For my job at work, I'm thinking of designing a board-game that can be used by secondary students in a range of Pacific and Asian countries as an educational resource celebrating diversity. I'm a first-time game designer (though as a hobby for many years I've been a miniatures wargamer). I'm interested to see if anyone has any thoughts around such a game?
- The aim is to encourage young people to understand and respect other cultures and religions, thereby helping to bridge the divides between communities and societies around the region.
- It will look at eight themes: life celebrations and rituals; design of homes, other buildings and public spaces; consumption of food and drink; clothing; methods of transportation and travel; pastimes; and the stye of arts and artefacts.
- It would have to be simple enough that the school could download and print-out all the resources (board, cards etc), as it is likely to be distributed on the web rather than in hardcopy. However, it is not going to be a web-based game, but a board game.
- It must have only simple language, as it may have to be translated into quite a few languages.
- As it is for secondary schools, it needs to be a bit more than just snakes and ladders!
A tall order, I think?!
Roly
That's an interesting idea, SiddGames. I like the concept.
The game is supposed to be one that supports a classroom learning programme about diversity. I had imagined that it would be played as individuals players in small groups (possibly rewarding collaboration between players), but your idea expands to a maybe a whole class moving round the room and trading, which is something I hadn't thought of.
I presume a game like this wouldn't need a board. You would just have cards (8 x number of countries) plus a number of the role cards? Give the kids a small number of cards to start with, then get them walking round the room trading, but every now and then deal out extra cards to them? Then have a final tally-up at the end?
Great thing about this is that it would be easy to disseminate to out-of-the-way schools in different countries as a black-line master they could copy and cut out, then use. Could even have spaces so they make up their own graphics to go on each card.
I like it!