GAMES FOR CHANGE
UTOPIA
PERSONAL IP
UTOPIA - A BOARD GAME
While I love gaming, I am particularly biased towards board games. Games allow you to transcend dimensions and forget reality for a period of time. Utopia is one such game packed with everything from politics to economics, decision making, tact, leadership and more. It is about constant change, experiencing ideologies from a different perspective and practicing empathy. This was done is collaboration with a classmate in college.
However, if I were to describe it in one line, it is about becoming a better version of yourself.
We made a prototype of the game and ran multiple play tests, and are yet to patent and produce it, however you are more than welcome to drop me an email and we can discuss/ play Utopia! :-)
FREELANCE
COLLECTION OF MATERIALS
MADE IN COLLABORATION WITH NON-PROFITS
A large area of my focus is to understand the value of User Experience Design in the Development sector, one that cannot afford the luxury of such a niche skillset. Can UX design, Design Thinking combined with Systems Thinking add value to this sector? To understand this, I have been taking up a few small scale pro-bono projects as an individual contributor, and in partnership with non-profits to explore serious gaming (education and gaming), technology, and product/UX design in the context of ethics and sustainability.
CCDS
A MEDIA LITERACY GAME FOR YOUNG TEENS
Games and other forms of entertainment like movies, books etc. demand attention and focus by creating highly immersive experiences in relatable and meaningful contexts. They have the potential to evoke various emotions in human beings and can be used to drive desirable outcomes and encourage positive change. Going beyond other forms of engagement, games are interactive and when crafted well, may be used to grasp concepts, improve logical and tactical skills and so much more.
Serious Gaming is a term often used for games that try to drive positive change and may be used for educational purposes. My love for games, education design and interest designing for the development sector has pushed me to explore serious gaming myself. I reached out to CCDS, a non-profit I had worked for previously. One of their research Programs has been focused on urban slum-dwelling kids and teens and their relationship with the internet, and enabling a democratization of an important tool like 'the internet' to make it available to them. However, in today's world, if there's information, there's also mis-information, so a crucial area of their focus is also spread media literacy amongst teens. I stepped in to conceptualize a game that would enable media literacy that could be used in classrooms.
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Here's a short note on our journey while making the proof of concept:
While games can leave players quite invested in a subject, not all educational games engage players in a manner that is expected. An issue with educational-based gaming is that the learning aspect is so crucial that either the game is learning-heavy or fun-heavy. We quickly realized that the game has to cleverly balance the two.
This is why we decided that the game need not go into the depths of a subject but should be impactful enough to start conversations and pave the way ahead. It could be used in tandem with classroom sessions and not be used in isolation to cover all aspects and curriculum of media literacy.
Here are some the aspects that the game needed to absolutely cover and would become pillars when we tested out whether the game has effectively been able to help children navigate the waters of information and mis-information.
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1) Stakeholders/ influencers involved - both positive and negative
2) Institutions involved
3) The problems of being ill-informed
4) The layers of the information-space and the scale at which we've grown and continue to grow: there are so many people and layers involved that kids understand the depth their viewing lens should go to, to be more informed when they start doing it themselves in the real world.
5) Tools and solutions available - open ended
6) Critical thinking
7) The basic understanding that it is a continuous learning process that has to grow as the world around them changes.
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The Game -
Critical thinking skills and media literacy are essential ingredients in a democracy today.
In a complex digital society, we must learn media literacy and critical thinking skills from an early age in order to be able to separate verifiable facts from misinformation, rumours and propaganda.
This game confronts players with problems and situations commonly found in the media space, requiring them to overcome the challenges, investigate and evaluate media messages, and then spread awareness themselves to create a media-literate and informed society.
The next step is to take low fidelity prototypes to schools and see how it plays out. CCDS is in the process of acquiring funds for their upcoming projects, that would include this game.