Safer waters, Safer shores
Pre-University 2022
This project was done as a collaboration between the ITC department of the University of Twente and Pre-U. Two researchers from ITC were working on creating a game for and with children to teach them about floods. I initially got involved with this project when the ITC approached Pre-U for help with their first testing sessions. However, after the testing sessions, it became clear that this game had to be developed further and thus me, a colleague, and our supervisor stayed on the project.
The first edition of the game was created from children’s drawings by two during two bachelor theses. These drawings were created during a workshop in a school in India.
The game tells the story of an island in India. There is a flood on the way and the villagers need to prepare for the coming flood. The task of the players is to warn and help as many people as they can before, during, and after the flood.
At the start of the game, players create and color their own characters. The players then roll the dice and take the corresponding steps. If they land on a character tile, they need to help the character with the items in their possession. If they help the person, they get a corresponding badge and coins. If the player lands on a question tile, they need to answer the question.
Initial version of the game and its materials
Our initial task was to test this version of the game with a class of schoolchildren from an international primary school. However, after reviewing the material we decided to run a trial first. In this trial, we soon discovered that the game, in this state, was not playable. The rules did not work together. Therefore, the game was quickly and slightly adapted to be playable on the day of the first test session.
From this session it became clear that the game was too long, there were too few questions, and the gameplay did not really work. The game was set up to be a narrative, a story. When playing the players would meet people and help them with actions. For doing these actions they got tokens and coins. However, the way it was set up initially, did not work, and the main goal of the game was unclear.
Therefore, it was decided to restructure the gameplay. It was decided to get rid of the narrative, but to keep the helping aspect. Players would collect helpful items. To collect useful items, they had to buy them with tokens, these tokens could be earned by answering questions. Then when the player met a person in need, they would help them with the correct item. When done correctly, the player would be able to move on. The player who got to the end first won the game. With these changes, there was a clear goal in the game, which was previously lacking.
My main task in preparing for the second test session was to prepare the new materials. I had to redesign the character cards, the question cards, the tokens, the coins, and the board. Furthermore, I had to newly design a character badge holder.
The redesigned version of the game with a new board, character badge holder, character card, question card, token, and coin design
Things already went a lot better and smoother at the second test session. The game worked as designed and the kids seemed to enjoy it. However, we found that we still had too few questions. Furthermore, we found that we wanted to change the board again.
Final design of the game board
After all those changes, a researcher from the ITC decided that it would be more interesting if the board functioned like a book of some sort. The vision was that parts of the board would enfold when needed in the game and would tell the narrative that we had created around the game. The board thus needed to be redesigned to fit these new requirements.
With the final redesigned game, we had the opportunity to present the project at the Dutch Design Week, which was a great honor. Find more about that here.
At this point, Pre-U decided to leave the project, and thus this is where my work on this project ended. The project itself will be continued by the ITC. Further explanation on it can be found here.
This project was done in cooperation with Funda Atun, Javier Martinez, Silke Heesen, and Vera Glas
Front and back design of the board