Lost Nebula

Project>

Lost Nebula

Role>

UX design / researcher, game design, branding / product designer

Client>

Banking customers aiming for children and parents

Team>

Strategic Design & Prototype team at Infosys Limited, Palo Alto

Objective>

Infosys Strategic Design & Prototype team created a board game called Lost Nebula to teach the saving and investment knowledge to the children of the age group between 7 and 15. Main learning goal through the board game is as followings:

• Steady income (to realize the importance of the regular income)
• Savings (to prepare for the emergencies)
• Investment (to keep the balanced and diversified portfolio consisting of bonds, stocks, estate. High risk, fast growing investment vs. stable, steady growing investment).

Technical Platform>

Physical board game. Physical and digital interactions for further advanced development.

Contribution>

As a UX researcher and designer, I participated in the UX process from the research stage through the user interview, play test and survey. After setting up the goal of the project and technical platform, I also contributed as a game designer. (group collaboration) For the final stage, our team created a high fidelity of the board game package. As a branding and product designer, I created the board game package consisting of the box, map board, characters, cards, etc.

Setting up the goal and objective of the project>

• Game interaction is a great way to let the children be engaged in learning while playing and provide cooperative play environment.
• Our design team decided to create a physical board game to teach kids the saving and investment skills. Based on the interview and survey, board game is the best game format to appeal both parents and kids and it provides the most constructive cooperative play by satisfying both educational learning goal and fun play aspects.
• Main learning goal through the board game is as follows:
  • Steady income (to realize the importance of the regular income)
  • Savings (to prepare for the emergencies)
  • Investment (to keep the balanced and diversified portfolio consisting of bonds, stocks, estate. High risk, fast growing investment vs. stable, steady growing investment)

Challenge point>

• Bank branches are disappearing due to the declining of branch transactions. We challenge ourselves to suggest how to re-organize the bank branches’ main function and boost bank customer’s active visit to the branches for their own sake.
• Potential future customer in the bank is the young generation. We challenge ourselves to suggest how to teach practical skills of the saving, investment to the age group of between 7 and 15 in an engaging way.

Process>

Research – User Interview / Survey – Game Day with Kids – Game Design – Low Fidelity Prototype – Play Test 01 – Iterations of the Game Design – Medium Fidelity Prototype – Play Test 02 – High Fidelity Board Game Package Development – Final Play Test & User Feedback – Starting the Digital + Physical Interactive Version of the Board Game

Game Design>

• Theme: 3 ~ 4 players are in the same fleet with a mission of driving the spaceship and landing on a new planet called Hope. In order to make the way, players strive to gather clues to navigate to Hope’s location, collect resources, and protect the spaceship from the aliens attack and unpredictable disasters.
• Goal: There are 9 puzzle pieces in the universe, players need to collaborate with each other to gather at least 7 puzzle pieces of Hope and collect enough resource to safely land on Hope.
• 5 types of energy generator that produce fuel for the spaceship:
  • Nuclear Fusion Reactor – Similar to the real estate investment
    (Entry-1000 energy point, return time-3 rounds, return rate-10%~100%)
  • Solar Sail – Similar to the stock
    (Entry-100 energy point, return time-1 round, return rate- -100%~100%)
  • Biomass-Similar to the high-yield corporate bonds
    (Entry-700 energy point, return time-1 round, return rate- -50%~100%)
  • Liquid Propellant Rocket Engine – Similar to the bond
    (Entry-100 energy point, return time-1 round, return rate- -0%~10%)
  • Solar Panel – Similar to 401K
    (Entry-100 energy point, return time-3 rounds, return rate- 5%~25%)

  There are 5 wheels each represents the energy return rate of the corresponding energy generator. Player needs to spin the wheel at the return time to decide their return.

• Galaxy Map: Showing the unknown planets and connection routes between each other. There are many planet tiles. Before playing the game, players place the tiles randomly on the galaxy map. There are different kind of planets such as Resource planet, Universal Trade Center, Abandoned planet, etc.
• Characters: Warrior, Doctor, Trader, Protector
• Points: Energy points, Ammo points, and Health points
• Puzzle: Each time the players collect three coordinates of the same color, they could reveal that corresponding puzzle piece. If 7 pieces are revealed, the planet Hope will be revealed and activated, then the team of the players could fly to Hope
• Play: Player can choose one of these actions in their turn: Invest, Explore, Reveal puzzle, Trade
• Disaster Event: At the end of each round, players have to reveal one event card. There are 3 types of event cards: Big disaster, Alien attack, Planets sudden destructions
• Energy Generator Disasters: When the disaster happens, all the players with that certain energy generators will lose their energy generators and their un-finished investment will fail
• How to Win: Survive all events together. Collect 7 puzzle pieces, and fly to Hope all together with enough energy points (Hope may be far away)
• Game End: One of the players lose all Health points. Less than 7 puzzle pieces left(If more than 2 planets with the same color coordinate are destroyed, then players lose the corresponding puzzle piece)

User Feedback>

One of the most difficult things through our game making process was to adjust the difficulty levels. We went through lots of game play tests and found out the extreme cases of So Easy to Die and So Easy to Win. Through the user play tests, we could get the feedbacks that they could learn how to keep their balanced portfolios and adjust different diversified investments to get the most high earning profits. More than that, cooperative play environment was leading the student players to be engaged in each other in more fun, passionate, and energetic way.

What’s Next>

Design team has also started physical + digital version of the board game room experience so that student players can play the same board game experience through an interactive room experience. This physical + digital version demo was shown through the confluence exhibition