FamilyFort
In many homes, there are multiple people living together. In some cases, there are even multiple generations who share the same living space. It is not easy to maintain a positive relationship as friction between people might increase over time. One of the causes for this friction could be a large difference in personality and traits. This is almost unavoidable when there are people from entirely different generations living in the same home. People from different generations may have different ideas and beliefs, but there is even a chance of them not even speaking the same language. This might lead to household members drifting apart, which is unwanted. Ideally, all members of the household should be able to at least tolerate each other. The goal of this project is to design for improving the relations between members of a multigenerational household.
With people from different generations living in the same home, friction between those people is almost unavoidable. However, the goal of this concept is to turn that friction around and have people with different qualities help each other. The medium chosen to do this is a game that combines digital, physical and boardgames to create a playful and fun experience that keeps inviting people to better themselves.
There are two main ways in which people can improve themselves: Through skill and behaviour.Both of these ways are being tackled by helping people to learn new skills in a cooperative fashion. The game customises the player’s learning experience based on their personal needs. This means the type of challenge and the difficulty can be adapted to each player. The game is designed to be played by virtually all age groups, which means it is accessible and challenging at the same time.It offers nearly an endless amount of co-op mini games that allow the players to learn from the game, as well as from each other. The challenges can vary from flipping a switch to solving a puzzle, but they usually don’t take more than a few minutes to complete to make sure they do not interfere with the players’s schedules. Some of the challenges can be completed through players’ individual control panels on their smartphones, others require physical actions. For some challenges, the game might require the use or help of other smart home devices that are available like lights, curtains or even ovens.
The game is also designed to be as unobtrusive as possible to make sure it does not interfere with the players’ schedules. This is why the game will not send any push-notifications via the app. To notify the player of a new challenge, the master device is used. This master device should be placed in a central area of the home, like the living room or kitchen. It will show which challenge is live and who is invited to play it.
To keep the players motivated, each week of challenges forms a chapter. In each chapter, the different households that play the game will compete against each other. If friends or family also play this game, they can compare their results on the leaderboard which will be displayed on the master device. The chapters all have different themes. These can be random or seasonal.
In short, the game offers a customised co-op learning experience that aims to improve relations within multigenerational households.
