Final Product

Our final product is complete. Below is a photograph of our two game packages.

Each game package includes:

• Rules & instructions booklet
• 4 blindfolds
• 24 question cards (12 personal and 12 professional)
• An assortment of soft and hard objects

Overall, we are pleased with the end result.  The group did an excellent job on this project.

Game Booklet

The design of the game booklet is very minimalist to ensure a clean and professional style. This is because the game is aimed at adults and so a colourful and comic style would not be appropriate.

A thumbnail of the inside of the booklet is below.

The booklet is designed as a tri-fold page (very similar to a brochure). They will be printed out on hard paper.

Game Spinners

We took into consideration the suggestion to implement game spinners which determines whether the players should pull out a hard or soft object.

The spinners took about an hour to create, but they look great in the end.

Updated Professional Question Cards

Below are the professional question cards which have been updated to tailor users' feedback. They have been shortened and made more interesting.
 

What’s the worst argument you’ve ever gotten into with someone at work?	What do you think would make your job absolutely awesome?
What do you hate at work? What would make it better?	If you could pick one thing to do at work to make it more fun, what would it be?
What one aspect of your personality to you think makes you absolutely great at your job?	What do you do at work when someone is really annoying you?
If you were the CEO for a day, what would you change?	If you could have anyone come to your work for a day, who would it be? How would they help you in your job?
What is the best thing you’ve ever gotten to do at work?	What motivates you to go to work every day, even on those days you really just don’t want to?
What about your job absolutely sucks?	If you could have one job in your office, what would it be and why?

Meeting #6

MEETING OVERVIEW

Discussion of Game Improvements

After analysing the user feedback from both prototyping sessions, we took into consideration the comments as well as what we observed. We came up with suggestions and shared any improvements. The improvements we decided to implement were:

• Having a cloth covering the box with a slit were people can put their hands through. This will prevent players from seeing the objects inside the box.
• Categorising objects into 'soft' and 'hard'. These will be divided into two sections within the box.
• In addition; a spinner will be implemented which determines whether the player must pull out a soft or hard object.

Review of Tasks

Since the due date for the project was nearing, we went over what remaining tasks we had to do. We also delegated new tasks to accommodate for the game modifications mentioned above.

Obtaining More Objects

As the game required more objects, each of us agreed on obtaining more objects. This will spread the cost among the entire group as well as ensuring variety.

- Sherwin

Prototyping and User Evaluation Session #2

A second user evaluation session was conduced within the workshop. For this iteration, the game was tweaked and most issues were ironed out. We now have a proper box to contain new objects in, blindfolds and modified the rules to improve gameplay and fairness.

FEEDBACK RESULTS

Grading Scores

Each user had filled out an evaluation sheet. They scored the game against three criteria. An average was calculated below for each criteria.

Physical game: 6.3/8
Game play: 8.6/12
Game concept: 7.7/10

Comments

Users also provided brief comments which have been summarised below.

Pros

• Entertaining, especially when people fail at guessing the object
• Good incorporation of professional dilemmas
• Well presented
• Fun to play, challenging
• Uses non-visual cues
• Questions very well articulated
• Original
• Good use of senses other than sigh

Cons

• Questions were monotonous
• Objects were lacking variety and interest

Improvements

• Have more personal questions
• Limit the time to guess
• Have more variety of objects 

- Sherwin

Resources for Professional Development Questions

We have done some research as to what sort of questions should go on the game question cards.

Corporate Leadership Council. Year unkown. Professional Development Starter Questio ns for Career Conversations.. [ONLINE] Available at: http://w3.unisa.edu.au/staffdev/word/StartQuestCareer.pdf. [Accessed 14 April 13].

The Bamboo Project Blog. 2011. Positive Questions for Professional Development: Developing a Vision for Learning. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.michelemmartin.com/thebambooprojectblog/2011/06/positive-questions-for-professional-development-devloping-vision-for-learning.html. [Accessed 14 April 13].
 
Public Sector Commission. 2012. Guiding questions for CEO professional development. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.publicsector.wa.gov.au/public-administration/sector-wide-management/chief-executive-officer-employment-services/performance-agreements-assessments/professional-development/guiding-questions-ceo-professional-development. [Accessed 14 April 13].

Game Illustration

As the game requires professional packaging, I have decided to create an illustration that will be on the game box.

Below are two versions. As a group, we decided to use the first illustration because it best represents the game and the name itself - people sitting around the table.

 Also the following logo was created by me:

I have decided to go with a 'clean' and minimal look because the target audience of the game are adults in the workforce.

Note: The above images were created by me, however some use elements which are referenced on the References page.

- Sherwin

External User Evaluation Session

Another evaluation session was conducted. However, this time it involved people external from the DECO1100 course.

SUMMARY OF FEEDBACK

Notes:

The game was played successfully – no problems as for the conducting of the game – players understood what they had to do.

Pros

• Interesting the first time – game pieces were interesting
• Rules were easy to understand
• Answering the questions were a good idea as the game gives you a chance to get to know one another – game would be good for “getting to know one another”
• The feeling and guessing of objects were very enjoyable – challenging to guess everyday objects without actually having to see the objects

Cons

• Probably wouldn’t play the game again because the objects and questions would be the same
• It was easy to know who was answering what question because the players knew one another, however, if the game were to be played by strangers then it would be hard to know who was answering questions as players are to be blind folded – maybe when players are answering questions they can take off the blindfold?

-Krista

Packaging Inspiration

Just a couple links I found which has some great looking examples of packaging. Though, they are probably a bit too much for what we can do, but it's nice to look at.

Design Your Way. Year unknown. Creative And Inspiring Package Design Created By Students. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.designyourway.net/blog/inspiration/creative-and-inspiring-package-design-created-by-students/. [Accessed 12 April 13].

Must Be Printed. Year unknown. Portfolio - The Game. [ONLINE] Available at: http://mustbeprinted.com/post/30929648414/portfolio-the-game. [Accessed 12 April 13].

- Sherwin

Meeting #5

MEETING OVERVIEW

Selection for Game Analyses and Evaluation

As a group we got together and discussed which games to select to evaluate against the criteria framework. A general consensus among the group was that we should analyse 'Around the Table', 'Who do You Think You Are!?', 'Feel it Twist it Build it' and 'The Blind Builder'. The reason for choosing these four games was that they best matched the project brief by relating to professional dilemmas and seemed interesting to play.

For the fifth and final game to evaluate, we selected 'Corporate Theft' because, the idea behind it was quite creative and it seemed it had potential as an implemented product.

Discussion of Game Construction

We volunteered and agreed on different tasks for the construction of the game.

Krista will create question cards
Maggie will supply the game pieces and packaging
Sherwin will produce a rule/instruction manual and an illustration for packaging

- Sherwin

Initial Concepts

Below is a link to our initial concepts. These are quite rough, and are NOT the final concepts. They will be improved and tweaked to better match the brief and minimise flaws.

View all our rough concepts here.

The final concepts will be proofread, polished and restyled professionally.

NOTE: If the above link does not work, you can view the rough concepts on our Facebook Group page.

Meeting #4

MEETING OVERVIEW

Concept mapping

Collaboratively, we created our first concept map of existing games. This would give us an idea of what sort of concepts we should have.

Prototyping and user feedback

We prototyped 'Around the Table' with our fellow course-mates and received feedback.

Decided to implement a different game

Analysing the results from user feedback for 'Around the Table', we ultimately decided to implement a different game altogether; 'Feel it Twist it'.

Adjustment of project timeline

Responsibilities were reviewed and tasks were rearranged on the project timeline.

- Sherwin

Meeting #3

Three weeks into the project (including the Easter break); the majority of the concept cards have been completed.

MEETING OVERVIEW

Shared old & new concepts

Our existing concepts have been improved and tweaked to better match the brief. Additionally, we presented our new concept cards to each other and, again; these were reviewed, discussed and critiqued.

Early Stages of Prototyping

We have selected 'Around the Table' as our prototype. We attempted to bodystorm this game to get an idea how the game will play out and to discover any flaws.


- Sherwin

Protoyping & User Evaluation Session #1

During the workshop, we prototyped and obtained user feedback for 'Around the Table'. The game was set up with question cards and random objects which were improvised. The purpose of this process is to allow users to play the game and suggest improvements, discover what they like, enjoy, or even despise about the game. This feedback was then taken into consideration and was used to modify, tweak and improve the game.

SUMMARY OF USER FEEDBACK

User feedback has been summarised for each of the questions below because most users had universal opinions.

Overall; was the game enjoyable?

Yes, the game was enjoyable because it was quite challenging at first.

Would did you like most about the game?

Getting to know the deep details of each of the players.

Was there anything you did not like?

The fact that the pieces can be memorised and so it is not fun to play it more than once.

Would you suggest any improvements?

• Need to make pieces more difficult to guess.
• Need blindfolds.
• Players should be blindfolded entire game. Leave one player to say whether the pieces were guessed correctly.
• Keep pieces hidden so players can’t see them before they pick them out - possibly use an opaque box to hold the pieces in.
• Difficulty relating to professional dilemmas – make questions relate to this.
• Make things – objects
• Engravings – guess what’s written on something maybe?
• Objects with different textures (Stick things on objects to create different textures)
• More than touch can be used in this game? For example smell, and using fabrics

- Sherwin, Krista

Meeting #2

About a week has passed since commencing the project. The group has been hard at work creating some concept cards.

MEETING OVERVIEW

Shared concept cards

We brought our concept cards we have made so far to the table and were pleased that each of our group members were coherent to the project timeline and followed deadlines. We reviewed and critiqued each other's game concepts and discussed any improvements/tweaks that could be implemented to better match the project brief.

Discussed more possible game concepts

With only half the required amount of game concepts, we began to discuss more ideas for new concepts.

- Sherwin

Ideas for Game Concepts

Since our games are supposed to relate to professional dilemmas and aspects of professional aspects such as conflict management, compromise, professionalism, ambition, collaboration, etc., a good starting point could be team building activities.

Here are some links which will give us a foundation to work on for our games.

Rishi Chowdhury. 2009. 10 Quick and Easy Team Building Activities. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.huddle.com/blog/team-building-activities/. [Accessed 23 March 13].

Wilderdom. 2011. Team Building Activities, Initiative Games, & Problem Solving Exercises. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.wilderdom.com/games/InitiativeGames.html. [Accessed 23 March 13].

Askville. 2007. What are some fun, icebreaker games to play at a staff retreat. [ONLINE] Available at: http://askville.amazon.com/fun-icebreaker-games-play-staff-retreat-50-co-workers/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=874398. [Accessed 23 March 13].

- Sherwin 

Examples of Concept Cards

While doing some research about concept cards we have found an excellent example of concept cards.

Jamin Hegeman, a designer, was asked to create a service  that will improve the flow people at security screenings at airports. He had created some concept cards which also include sketches. Below are some examples:

These are a good starting point for our concept cards in terms of content and presentation.

Reference:
Jamin Hegeman. 2007. Service Design Applied to Airport Security. [ONLINE] Available at: http://jamin.org/service-design-for-tsa/. [Accessed 21 March 13].

- Sherwin

Division of Tasks

We have divided up the tasks to share the workload equally.

This has been incorporated on our Project Timeline, and can be found at this link or at the top of the page.

The Project Timeline will be continuously updated to help keep on track and we know where we are at regarding deadlines.

- Sherwin

Template for Concept Cards

A template for the Concept Cards has been created - this will ensure the same formatting and layout across all of our concept cards. It is available privately on our Facebook group.

- Sherwin