Games for Democracy – a journey to the moon

In September, we kicked off the 3rd iteration of Projekt CH+, together with the Prototype Fund. Our new prototype will  be more playful than previous versions. We are Sophie, Emma, Oliver and Florian, an interdisciplinary team of game designers and we are the youngest team at the Prototype Fund. What we lack in experience, we make up with enthusiasm… and maybe one or two jokes, while we’re at it. Our passion for developing educational games has brought us together. Looking back at the last four months, we can confidently state: Our learnings have made us grow up so much, we feel like we might no longer be the youngest team.

So, does old age come with wisdom? We’ll let you be the judge of that:

Communicating

Game development brings people with various skill sets together. Gameplay, visuals, music and content creators meet to create unique experiences for users. In our case, Emma and Sophie design the visuals, Oliver and Florian write the code. Those who work on a given day, meet online on a daily basis to coordinate and work with visual mockups early on to ensure that we are all on the same page. Even though team meetings do take time from other, seemingly more productive activities, they are absolutely worth the time as we have come up with unique and creative solutions.

Scoping

We are shooting for the moon. As a team, we are not very fond of playing it safe. Where’s the fun in that? Maybe it is the fact that most of us spend quite some of our free time in fantastic game worlds is one of the reasons why we aim for fantastical outcomes in our work. While we continue to aim for the moon, we have learned to plan our journey and know that we need a couple of pit stops before our moon landing.

Being Flexible

While project timelines and development plans provide stability, these plans should not be set in stone while prototyping. Especially when working with an iterative approach, new challenges pop up on a regular basis. Even if we love our initial ideas, staying open to and seeking constructive criticism and implementing feedback even if it means adjusting timelines is key for reaching the moon one day.

Now, dear reader, if you think that all these points are pretty obvious, you are perfectly right. But – a big BUT (and we cannot lie): we’ve realised that there is a big difference between knowing these things and experiencing them.

We are trying to use the best of what game design has to offer in order to make political self-education fun and entertaining for all ages but especially young voters. This is not an easy task and we are constantly being challenged, in our technical fields of expertise but also in our first experiences as a young team under pressure to perform to our own, but also external expectations and aims. In the end, it all comes down to playing towards each other’s strengths and pulling towards the same vision.