A project undertaken as part of second year, as a group of five we decided upon aiming our project at the target market of children. This played a vital part to our theme, design style and game mechanics. We wanted a colourful game that was easy to understand and quick to play to keep the attention of the audience. We decided on a theme of friendly monsters as we found with research that this was a popular topic amongst children. With this in mind we were in need of a setting for the board game. An idea of an ever changing expandable game brought us the idea of rooms in a house. This meaning the main board was made up of four separate boards representing different rooms in the house. The boards able to be removed and replaced with expansion packs as children love collecting. This flowed into the digital side of the brief, in which we decided to create an application in which the children can create their own monster from a selection of pre-designed shapes and colours. They can then go on to name their created monster and look after it within different rooms of the house to keep it a happy monster.
THE BOARD GAME
Designed to be interchangeable each board comes as a separate piece with a two hollow section in the base allowing for connection through a unique fastener. The game allows for any four boards to be connected together, and still result in the same game play. This making an ever changing appearance to the game allowing for children to be more engaged with the game. Each board designed as a room in a house. To show our concept we developed five boards, the lounge, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and study. The boards were produced to a high quality using CNC machinery to mill out the boards and to create the connectors. The board design was then printed in Vinyl and laminated for that high quality finish. This was then applied to the boards to create a finished board game.
RULE BOOK
As every board game comes with a rule book, Spooks is no exception. This book tells the users the story of the Spooks and introduces each of the eight characters.
Following this the book becomes the rules for the game play, giving instructions on how to play the game. Their are two versions to the game, a short game and a long game, this allowing users to choose depending on how much time they have to play.
The book shows each of the game boards and and counters for collecting, showing the user how to set up the board. Also contained is a link to the digital application.
BOX DESIGN
Wanting to keep the box in the theme of the game we brought in our brand elements of the logo and colour stripes featured on the rule book and playing cards. The character Meow-Meow features on the box holding the age range notification. The sides of the box feature houses representing the house theme of the game. The bright and colourful box, we believe would stand out on the shelf in a shop and appear to the target audience, children aged 5+.
We wanted to create something to keep the audience engaged with the Spooks brand when not playing the board game. With the current trend of digital iPad games for children and the engagement this brings we decided this was the path to go down. Keeping within the theme of the board game, we created a digital game which allowed the users to look after their own personal monster in a digital environment replicating the boards they have physically.
Users are able to customise their own personal monster by choosing from pre-defined body shapes, eyes and mouths. From this the user is able to colour in their monster from a choice of colours. Finally they are able to name their monster and give it a place of birth and date of birth.
Users are able to view their characters status. The character is given a status which is effected by each room. So the bedroom relates to energy and hunger relates to the kitchen. As users expand their board game and add in the room to their digital Spooks world more stats appear. The user can move through the rooms to increase their characters status and make it happy. The monster will be hiding so you have to find it first. The user is also able to take a picture with their custom monster.
