Hello everyone, and welcome to CivRep’s week three blog!
Brainstorming
Our team began week three by brainstorming about CivRep.
We created a virtual whiteboard and started putting some questions we had on there to discuss over. Some of the questions we had were:
What is civic engagement?
Will the game be multiplayer or singleplayer?
What are we trying to do with this project?
What is our goal in this project?
By getting everyone to throw their questions out into the open and discussing them, we all gained a better understanding of what we all thought CivRep was about, and which aspects of the project still needed some clarification.
Transformational Framework Jam-board 
Role-Playing Game Jam-Board 
Defining our Deliverables
After the brainstorming, our next step was to clarify what CivRep is trying to accomplish. We began by trying to answer some key questions:
What is our client’s ultimate goal?
What is CivWiz?
CivWiz is a mobile civic learning app made up of three modules: trivia, word scramble, and roleplaying.
What is CivWiz’s goal?
How does CivRep fit into the greater CivWiz project?
Our client has a general idea of how the trivia and word scramble modules will work, and has begun development on them with another dev team. For the roleplaying module, our client has already created a prototype that was playtested in an in-person setting. However, he is still trying to figure out how to translate the roleplaying module to a virtual environment, and this is where the CivRep team comes in.
What is the Roleplaying module?
In this module, guests roleplay as city council members who must discuss and vote on various public policy proposals in order to make their city a better place for all. The core of this module is the conversation and discussion that occurs between the guests as they try to decide whether to vote yes or no on various policies.
So what is CivRep’s role?
Our team’s role is to explore how we can design the role playing module so that it successfully accomplishes our client’s transformational goals in a virtual environment. In order to do this, we will rapidly prototype and iterate on the existing roleplaying module prototype in order to discover what works best, and what needs adjustments.
What is our deliverable?
Our deliverable will be a playable prototype of the roleplaying module that the client can either continue to work on, or get design concepts and data from so that they can more successfully develop the roleplaying module moving forward.
Choosing our Platform
After reviewing multiple candidates, we chose AirConsole as our platform. We believe that AirConsole will best support our goals because of the following strengths:
Ease of Access
AirConsole is a very easy to access platform. Guests simply need to download the AirConsole app or open AirConsole on a browser and they will be able to try any of the games on the platform. This will allow us to playtest more often with ease.
Two Screens
AirConsole allows for us to utilize two screens: one shared screen from the host that all guests can see, and another screen on the guest’s phone or computer, where they will see information only shared with them.
We believe that by designing around these two screens, we can help make the discussions in the module more engaging and interesting for the guests. By facilitating which information is shared by all, and which information is shared with only certain guests, we can better design and structure the roleplaying experience to be transformational and engaging.
Works both in Remote and In-person Settings
Another one of AirConsole’s strengths is that it works in both remote and in-person settings. For a remote setting, guests can set up a zoom call and have the host screen-share the main screen while the other guests interact through their phones and zoom. In an in-person setting, the host can share the main screen either through projectors or on display monitors, while the other guests can use their phones. This flexibility means that CivRep can be used both during and after the pandemic.
Existing Robust Infrastructure
AirConsole already has the infrastructure needed to host a synchronous multiplayer experience. This allows our team to focus our efforts on the design of the project without having to spend extra time on building up the networking infrastructure of the project.
In order to help our client better understand why we chose AirConsole, we planned a special little event for our week three client meeting…
Civics in a Robe
Gnomes in a Robe
Gnomes in a Robe is a BVW world from the 2020 fall semester that was built on AirConsole by a team that included two of our teammates, Jeesub and Yuji. We chose this game since it has many characteristics that we hope to have in CivRep.
It is a co-op game
Gnomes in a Robe is a game where three guests roleplay as three gnome brothers stacked on top of each other trying to pass a wizard exam. In order to succeed, the guests must work together, much like in CivRep.
Asynchronous Information between guests
In Gnomes in a Robe, the three guests have access to different pieces of information and actions, and they must share that information and work with each other in order to succeed.
This was achieved by utilizing AirConsole’s ability to allow each guest to access two screens: the host’s main shared screen, and each individual guest’s phone screens. By splitting up information between these two screens, the game was made so each guest would have specialized on their phone screens, and then coordinate with each other by looking at the main screen.
We would like to have a similar dynamic in CivRep, where guests have access to different pieces of information and perspectives, and must share and collaborate with each other in order to make the best decisions for their city.
Discussion-Centered
Lastly, Gnomes in a Robe is a very discussion-centered game, where guests must communicate with each other in order to succeed. The game uses AirConsole’s unique traits and game design to not only encourage discussion, but also make it engaging and fun. This is exactly what our team would like to achieve in CivRep as well.
By using Gnomes in a Robe as a demonstration of how AirConsole works, we were able to communicate effectively to our client, Ron, how this platform would be optimal for our project. Now that we confirmed that we were on the same page as our client, we could proceed with the next steps of our project.
For Next Week
Looking ahead, we are creating a virtual paper prototype that we will playtest on Zoom. It will be based off of the concept and contents provided by our client from their previous playtests. We plan on testing new features regarding the roleplaying aspect of the experience, to explore how we could better facilitate guest transformation.
Thank you for reading, we’ll be talking more about our playtest in the next blog. See you then!