How has your learning, and/or feedback influenced your thinking about the direction your project is taking? How are you integrating the literature into the plan?
As I mentioned in the last blog, the informal feedback I have received regarding my project has made me acutely aware of my limitations in terms of this project, and how little I know about game design and fostering meaningful engagement. When discussing it with my peer from Education Futures, who has been a teacher for 10+ years, she noted the important of competition in motivating children – throughout the game, competitive aspects have to be foregrounded. I have been thinking about how to frame this, either through a kind of ‘race to AI & data safety’ or perhaps something similar to the monopoly model of gathering as many ‘AI & data safety’ resources as possible. Silverman (2013) talks about the different designs of board games, calling the former ‘family or classic board games’ and the latter ‘Euro-style games’. The difference in the two is highlighted through competitive aspects, trading of resources, and chance of winning through luck alone. Initially I thought I wanted to do a more straightforward approach of following a designated path to reach a goal, but upon reflection, the necessity of competition pointed out by my peer from Education Futures encourages me to go for a more ‘Euro-style’ approach. Silverman (2013) also encourages coming up with some kind of theme – if my board game centres around AI and data rights, we can have ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’. For instance, I could have hackers/data villains and data security officers. I could also have a game where data has been ‘stolen’ from the players, and they have to work to get as much data back as they can based on legal principles, with bonus points for ethical considerations. Silverman (2013)
Upon consulting with my undergrad thesis supervisor, he encouraged the idea, calling it ‘fun’ and ‘effective’. However, knowing my flair for design and focus on presentation, he cautioned against getting too involved in the optics, advising me to foreground ethical and educational considerations. For me, this was good advice, as I tend to focus too much energy on delivering a perfect product, where that energy could be better spent on figuring out the logistics. This advice has driven my motivation in starting early, and figuring out how to bring the information across with maximum simplification and minimum one-dimensionality. Silverman (2013) also points out the importance of limiting the complexity of a game before you know what ease you will have in designing the game.
I will continue to reflect on Silverman’s (2013) advice for developing a board game, working through his steps. I’ll also attempt to search for some free online tutorials, and begin to make a Miro board for continuous brainstorming and iterations.
Silverman, D. (2013). How to learn board game design and development. Retrieved November 15, 2023.
Hi Savannah, the game seems like a great way of communicating your topic to children and it sounds as though it will be fun to work on too, good luck with it!