketches.
Game pack was actually not a box, but a bag, which we made with a sewing machine.
If you want to see more of the two week’s work, check out my personal Flickr Set or our course account.
