Research and Design: Introducing ‘Disaster’ (Week 3)
By: Lauren Busser
Tags: Ideation And Prototyping, Research For Design, Game Design, Card Game

Following up on our primary research and ideation of possible interventions my partner Soham and I decided to move forward with building a game that we have tentatively called Disaster.

Our intervention took an unexpected turn though when we shifted from a mobile game to a card game.

Given the ubiquity of technology, it seemed like a natural choice to develop a mobile game. That platform would have allowed people to connect from afar and even develop online communities to share resources.

However, there was something about the idea of a card game that seemed to maximize chance and allow for more intimate conversations.

We started about what parts of our mobile game would translate into a paper card game and found that if we created enough decks with enough variables we could create something that would mimic life itself.

After thinking about possible gameplay, we decided to think about the socioeconomic factors that tended to keep people in homes that flooded. We constructed a set of 20 cards that had different functions and would allow for different variations.

Our decks included the following:

Occupation Cards: These cards give each player an occupation and yearly salary.

These cards give each player an occupation and yearly salary. House Cards: These give the player a home or living situation.

These give the player a home or living situation. Insurance Cards: These lay out the insurance terms for their home.

These lay out the insurance terms for their home. Asset Cards: These had items such as bank accounts, vehicles, and other assets (liquid or otherwise).

These had items such as bank accounts, vehicles, and other assets (liquid or otherwise). Circumstance Cards: These cards presented life scenarios that would affect a player’s circumstance.

These cards presented life scenarios that would affect a player’s circumstance. Green Cards: Green cards gave the player a chance to decrease their carbon footprint.

Since the goal of the game is to bring awareness about climate change, we wanted to include weather and natural disasters. So, we added two sets of dice to the game pack. One will have different types of weather printed on it, and the other would be a numerical die that determines the severity of certain types of weather such as snow and rain.

The game box will also include a scorecard or money/currency that would give the players purchasing power. If we went with a scorecard, we would want the card to be reusable.

Gameplay

The game works as follows:

At the start of the game, each player takes an occupation card, a house card, an insurance card, and an asset card. This determines their circumstances at the start of the game. They also draw five green cards to be played at any point. Some of the actions cost money so they’ll need to keep track of their income to make sure they have enough.

When each player takes a turn they pull a circumstance card. Some circumstances are good and some are bad. Some will reward you, and some will cost you.

At the start of their turn, a player can opt to use a green card to try to reduce their carbon footprint.

As the game continues, players keep track of their income and carbon footprint.

The game can essentially continue this way until all players are bored, and they want to put the game away.

The winner is determined by money in the bank, structural damage to their home, and/or the lowest carbon footprint allowing for variation in gameplay.

Designing The Cards

Soham and I collaborated on Figma to design the cards, but then I printed them out and used the same techniques I used on my tarot deck to make physical ones for our final presentation.

We started off making a mood board of some climate change art and various storytelling card games that we could use to draw inspiration from. We opted to use some of the colors that jumped out at us in our physical cards.

From there we started translating the colors into physical cards. It was very important to us that we gave each card a distinct color, and that we notated the cards well with enough information to help players determine their actions.

Each card in the deck also got a distinct back so that players would pick from the correct pile when needed.

Creating Physical Cards

I took our creatives from Figma and printed it in our Brother INKVestment printer. Using spray glue I affixed one side of the cards to colored cardstock and then cut them out.

Since my templates didn’t align perfectly, I opted to cut the other side of the cards out then affix them to the other side of the colored cardstock. Each card was made of three layers of 60lb cardstock.

The janky spray adhesive made another appearance.

Where We Want to Go From Here

We had a few things we haven’t figured out yet with the game including intervals of time, and how the money would be dispersed to each player.

We were drawing on inspiration from games like Life and Pokemon for functionality, but haven’t quite nailed down what would work. We think user testing might be the best way to go to test that.

We also want to expand the deck to include more scenarios.

It would also be interesting to explore a print-at-home distribution model where players can print the card decks on their home PC.

Final Thoughts

Overall, we think that Disaster is a card game with potential, but we really need to spend a little more time fleshing out finer details to make sure there is no question as to how the game is played. We also want to test the game before distribution.