Project S44 – Resourcity

A fun and educational board game for ages 10 and above

An educational board game that teaches players about resource management, scarcity, and sustainability through role play and cooperative gameplay.

Introducing Project S44 – Resourcity

Resourcity is an educational board game that aims to raise players’ awareness of Earth’s finite resources, and how over-consumption can lead to scarcity and compromised resilience. Through role play, cooperation, and thoughtfully crafted rules, the game introduces players to concepts such as collaborative resource management and compounded consequences of irresponsible consumption. These concepts help players to uncover diverse approaches to addressing resource constraints, and learn how to work together to create a regenerative and sustainable city.

Team members

Aretha Low Jing Yan (ASD), Dingal Lim Jing Li (ASD), Joanne Ng (ASD), Tao Sihan (CSD), Wang Siyang (CSD), Chan Kah Yan (ESD)

Instructors:

Cheung Ngai-Man

Writing Instructors:

Susan Wong

Project Roadmap

Research

The reliance on fossil fuels has propelled industrial progress thus far, but studies have predicted resource depletion by 2030 due to overdependence. Energy decline underscores the need for systems thinking, emphasizing the intricate Feedback Loops and interdependencies within complex networks.

Complexity Theory highlights the nonlinear dynamics, emphasizing the significance of collaborative behaviour in addressing these challenges faced by our common resource pool.

Prototyping

The board game development process involved understanding educational goals, testing various game elements, and iterating based on feedback. Initial prototypes inspired by luck-based games like Monopoly proved ineffective, leading to a pivot towards Eurogames like Carcassonne and Pandemic, fostering teamwork and strategic thinking. Through iterative design and playtesting, the game achieved a balance between entertainment and education, enhancing players’ comprehension of resource management and sustainability.

Final Design

The game mechanics and rules were crafted meticulously, ensuring that every aspect of the board game were thoughtfully designed and user-friendly. Details such as the colours of the board game tiles and the wording of instruction booklets were refined, based on feedback gathered from four playtesting sessions involving SUTD students and the public. Nanjian, a renowned board game manufacturing company, was engaged to manufacture the board game ensuring the quality was of professional standard in every aspect of our product.

How does Resourcity achieve educational objectives?

Resourcity is carefully designed to educate players on Energy Limits, Collaboration and Systems Thinking

Energy Limits

Collaboration

Systems Thinking

Energy Limits is portrayed by the fixed number of resource tokens. During gameplay, these resources are deducted in exchange for actions. For example, planting crops need water and food while changing tiles require fuel.

By prompting players to factor in the diminishing resource pool in their decision-making, they are encouraged to not only consider the monetary costs but also the resources needed in their daily lives in a city, and how they can take positive action to replenish such resources.

The game encourages players to collaborate with each other as they either win together, or lose together. If all of the resources run out during the game, the whole team will lose. This unique mechanism prompts players to work together to coordinate their actions to maximize their common goal of finish the game with a sustainable and resilient city.

Systems Thinking entails understanding closely interconnected systems and their dependencies. For example, expanding road networks in urban planning may ease traffic congestion but could exacerbate pollution and urban sprawl.

In the game, prioritizing well-built cities for higher scores involves changing tiles, which in turn reduces fuel in the resource pool needed for building other facilities like water catchments. This highlights the importance for players to consider how their everyday decisions can have unintended consequences, which they should take into account as well.

Game Components

The city is built with tiles, and each player has a superpower. Together, players learn to manage the resource tokens with farming. More information can be found in the Game Booklet, while key information is available on the Instruction Card.

Game Website

To help make the game more attractive by increasing the competitiveness between teams in workshops and reducing setup time by providing game instructions to all players on demand, the game website complements the game by enhancing the experience.

Acknowledgements

We express our gratitude to:

Professor Cheung Ngai-Man for his invaluable guidance, friendliness, and patience throughout our Capstone experience.

Dr Cyrille Jegourel for relaying important information to keep us well-informed.

TCHS members Ar. Catherine Loke, Ar. Kuan Chee Yung, Professor Bige Tunçer, Mr. Larry Yeung, and Er. Ricky Chan for enlightening us on the energy and resource crisis, and being with us every step of the way in the last eight months.

Dr. Susan Wong for her insightful feedback on our communications deliverables.

Last but not least, to all participants in our game testing sessions for shaping our prototype into its current polished version.

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Team members :

Aretha Low Jing Yan

Architecture and Sustainable Design (ASD)

Dingal Lim Jing Li

Architecture and Sustainable Design (ASD)

Joanne Ng

Architecture and Sustainable Design (ASD)

Tao Sihan

Computer Science and Design (CSD)

Wang Siyang

Computer Science and Design (CSD)

Chan Kah Yan

Engineering Systems and Design (ESD)