Success Stories
The team created a browser-based solution that allowed multiplayer synchronous gameplay. The features we created in the game include:
- Robust user management system (assigning different roles and teams)
- Dynamic sandbox mode with scenario-building functions to help instructors to craft custom scenarios, and to preset game state
-Integration of sophisticated rulesets and managing their interactions with one another to accurately simulate combat, light of sight rules, aircraft launch and ammo preparations
- In-built chat function and whiteboard tools
- Trainer tools for instructors to keep the play experience dynamic and unpredictable
The simulator offers engaging and strategic multiplayer experience to trainees while serving as an invaluable training tool for instructors to craft their own training scenarios.
With the core objectives in mind, the team developed bespoke gameplay with the following features:
1. Use of Tangram as a base mechanic
Tangram – a 7-piece puzzle that when arranged differently form various shapes, was used as a core mechanic for the teams to navigate through. Tangram puzzles have varying difficulties and we intentionally designed for the difficulty to scale over time, giving players a sense of confidence and mastery over time.
All Tangram puzzles can be assembled from the same pool of component shapes. That allowed us to distribute each piece as a resource via different channels. We set up activity stations around the ballroom for participants to gather more components for their teams.
Back in their bases, gathered pieces are given to ‘builders’ to help complete the Tangram puzzles. This creates a base level of busywork that all participants can partake in while managing the crowd flow in the ballroom.
2. Team Success vs Our Collective Success
The key tension we created in the gameplay experience was to provide opportunities for all teams to focus either on gaining more points for themselves, or to contribute in fending off global attacks.
Teams were also encouraged to trade information and resources with one another, to point towards the need for collaboration in their workplace.
Station Activities had a combination of competitive and collaborative challenges. Competitive challenges encouraged participants to do their best individually against the other teams, whereas collaborative challenges required participants of different teams to work together successfully in order to score more resources for their own teams respectively.
3. Multiple Roles in Each Team
We gave teams the ability to designate 1 of 3 different roles (builders, engineers, miners) to each player.
This gave players autonomy to decide how they want to approach the game. Oftentimes, players would leverage their strengths (i.e. if a player is good at physical hand-eye coordination, they gravitate towards the Miner role that takes part in Physical challenges to earn more resources for their teams).
This mimics real-world teams where different members contributed to the team’s success based on their individual skills and specialisation.
The Capital protects all cities against external threats.
Scouts report specific threats and their intents
at the start of each round.
Each Player can select their desired role for each round. Different roles require different skillsets, and players can leverage their strengths in contributing to their team's goals.
Players work together as miners, builders and engineers to build different buildings for their cities. The Capital needs players' assistance against threats - cities send their resources and engineers for the greater good.
If the Capital is not sufficiently protected against the threat, penalties will apply to ALL cities.
It is important for cities to work together while competing against each other.
The Living Theories team worked on developing an engagement strategy for the exhibition for all engagement stages from pre-engagement, in-exhibition engagement to post-exhibition engagement.
Some features that we helped to implement include:
- Overall engagement strategy and design-thinking
- Conceptualization and co-design of Exhibition Webgame
- Development of in-exhibition brochure and ticket engagement mechanisms
The Now Boarding Exhibition was well attended by visitors throughout its run. Visitors immersed themselves in the dioramas that spoke of Singapore’s tourism history with fun and engaging mechanics. The exhibition even received a ringing endorsement from PM Lee Hsien Loong on his personal Facebook post on 30 May 2023.
The OneEarth Challenge is a 2-week programme where students go through a game experience that combines both physical and digital elements.
Students first report their travel mode to school at physical kiosks in school. Students are rewarded in-game for travelling to school via car-lite options. After school, students log on to the digital world where they are met with a diverse cast of characters. These characters provide games, quizzes and info-bites to help students gain knowledge about sustainability.
The programme will culminate in a celebration event where participating schools are invited to do a mass tree planting, and receive personalised OneEarth school completion certificates.
1. High Engagement
Differentiated player roles - Players were tasked to be Bosses, Managers, Runners and Chefs, each with their own set of rules and responsibilities.
Scaling difficulty - Rounds got more difficult over time, and players have to work with increasingly limited resources while continuing to produce high quality and consistent results.
2. Areas for Creativity and Innovation
Chefs are given the freedom to design their dishes in a visually appealing way.
When resources become limited, restaurants have to improvise with other ingredients.
End of game bonus challenge requires bosses to work with AI-generated images to present their signature dishes.
We developed a gamified orientation programme for new employees, where they had to navigate their way through the premises of the Group as a team.
We also developed a repository for staff to input their service culture learnings into a common platform for sharing, and created bi-monthly learning programmes for senior managers to engage with their staff in.
Learning Point:
Onboarding programmes are a great way to introduce engaging and interactive elements to new employees, since it sends a strong statement of openness and progress to new staff members. It helps immerse new joiners in the organization’s culture and values, and creates a unique way for new team members to create bonds and friendships.
A key component of the workshop is the use of the ‘Journeys’ board game. The game allows players to play through 4 stages of life. Throughout the game, they are encouraged to balance between spending on Life Experiences and saving for their Retirement.
The game ends off with a series of facilitated questions that allows players to share their decision-making process with one another, and to evaluate if their character had lived a meaningful life.
After the game is complete, the workshop facilitator makes reference to the gameplay mechanics to elaborate on key CPF concepts, so that Grassroot Leaders have better learning outcomes and knowledge retention.
We developed a gamified experience titled “Secrets of the Gallery”, where participants played as agents tasked with collecting sensitive information within the Gallery.
The team folded Gallery rules and etiquettes into the Game (“Do not touch the paintings or the sensors will trigger and you’ll all be immobilized!”) and created environments for participants to express their thoughts on the art pieces.
The team was subsequently tasked to develop a version of this game for the Gallery senior management team to experience as well.
The Living Theories team utilized Gather.Town, an online meeting tool that allowed participants to create their own avatars, explore different zones and rooms, and connect with each other digitally. The team created a suite of different interactive spaces, including role-playing, lightning quiz rounds and “magic carpet” discussions that allowed participants different ways of interacting with each other and sharing their perspectives and thoughts with the community.
The Living Theories team helped to successfully conduct and facilitate two digital sessions of the new ‘Kopi Chat’ on Gather.Town with the Holler team, before handing over the reins for future runs.
The Living Theories team worked collaboratively with the SIT team to design an engagement solution to help increase student engagement, motivation and learning outcomes.
As the lab sessions have a fixed syllabus method of delivery due to existing hardware and software infrastructure, we created gamification elements AROUND the lab sessions.
The 3 main components of the design are:
Creating an Overall Narrative - We associated each lab topic to an amusement park ride
Info Capsule - Includes info-bites about the associated park ride, and some side quests for students
Post-Lab Engagement - Added assignment questions related to the associated park rides
With the core objectives in mind, the team developed bespoke gameplay with the following features:
1. Use of Tangram as a base mechanic
Tangram – a 7-piece puzzle that when arranged differently form various shapes, was used as a core mechanic for the teams to navigate through. Tangram puzzles have varying difficulties and we intentionally designed for the difficulty to scale over time, giving players a sense of confidence and mastery over time.
All Tangram puzzles can be assembled from the same pool of component shapes. That allowed us to distribute each piece as a resource via different channels. We set up activity stations around the ballroom for participants to gather more components for their teams.
Back in their bases, gathered pieces are given to ‘builders’ to help complete the Tangram puzzles. This creates a base level of busywork that all participants can partake in while managing the crowd flow in the ballroom.
2. Team Success vs Our Collective Success
The key tension we created in the gameplay experience was to provide opportunities for all teams to focus either on gaining more points for themselves, or to contribute in fending off global attacks.
Teams were also encouraged to trade information and resources with one another, to point towards the need for collaboration in their workplace.
Station Activities had a combination of competitive and collaborative challenges. Competitive challenges encouraged participants to do their best individually against the other teams, whereas collaborative challenges required participants of different teams to work together successfully in order to score more resources for their own teams respectively.
3. Multiple Roles in Each Team
We gave teams the ability to designate 1 of 3 different roles (builders, engineers, miners) to each player.
This gave players autonomy to decide how they want to approach the game. Oftentimes, players would leverage their strengths (i.e. if a player is good at physical hand-eye coordination, they gravitate towards the Miner role that takes part in Physical challenges to earn more resources for their teams).
This mimics real-world teams where different members contributed to the team’s success based on their individual skills and specialisation.
The Capital protects all cities against external threats.
Scouts report specific threats and their intents
at the start of each round.
Each Player can select their desired role for each round. Different roles require different skillsets, and players can leverage their strengths in contributing to their team's goals.
Players work together as miners, builders and engineers to build different buildings for their cities. The Capital needs players' assistance against threats - cities send their resources and engineers for the greater good.
If the Capital is not sufficiently protected against the threat, penalties will apply to ALL cities.
It is important for cities to work together while competing against each other.
1. High Engagement
Differentiated player roles - Players were tasked to be Bosses, Managers, Runners and Chefs, each with their own set of rules and responsibilities.
Scaling difficulty - Rounds got more difficult over time, and players have to work with increasingly limited resources while continuing to produce high quality and consistent results.
2. Areas for Creativity and Innovation
Chefs are given the freedom to design their dishes in a visually appealing way.
When resources become limited, restaurants have to improvise with other ingredients.
End of game bonus challenge requires bosses to work with AI-generated images to present their signature dishes.
We developed a gamified experience titled “Secrets of the Gallery”, where participants played as agents tasked with collecting sensitive information within the Gallery.
The team folded Gallery rules and etiquettes into the Game (“Do not touch the paintings or the sensors will trigger and you’ll all be immobilized!”) and created environments for participants to express their thoughts on the art pieces.
The team was subsequently tasked to develop a version of this game for the Gallery senior management team to experience as well.
The Living Theories team worked on developing an engagement strategy for the exhibition for all engagement stages from pre-engagement, in-exhibition engagement to post-exhibition engagement.
Some features that we helped to implement include:
- Overall engagement strategy and design-thinking
- Conceptualization and co-design of Exhibition Webgame
- Development of in-exhibition brochure and ticket engagement mechanisms
The Now Boarding Exhibition was well attended by visitors throughout its run. Visitors immersed themselves in the dioramas that spoke of Singapore’s tourism history with fun and engaging mechanics. The exhibition even received a ringing endorsement from PM Lee Hsien Loong on his personal Facebook post on 30 May 2023.
We developed a gamified orientation programme for new employees, where they had to navigate their way through the premises of the Group as a team.
We also developed a repository for staff to input their service culture learnings into a common platform for sharing, and created bi-monthly learning programmes for senior managers to engage with their staff in.
Learning Point:
Onboarding programmes are a great way to introduce engaging and interactive elements to new employees, since it sends a strong statement of openness and progress to new staff members. It helps immerse new joiners in the organization’s culture and values, and creates a unique way for new team members to create bonds and friendships.
The Living Theories team utilized Gather.Town, an online meeting tool that allowed participants to create their own avatars, explore different zones and rooms, and connect with each other digitally. The team created a suite of different interactive spaces, including role-playing, lightning quiz rounds and “magic carpet” discussions that allowed participants different ways of interacting with each other and sharing their perspectives and thoughts with the community.
The Living Theories team helped to successfully conduct and facilitate two digital sessions of the new ‘Kopi Chat’ on Gather.Town with the Holler team, before handing over the reins for future runs.
The team created a browser-based solution that allowed multiplayer synchronous gameplay. The features we created in the game include:
- Robust user management system (assigning different roles and teams)
- Dynamic sandbox mode with scenario-building functions to help instructors to craft custom scenarios, and to preset game state
-Integration of sophisticated rulesets and managing their interactions with one another to accurately simulate combat, light of sight rules, aircraft launch and ammo preparations
- In-built chat function and whiteboard tools
- Trainer tools for instructors to keep the play experience dynamic and unpredictable
The simulator offers engaging and strategic multiplayer experience to trainees while serving as an invaluable training tool for instructors to craft their own training scenarios.
The OneEarth Challenge is a 2-week programme where students go through a game experience that combines both physical and digital elements.
Students first report their travel mode to school at physical kiosks in school. Students are rewarded in-game for travelling to school via car-lite options. After school, students log on to the digital world where they are met with a diverse cast of characters. These characters provide games, quizzes and info-bites to help students gain knowledge about sustainability.
The programme will culminate in a celebration event where participating schools are invited to do a mass tree planting, and receive personalised OneEarth school completion certificates.
A key component of the workshop is the use of the ‘Journeys’ board game. The game allows players to play through 4 stages of life. Throughout the game, they are encouraged to balance between spending on Life Experiences and saving for their Retirement.
The game ends off with a series of facilitated questions that allows players to share their decision-making process with one another, and to evaluate if their character had lived a meaningful life.
After the game is complete, the workshop facilitator makes reference to the gameplay mechanics to elaborate on key CPF concepts, so that Grassroot Leaders have better learning outcomes and knowledge retention.
The Living Theories team worked collaboratively with the SIT team to design an engagement solution to help increase student engagement, motivation and learning outcomes.
As the lab sessions have a fixed syllabus method of delivery due to existing hardware and software infrastructure, we created gamification elements AROUND the lab sessions.
The 3 main components of the design are:
Creating an Overall Narrative - We associated each lab topic to an amusement park ride
Info Capsule - Includes info-bites about the associated park ride, and some side quests for students
Post-Lab Engagement - Added assignment questions related to the associated park rides
