The Design Process of a Board Game for Exploring the Territories of the United States
Abstract
The paper reports the design experience of a board game with an educational aspect, which takes place on the location of states and territories of the United States. Based on a territorial acquisition dynamic, the goal was to articulate the design process of a board game that provides information for individuals who are willing to learn the locations of the U.S. states by playing a game. The game was developed using an iterative design process based on focus groups studies and brainstorming sessions. A mechanic-driven design approach was adopted instead of a theme or setting-driven alternative and a relatively abstract game was developed. The initial design idea was formed and refined according to the player feedback. The paper details play-testing sessions conducted and documents the design experience from a qualitative perspective. Our preliminary results suggest that the initial design is moderately balanced and despite the lack of quantitative evidence, our subjective observations indicate that participants’ knowledge about the location of states was improved in an entertaining and interactive way.
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Bochennek, K., Wittekindt, B., Zimmermann, S. Y., & Klingebiel, T. (2007). More than mere games: a review of card and board games for medical education. Medical teacher, 29(9-10), 941-948.
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BPausch, R., Gold, R., Skelly, T., & Thiel, D. (1994, April). What HCI designers can learn from video game designers. In Conference companion on human factors in computing systems (pp. 177-178). ACM.
Brathwaite, B., & Schreiber, I. (2009). Challenges for game designers.
Brockmyer, J. H., Fox, C. M., Curtiss, K. A., McBroom, E., Burkhart, K. M., & Pidruzny, J. N. (2009). The development of the Game Engagement Questionnaire: A measure of engagement in video game-playing. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(4), 624-634.
Broll, W., Ohlenburg, J., Lindt, I., Herbst, I., & Braun, A. K. (2006, October). Meeting technology challenges of pervasive augmented reality games. In Proceedings of 5th ACM SIGCOMM workshop on Network and system support for games (p. 28). ACM.
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Federoff, M. A. (2002). Heuristics and usability guidelines for the creation and evaluation of fun in video games (Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University).
Floyd, C. (1984). A systematic look at prototyping. In Approaches to prototyping (pp. 1-18). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Fluxx | Looney Labs. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.looneylabs.com/games/fluxx
Fluxx on the App Store on iTunes. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fluxx/id561319376?mt=8
Freeman, W. (2012, December 9). Why board games are making a comeback | Life and style | The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/dec/09/board-games-comeback-freeman
Fullerton, T., Swain, C., & Hoffman, S. (2004). Game design workshop: Designing, prototyping, & playtesting games.
CRC Press.
Gibson, E. (2014, November 24). Board games don’t just bring us together – they remind us how to play | Technology | The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/24/board-games-families-risk-children-play.
Hom, V., & Marks, J. (2007). Automatic design of balanced board games. In Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE) (pp. 25-30).
Huynh, D. N. T., Raveendran, K., Xu, Y., Spreen, K., & MacIntyre, B. (2009, August). Art of defense: a collaborative handheld augmented reality board game. In Proceedings of the 2009 ACM SIGGRAPH symposium on video games (pp. 135-142). ACM.
IJsselsteijn, W. A., De Kort, Y. A. W., & Poels, K. (2013). {The Game Experience Questionnaire: Development of a self-report measure to assess the psychological impact of digital games. Manuscript in Preparation}.
Johansson, S. J. (2006, May). On using multi-agent systems in playing board games. In Proceedings of the fifth international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems (pp. 569-576). ACM.
Magerkurth, C., Memisoglu, M., Engelke, T., & Streitz, N. (2004, May). Towards the next generation of tabletop gaming experiences. In Proceedings of the 2004 Graphics Interface Conference (pp. 73-80). Canadian Human-Computer Communications Society.
Magerkurth, C., Cheok, A. D., Mandryk, R. L., & Nilsen, T. (2005). Pervasive games: bringing computer entertainment back to the real world. Computers in Entertainment (CIE), 3(3), 4-4.
Matorin, A. I., & McNamara, J. R. (1996). Using board games in therapy with children. International Journal of Play Therapy, 5(2), 3.
MissMJ. (2011, August 31). A map of the United States with all 50 states and the District of Columbia [Map]. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories_of_the_United_States#/media/File:Map_of_USA_with_state_names.sv
Montola, M., Stenros, J., & Waern, A. (2009). Pervasive games: theory and design. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc..
Pinelle, D., Wong, N., & Stach, T. (2008, April). Heuristic evaluation for games: usability principles for video game design. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1453-1462). ACM.
Ramani, G. B., Siegler, R. S., & Hitti, A. (2012). Taking it to the classroom: Number board games as a small group learning activity. Journal of educational psychology, 104(3), 661.
Ramani, G. B., & Siegler, R. S. (2008). Promoting broad and stable improvements in low‐income children’s numerical knowledge through playing number board games. Child development, 79(2), 375-394.
Roberts, D. (2014, August 6). 10 amazing video game-themed board games. Retrieved from www.gamesradar.com/10-amazing-video-game-themed-board-games/
Russel, J. V. (1999). Using Games To Teach Chemistry. 2. CHeMoVEr Board Game. Journal of Chemical Education 76, no. 4: 487.
Schlieder, C., Kiefer, P., & Matyas, S. (2006). Geogames: Designing location-based games from classic board games. Intelligent Systems, IEEE, 21(5), 40-46.
Takahashi, D. (2014, August 18). North American hobby game market hits an estimated $700M | GamesBeat | Games | by Dean Takahashi. Retrieved from http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/18/north-american-hobby-game-market-hits-an-estimated-700m/
Van Binsbergen, W. M. (1997). Rethinking Africa's contribution to global cultural history: lessons from a comparative historical analysis of mankala board-games and geomantic divination.
Zagal, J. P., Rick, J., & Hsi, I. (2006). Collaborative games: Lessons learned from board games. Simulation & Gaming, 37(1), 24-40.
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