Today I ran a game prototyping workshop, at Dhdownunder 2019, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia.

Prototyping and Pitching Playfully Serious Games

I gave a very quick slide presentation of basic game concepts, slides here: https://www.slideshare.net/nzerik/2019-dhdownunder-game-prototyping-workshop

There were 4 groups, a total of only 9 people, and not a single digital tool or device ussed (I know it was Dhdownunder!) but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and in less than 4 hours developed the following prototypes:

Wheeling, Dealing & Stealing

David wanted to explore how games can communicate data privacy and ethics issues. His paper prototype was Monopoly-esque but also like a casino dealer’s wheel. Each player’s goal is to gain as much information about each other as they can while keeping their own profile and information unknown to the other players.

Burning Rubber

This group of four developed a collaborative  (Mad Max meets Inferno) drive across Australia board game, fighting and containing fires (and starting fires and fire breaks), depending on your character role. Entertainingly, when you finish fighting fires you take a plane to New Zealand!

I suggested it could also be called MAGA (Make Australia Green Again!) and everytime a fire took hold a tv personality on video would appear, shouting “You’re fired!”..

Heritage Road Tour

Hafiz and Bernadette (an archaeologist at the University of Newcastle) developed a game where your aim is to visit cultural heritage sites in Australia and gather local knowledge to progress further. You can be a hipster, German tourist, child, or grey nomad.

The Seven Seas of SQL (pron. Sequel)

Alan wanted to teach Structured Query Language using a game. These two developed a game with a strong pirate element, you have to move your boat across the board and answer questions, only some of which are SQL-related. There were various tactics like walk the plank, and stand on one leg, and I am still not sure how they all relate to SQL (not to mention the Kraken) but the players found it all very entertaining.

I briefly also wondered if it could be renamed Structured Quest Language, and whether the pirate theme would work better with R (Learning AARGH, me hearties!)