Garden Pals

Overview

Garden Pals is a gamification project developed for the mobile platform, falling into the category of increasingly popular cozy games. Initially designed with a core focus of addressing the challenges introverted university freshmen face in forging and maintaining meaningful friendships, this quaint garden simulator is the perfect setting for easing students wary of change. The gardening shell not only establishes a stress-free environment where students can gradually find their footing, it also acts as a creative outlet for students to express their personality, from which casual conversations can organically sprout and flourish into strong, lifelong bonds.

Going into the project, my team and I sought to identify and tackle a real world issue which we felt was relevant to the educational context we were working in, as well as being personally meaningful for us. We flipped the script on the design thinking process, putting ourselves in the shoes of our potential users, and analysed the situation from the perspective of what we believed would be the most beneficial to us if we were the end users. This was backed with constant iteration and playtesting until we until we achieved a satisfactory product.

Social Systems

Throughout the development process of Garden Pals, we had to toe the line and know where to balance the social front of the app against the gamification aspect of the garden simulator. We want to focus on creating a platform where users are empowered to push beyond their comfort zone and form meaningful connections with others, all the while building upon the garden as a digital analogy of sorts for the user's individual growth over time.

This proved challenging as if our social systems were not engaging enough, users would find no reason to adopt usage of our app as alternative communication platforms would likely offer a more streamlined experience. Conversely, placing too much emphasis on the gardening aspect of the app alone would not support the initial problem we set out to resolve if students engage with only the game systems in mind.

Gamification Loops

We had to constantly iterate on the core loop of Garden Pal's systems so that both facets feed into each other fluidly. We build critical gameplay systems such as plant growth and currency income directly into communal acts such as garden visitation. We also ensured that our chat and friends list features are not only robust, but are as intuitive and simple as possible for ease of navigation. There are also an assortment of secondary features such as character customisation which add a layer of personality to the game, and help to tie the overall package together. Our ultimate goal is in providing a cohesive, experiential package to our users with every intertwined feature building upon each other to add value and meaning.