Neighborhood Good | Play it!
Game Designer
Project Lead
iCivics


[VIDEO] Neighborhood Good Trailer
Shipped on Web Browser, Mobile and Tablet

Overview

In this 2D educational game, you will decide what issue you are most passionate about. You will learn about how to make a change in your community by investigating the issue and learning who and how people are effected. Choose the highest impact details to make in your plan of action. And check out the live polling data to see what other users thought would be most impactful.

Learning Experience Goals

  • walk the player through a framework for identifying an issue in their community and how to address it
  • breakdown the process of civic engagement
  • utilize live player polling data to encourage social play




Screenshots of the start of Neighborhood Good. The user picks the issue they are most interested in addressing in their community then interacts with local stakeholders to see how their neighborhood is effected by the issue selected

screens of Neighborhood Good’s plan of action and details. the player must decide who should be asked to participate in the action, where the action should take place and how the event will be possible.
notes from Discovery Phase

exploring meaningful choice in game ideas. what are the most important considerations


Discovery Phase

Worked with client to identify their core learning objectives which in this case was breaking through decision paralysis in the face of making small or big change.

My design focused on systematizing the core game loop of an issue and addressing it to allow the client full flexibility and agency with creating effective content that best suited their learning goals.

Design Needs:

Beta Testing 

In early interviews with kids, we found some issues resonated more than others. For the targeted age group it was important to balance issues that would feel impactful but not be too abstract to understand.
Codesigning with our kid testers helped us really hone in on details in the course of action that made sense for a kid imagining themselves in this situation. We went through many iterations of content to really nail a kid's feeling that the game was realistic and they could take these lessons into their real life too.

Release

Designed features around real-time polling data, UI Accessibility Plugin (UAP) to enable screen reading features and dynamic color settings.

Shipped for web browser, mobile, and tablet. Play Now!

Vian Nguyen

Contact
Linked.in
Itch.ioPika Blog
Currently seeking
Educational Game Design roles
Interactive Experience Design roles
Serious Play Community of Educators and Devs
Research Assistantships for Education and Play Labs

 

About Vian Nguyen

Vian is a queer Vietnamese-American game designer and interactive artist. They are interested in game design as a means to facilitate spaces of feeling, self-reflection, and noticing the world around us all. They have a deep curiosity in innovating play’s ability to teach care, empathy, and understanding in players.

They've previously worked at Deck Nine, Harmonix Music Systems, Epic Games, and Filament Games.