Help students and young professionals understand that nonwork activities help create upward spirals.
2 Players | Board Game | 45 Mins
Our project focused on developing game-based experiences to help students manage work-life balance, exploring how we might shift emphasis from career success to creating holistic and sustainable lives.
Players will be equipped with the knowledge and resources to enforce boundaries
Players will be encouraged to reflect on their own life through playing the game
Players will develop their own understanding of work-life balance
Players have increased self-awareness after playing the game
Players will understand the consequences of a lack of balance in their lives
Players have a sustained interest in the game and will play it repeatedly or over a period of time
The game is easily accessible & affordable for the average college student
People with limited experience in games can easily learn and play the game
Starting with in-depth research to understand the core challenges, we moved through ideation, playstorming, and parallel prototyping, creatively exploring various game mechanics. This process led to the development of a promising storytelling tabletop game that embodies our vision of integrating themes about work-life balance into compelling gameplay, particularly centered around how decisions about balance are meaningful and interconnected. While our current game is an exciting step forward in this space, it is still in the early stages and will benefit from further design iterations, as well as more targeted research to evaluate how well it actually achieves our transformational goals. However, we hope our project sets the stage for future work that leverages the power of play to encourage balance.
From there, a variety of design research and game design methods were used during the development process. See the full deck below.
A full deck of game process, design, and outcomes is available below.