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Final Character + Action Card Images

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Final Game Images

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Game Rules

Laying out the Game Rules. I printed them onto double sided card to be kept in the game box

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Week 12

Logo Development

Final Top Box Design

Character Sticker Designs

On Monday morning I sent everything away to the printers to be printed.

Materials and Game Construction

 I got a board made, eminent of a classic board game covered in buckrum with a four fold. I got a vinyl stickers printed of the board design to be stuck over top. Once the sticker was stuck on I then scored one side and cut through once side to create the four fold. The box for my game was also printed onto vinyl stickers. To create my player pieces I used the laser cutter to cut shapes out of MDF wood I then spray painted them and stuck vinyl stickers of my illustration designs on.

Agi putting her board game sticker onto her board.

Player tokens spray painted

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Human Centred Design Framework

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Week 11

Board Design Development

Layout

I did lots of mockups/sketches of how I wanted my board to be layed out, and figured out the exact size I wanted it to be.

Design

Name Development

Name ideas:

Awa haerenga Mountains to Sea Kaitiaki ... Water bends Something & Rapids Eels ... River restoration Stepping Stones

The name ‘Stepping Stones’ refers literally to river stones but it also a metaphor for taking small steps to make change for the environment. This game aims to help children recognise small actions can make a positive change to the overall biodiversity and water quality of freshwater waterways.

Final Board Design

Character Cards Development

I Experimented with having the character illustrations on both a light blue card background and a green background. I decided the green coloured background stands out more and is more eye catching for kids. The other side of the card will be the same light blue I used in the action cards.

Final Character Cards Design:

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Week 10

Illustration Development

I have decided to continue with the same illustration style and aesthetic as I originally designed. This illustration of a river landscape I could use for the box design for my game.

Typeface Choice

I also chose to keep the same display typeface for components of my game. (Bely display) such as the game name, the action cards title, and the character card titles.

For easy readability, especially for young children I used a simple rounded sans serif font. (Sofia Pro)

Action card Design Iteration

Final Action Cards Design

For my final designs I used a dark toned blue as the text for the best legibility, A dark blue for the action heading and a lighter tone of the same blue for the description. The positive or negative number in the right hand corner is in the Bely display font to keep it cohesive to the other game elements.

The action cards (both positive and negative have the same design on the back, again in dark blue with a white transparent strip for the best legibility. The illustration is a section of the river landscape illustration which will cover my game box and possibly be made into another touchpoint e.g poster.

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Week 9

Characters

I decided to have 6 different player characters, all native NZ river species. Each character card will also have the species Māori name included. Character Content:

Eel/ Tuna

Kia ora, I am an Eel/Tuna. I migrated as a young eel from the sea up stream to find my adult habitat. I hunt using my nose with my god sense of smell. I am special taonga to Maori.

Likes: Inland rivers and lakes, Hiding under rocks and logs, hunting for live food

Threats/dislikes: Fishing, Habitat loss, water pollution

Conservation status: At risk, declining

Whitebait/ Īnanga 

Kia Ora I am a whitebait/inanga. I was born in freshwater then swept out to sea with the tide then return to rivers and streams in spring. I like to live in different places, from tiny creeks, to coastal rivers, lowland streams, lakes and wetlands. I usually come out at night and I’m very good at hiding. I find shelter and food in bushy streams. I have a silver belly and forked tail.

Likes: Costal streams and rivers, Hiding under rocks, swimming fast

Threats/dislikes: Habitat loss,

Conservation status: At risk, declining 

Torrent fish/Panoko

Kia ora I am a Torrent fish/Panoko. I usually live in shallow, fast-flowing rivers and rapids near the coast. I don’t often swimming against the rapids, instead I live under loose gravels and cobbles.I come out at night to feed. I feed on smaller bugs and worms in the riverbed. The pectoral fins are very large and triangular, angled so that water flowing over them presses the fish against the riverbed, helping them to stay in position in fast-flowing water.

Likes: Coastal rivers, living deep in the river under rocks

Threats/dislikes:

Conservation status: At risk, declining

Freshwater crayfish/ Kōura wai māori - shorten: Crayfish/Kōura

Kia ora I am a freshwater crayfish/koura. I am found in streams, lakes and ponds. I am dark green and mottled like the stones I live amongst, camouflaging myself. My waving feelers and black beady eyes are all that you can see. I stay hidden during the day, moving around mostly at night.

Likes: Camouflaging

Threats/dislikes: Predation by introduced species, habitat loss

Conservation status: At risk, declining

Dragonfly/ kapowai

The edges of wetlands are good places to find me. and damselflies. I like shallow water, with a lots of plants including rushes and aquatic weeds.

Likes: Flying fast

Threats/dislikes:

Conservation status:

Blue Duck/Whio

I am forever watchful, I will always see you before you see me. My Māori name Whio depicts the sound of the male bird call. I am found no where else in the world, and rarer than some species of kiwi.

Likes: Fast flowing rivers, clean, healthy water.

Conservation Status: Threatened, Nationally Vulnerable 

Character Illustrations

I wanted my illustration style to be representative of the same features and similar colours to the real life species. I did this so they could be possibly recognised my children if they saw any of these freshwater species while exploring/studying a river/catchment area. Despite this I did increase the saturation in the colours a little more and gave them friendly looking eyes to keep them fun and appropriate for young children.

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Week 8

Research into Game Design for kids

https://fundayfactory.com/media/147699/age-appropriate-game-design-for-children.pdf

Game planning

Board Game: Players have to get from the start of the river to the end -Each space they land on is a stone Action cards to land on - either positive or negative actions to do with freshwater conservation. -Positive - move forward spaces -Negative - move back spaces Character cards each player gets a character card for which river animal they pick - bio about animal: Likes, dislikes, conservation status

Planning what the board will look like

Research into Freshwater River Species: Freshwater fish: https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/freshwater-fish/

Other river species: https://teara.govt.nz/en/rivers/page-5

Brainstorming river animal character cards + action cards

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Week 7

I signed up for the workshop this week to help me position my project.

Notes from the workshop:

From this I created the Human Centred Persuasive Framework. It helped me think about who my audience is and what their influences, motivations and barriers are and therefore create an output that contextualises this.

Freshwater Conservation Research Resources I looked at and used for content:

http://www.gw.govt.nz/assets/council-publications/Mind%20the%20stream%20booklet%20Full.pdf

https://www.doc.govt.nz/globalassets/documents/getting-involved/students-and-teachers/habitat-heroes/habitat-heroes-education-resource-streams.pdf

https://www.doc.govt.nz/globalassets/documents/conservation/native-plants/streamside-planting.pdf

Game Precedent -Freshwater Board Game

I found this game which had be designed by a school with the department of conservation. I took inspiration from it for the content of my own game and used and reworded some of the ‘freshwater actions’ they had used for my own game.

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Week 6 - Super Critique

Feedback

Love Illustrations

Lots of ‘why's’ from kids, what is it - questions

Is it I or we interacting - designing for a group of children to interact/learn together

Kids love rules

Help from teacher

Are we exploring a place / the environment

Kids love advent calenders, do the cards slide out of something?

Pop up book

Still needs a beginning - contribute to the narrative

Narrative: 

storybeats - main parts in a story

build story around storybeats

The game of awesome - Tim Parkin

Little groups could work out a task together as a team

Simple task then go nuts

Ownership because they are in control

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Week 5

I am now thinking of creating picture cards/prompt cards for children to use instead of a single book. I would still be creating a narrative but making it more interactive and engaging.

Whitiwhiti Kōrero/Exchange of ideas Presentation

Feedback

Start testing with kids

Get drawing/narrating

Kids make their own stories, pick a path adventure, input your story, trust yourself to write the story but build in choice.

Type is good, graphics are cute, mature but good, very NZ looking.

Maori world view is not overly assertive

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Week 4 - First Showing

 Updated Moodboard

Poster

Feedback:

Look at Robin White NZ artist, similar illustration style Narratives of Conservation -  phrase is essentially what my project is about Anthropmorphism - common in children's story books.

I have decided to narrow down my area of conservation education to look specifically at waterways/rivers. This will help me moving forward with creating my narrative of conservation and my final output. (Children's publication)

Designing

I began designing and developing my illustration style this week, I prefer to use vector based illustration. I want my illustration style to be suitable for kids but still mature, and the colour palette to look realistic of NZ landscape/rivers - Earthy/muted colours not bright greens.

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Week 3

Moodboard: Illustration styles and format inspiration

I am thinking of incorporating paper engineering/pop up style book into my publication.

Notes/Research into Storytelling

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Sem 2 - Week 1 + 2

Key Feedback from Sem 1 to take forward:

“Native” has negative connotations for indigenous Maori. Change to Natural or endemic if talking about unique to NZ. 

Use Maori language where possible

Project Compass

After sharing my project compass and an idea of my final outcome with my new P+ group and Jason, the feedback I got was to create something I want to do not what I think I should be doing.. A children's publication is what I originally wanted to do, creating a narrative for children through storytelling.

Te Reo/Tikanga Maori/Using a Maori world view

I should be mindful incorporating Te Reo/Maori world view into my project, educate myself enough, talk to people and think about how prominent I want it to be in my final output. Is the connection/education around the natural environment the more important aspect of my project?

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Timeline

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Reflection

On reflecting, my research project has a few gaps, especially around precedents with what I am going to create as my solution. I also think I need to expand my knowledge around Māori terms and phrases and local myths/story telling methods. This will help me begin to build my content for what I want my young audience to learn. It would also be helpful to talk to a couple more teachers/ reconnect with Sonya to build on my ethnographic research and get some more perspectives from people on my topic. Finally I need to do some more research into different avenues of environmental projects for children and chose one to focus on e.g restoration/planting, water conservation and waterways.