Palooza

Get players away from "first order thinking" that might prevent them from forming authentic friendships early on in new environments.

3 Players | Digital | 20 Mins

The Problem

Students and young professionals arriving at a new program often use overfocus on work to cope with or to numb feelings of loneliness. Connecting with peers can be challenging, especially when a program is not intentionally set up to cultivate connections, or when it only focuses on work outcomes. In addition, first-order thinking may cause biases that make it difficult to connect with others.

Copy of trailer(shorter).mp4

Game Summary

Palooza is focused on creating a game that seeks to foster a more fulfilling and balanced lifestyle among college students. At the heart of its mission, the aim is to deepen connections among new students, thereby cultivating a nurturing environment that encourages meaningful social interactions and the blossoming of new friendships.

Recognizing the challenges that come with transitioning into college life, and understanding that the college experience is not solely about academic achievements, Palooza emphasizes the importance of the student’s overall well being. The game facilitates opportunities for students to engage with one another in settings that are both relaxed and stimulating. These interactions are designed to not only break the ice among newcomers, but will also gradually dive deeper to spark conversations and help players to discover commonalities, laying the foundation for future friendships and lasting bonds.

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Game Goals

Game is set up to transfer, that is, increased bonding and trust inside of the game is positioned to carry forward outside the game.
Game is set up to intervene at the community and cultural level, not just the individual level.
Increased connection from early stages of being on campus.
Game research should have a basis in solidarity, being supportive of others, being protective of other peoples’ time and energy in the face of systems meant to add work pressure, and/or an understanding of how social relationships can be a protective barrier against this.
For new students as core audience: during orientation, students play with classmates and build a deeper bond than if they do not play the game.
Spark social interactions that lead to deeper friendships/relationships.
Cultivate deeper relationships with classmates, preventing "tunnel vision" on work.
Identify commonalities as a way to establish depth early on, as opposed to working on teams where you might barely know someone on an interpersonal level.

The Research

The team drew on the following sources to ground their game design and created these research-game mechanics links.

Copy of Social Trust Game Research

Outcomes & Discoveries

Large shifts from playtesting and subject-matter expert consultation included:

"Tiers" of questions so that the depth of vulnerability changes as the game progresses
Redoing the herding mechanic to encourage more communication between players
Keeping the ambiguous icons present in some questions because it created more conversation at the table
A fixed timer that gives tacit permission to chat openly before the game continues

Players in education and business both independently described ways it would be helpful to them in their fields. Players went from being unable to fill the allotted time with discussion early on in the semester, to usually going over over the game timer by the time the team wrapped development.

A full post-mortem is available here.

Documentation

Here is a link to the team's final presentation and blog.

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