Introduction
CivRep is a discovery project exploring how gamification of civic learning could help university students become civically engaged citizens.
Client
Our team’s client was Ron Idoko, the Diversity and Multicultural Program Manager at the University of Pittsburgh. Ron teaches public policy courses at his university, and one thing he is always looking to do is promote civic knowledge, not just in students studying the social sciences, but also among students in other fields such as the hard sciences. His proposed solution to this challenge was CivWiz, a multimodal civic learning mobile game designed to foster and assess student civic knowledge across academic disciplines. CivWiz has three modules, word scramble, trivia, and roleplaying. After running an in-person playtest in 2020, Ron and his team have managed to begin translating the word scramble and trivia into a mobile game. However, the roleplaying module turned out to be a bit more tricky, which is where we came in.
Goal
The CivRep team’s task was to take an in-person multiplayer role playing activity, and explore how it could be converted into a mobile game.
Team
Our instructors were Dave Culyba and John Dessler.
The following is our team:
Xin (Simon) He – Artist
Annie Hsiao-Ching Huang – Co-Producer, Game Designer, UI/UX Designer
Tianrun (Martin) Ke – Programmer
Jeesub Lee – Programmer
Yuji Sato – Co-Producer, Writer, Sound Designer
Deliverables
Our project had two main deliverables
Documentation
Playable AirConsole Prototype & Manual
Through countless playtests, prototyping, and iterations, we arrived at our final prototype: A singleplayer civic learning game where players roleplay as city council members and get to experience the legislative process of passing a bill in local government. Along with this prototype, we will be handing off a playtest manual to our client so that they will be able to comfortably use our project.
What went well
Efficient and Effective Prototyping and Playtesting
Our team was very effective at conducting rapid, effective prototyping and playtesting. Starting with the in-person multiplayer activity handed to us by our client, we began by translating the activity into a virtual setting by recreating it in google slides, then playtested it remotely by utilizing Zoom screen share. After deciding to use AirConsole as our platform, we first ‘paper’ prototyped CivRep by using Google Slides and Zoom screen share once again to mimic AirConsole’s main screen, and used Slack direct messages to send figma images to our playtester’s phones in order to mimic AirConsole’s mobile screen interface. By creating these ‘paper’ prototypes, our team was able to rapidly playtest in the first few weeks, giving us valuable information that informed our design throughout the semester.
Client Communication
Our team maintained clear, solid communication with our client, and we did not surprise each other, for better or worse, throughout all of the semester. We kept in touch for all of our design decisions, and updated whenever adjustments were made, and both parties are happy about how this semester turned out!
Organization and Transparency of Information
Our team also maintained a steady stream of communication with each other, and took great lengths to organize and coordinate our efforts. All team members were aware of what everyone else was doing, and knew what they were supposed to do for most of the semester.
Team Dynamic
Lastly, our team just got along very well as a whole, and our meetings were always productive and fun. We not only got to know each other as colleagues, but also as friends and fellow ETCers.
What could have been better
Playtesting with Target Audience
One thing we struggled with was playtesting with our target audience. Although our team conducted a decent number of playtests, the people signing up for them were already civically engaged citizens, and not our target audience. It was only towards the end of the semester that we managed to find suitable playtesters with help from our client. One thing we definitely could have done is try to find playtesters from our target audience sooner in the semester.
Deeper Dive into Single Player
Our team spent a lot of time translating the in-person activity into a game, and CivRep remained a multiplayer experience for much of the semester. Although we managed to convert the CivRep into a single player game in time, our team definitely wanted to spend more time exploring that space, and discover how we could design the game to be more engaging and interactive for our players.
Game Design Documentation
Throughout the semester, we tried a variety of ways to document our iterations and design progress, from Google Slides, Miro, and figma. In the end, we settled on a combination of spreadsheets and visual mockups in figma to communicate design iterations to various team members, and we found that this system made it much easier for us to not only document changes, but also improved the transparency of what was in progress, what needed to be done, and what had been done already.
Lessons learned and conclusion
Rapid Paper Prototyping
One of the greatest things we learned was the importance of rapid prototyping in the early stages of the project. Instead of spending too much time thinking or building up a full prototype, our team built a series of “paper” prototypes using a variety of tools. This form of prototyping turned out to be a great way to start off the semester for a variety of reasons such as:
- It allowed us to test and iterate on our ideas efficiently before investing too much effort into building a full prototype
- Making these quick prototypes was a great way of making sure everyone on the team was on the same page
- The feedback and data we gathered from the playtests gave us a solid direction to follow and a good design foundation to build our next prototypes upon.
Documentation
As mentioned earlier, our team learned that proper documentation is key to successfully implementing our design iterations into the build. The increase in productivity after we found a good way to document our design changes was eye-opening, and something we will all take to heart in our next projects.
Having Fun is important
Lastly, we all found that having fun is important. Our team maintained a positive, warm atmosphere for the whole semester, and we came up with the best designs when having fun throwing around crazy ideas. This kind of environment made it easy for us to be honest and open to each other, which contributed to the success of the project.
Conclusion
The CivRep team had a great time. We achieved what we planned to do, learned countless lessons, and had an enjoyable semester overall.