Final game design being played in TableTop Simulator
Dementia
(University Project)
For this project each design team was assigned an emotion at random and tasked with creating a fully playable game in TableTop Simulator that was capable of causing the players to experience said emotion. My team was instructed to create a game that would evoke feelings of sorrow in each player.
My Role
-Illustration of family home for game board
-Development of game idea, design and play-testing.
Deliverables
1. Playable game with written rules in TableTop Simulator
2. Design Progress Journal
3. Playtest Reports
Final Game Board Design
Final Game
The final theme for the game revolved around a family collecting memory-triggering items for a loved one's final days struggling with dementia. Players are each assigned a specific family member to play as, rolling dice to move around their home to collect items. Each item has either a good or bad memory attached to it that remains hidden until the end of the game or can be uncovered by landing on a specific board space.
In the hopes of creating deeper emotion throughout the game a grief dynamic was added with players collecting grief coins as they move around the board. When players collect too much grief their family member is overcome and is unable to move until they are assisted by another player.
At the end of the game player uncover the memory of each item they collected and unlock a related ending story. If the majority of memories are good they receive a happy and peaceful ending story, if there is an equal number of good/bad memories they achieve a somewhat sorrowful ending and if a majority of bad memories are collected they receive the worst and most harrowing ending story.
Item associated with a bad memory
Item associated with a good memory
Back design of memory and hint cards
Excerpt from the happiest ending story
Card design for each playable family member
Excerpt from a play-test report
First page of game rules
Challenges and Reflection
Early on in our brainstorming my team and I quickly realized just how hard it was going to be to get players to feel true sorrow from a board game. We experimented with many different themes and situations that stereotypically result in universal human sorrow including natural disasters, accidents an loss. Although the idea of loosing a love one to dementia is no doubt a harrowing experience, it was hard to fully captivate that in our game and players often didn't achieve the level of sadness we were hoping for during play testing. If I were to go back and re-do the game I would definitely make the grieving process a more central dynamic and work on increasing the players emersion and emotional attachment to the story and characters.
Iteration of board spaces
3D grief coins in TableTop simulator
Collaborative work on memory cards in TableTop simulator
Collaborative brainstorm of board layout over zoom
Collaborative brainstorm of player movement over zoom
Special thanks to Miwa, Sam and George for all of your amazing work on this project and for being a wonderful team!