22.09.2025 - 24.10.2025 （Week 1 - Week 5)
Lew Guo Ying / 0365721 /
Bachelor of Design in Creative Media
Collaborative Design Pratice
Task 1: Empathy map & problem statement
Index
Instructions
MIB for Collaborative Design Pratice
Requierement:
In this group project, we
are required to
select an existing game concept
developed by students from another module and
collaborate directly with its original creators. The goal is to further
develop their conceptual idea into a tangible, physical board game
design.
At the beginning of the process, our focus is to
conduct research,
understand user needs, and
analyze the gameplay experience
to ensure the redesign remains meaningful and user-centered.
Through this stage, we are expected to complete both the
Empathy Map and the
Problem Statement, which
will define the foundation for our upcoming design development.
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Fig1.1 The Gluconomy
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Before starting the task, our class conducted a selection process among two
proposed game ideas, and our group decided to choose
The Gluconomy.
After understanding and playing the prototype, we found that it is a
biology-themed game that
visually presents more of an
economic system. The
gameplay includes elements such as
Power Cards, a
Bank,
Investment,
Stock Market,
Dice, and even a
Jail system.
In essence, players must
convert glucose into ATP to
achieve victory. Throughout the game, players can use
Power Cards to
interfere with others,
while luck also plays a key
role — as many actions depend on
dice rolls and
daily stock card draws to
determine the outcomes. This summarizes the
overall gameplay and rule structure
of The Gluconomy.
After Play Findings
During our group playtest of
The Gluconomy, several
practical and rule-related issues
were identified. These affected both the
clarity of gameplay and the
strategic balance of the
overall experience. The findings below summarize key areas that require
improvement in future redesign phases.
1. Unclear Investment Rule
– The Investment section does not clearly explain
how dice results determine returns, leading to confusion and
inconsistent outcomes.
2. Contradicting Start Conditions
– Players are told they can only start with one glucose, yet
Investment requires two or four glucose to activate, creating early-game
contradictions.
3. Ambiguous Dice Turn Order
– The rule states players roll dice to decide who starts but
fails to specify clockwise or counterclockwise order afterward.
– This caused long setup times and confusion, especially in six-player
sessions where the turn sequence became disorganized (e.g., 1→4→6→3→5→2).
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Fig1.2 Gameboard
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4. Limited Board Space & Token Overlap
– The game board layout is too compact, causing
overlapping glucose and ATP tokens between players’ areas.
– This led to difficulty tracking resources and frequent accidental
interference.
5. Glucose Token Shortage
– Frequent use of glucose for multiple actions (investment, trading, stock)
quickly caused token shortages, forcing players to reuse or take from
the board, creating clutter and potential unfairness.
6. Restricted Power Card Usage
– Each turn allows players to either use one
glucose or one power card, which makes
Power Cards underused during gameplay.
– Additionally, limited acquisition channels (only from opening hand,
Investment rewards, or reaching 10 ATP) reduce card variety and cause
shortages of Shield cards, leading to unbalanced play.
7. Confusing ATP Count & Victory System
– The ATP system is poorly managed, with all ATP stored in one pile
without clear ownership tracking.
– Players often lose count or accidentally take extra ATP, making it
difficult to ensure fairness.
– Reaching 10 ATP (draw card), 15 ATP (guess odd/even), and
18 ATP (win) conditions further complicate tracking, causing
unnecessary confusion and repeated recounting.
Task Distribution
At the beginning of the project, our team divided the
Empathize stage into
several key research and design tasks to better understand the existing game
and its users. The aim was to collect references, analyze user needs, and
define clear directions before entering the ideation stage.
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Game Research – Collect
and analyze references of similar tabletop games (mechanics, packaging,
and visuals).
Deliverable: A
moodboard presentation
summarizing trends in educational and strategy-based board games.
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User Personas –
Identify
2–3 player types such
as bioscience students,
casual game players,
and
professional board gamers.
Deliverable: Persona sheets
outlining
age, interests, motivations, frustrations, and playstyle.
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Motivations & Pain Points
– Discuss as a group the
frustrations and satisfactions
players might feel while playing
The Gluconomy, combining our
playtest findings with
interview feedback to
reflect multiple user perspectives.
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Game Design Briefing
– Summarize the
core goals and problem statement
based on the original creators’ intent:
“We are redesigning
The Gluconomy with
high-fidelity packaging and card revamp to make it more modern,
educational, and user-friendly.”
Collaboration with Original Creators
We also arranged a
meeting with the group who originally designed The Gluconomy
to understand their
initial concept, target audience, and design challenges.
Through the discussion, we confirmed that their
main target users are bioscience students, and we also exchanged ideas about solving rule inconsistencies, refining
mechanics, and enhancing visual clarity. This meeting helped align our
design vision and set a
shared goal for the game’s further development.
Final Output
After gathering all insights, we combined the research into a
presentation slide deck
that summarized:
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Gameplay issues and user feedback
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Personas and empathy maps for three audience types
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Moodboard of visual direction (including
color scheme,
typography, and
art style)
This presentation allowed us to
present and validate our findings, receive
feedback from peers and lecturers, and prepare for the
ideation and prototyping stages.
Presentation Slide
Feedback
Week 3
This week, our lecturer Mr. Shamsul approved our moodboard and research direction, mentioning that the overall concept was clear and well-aligned.
However, he advised us to meet with the original creators of The Gluconomy to further understand their design intentions and gather their feedback. This step was important for us to ensure that our redesign stays consistent with their original learning goals and vision.
Week 4
In Week 4, our lecturer confirmed that the current submission was good to go and that we could now proceed to the low-fidelity prototyping stage.
This marked the transition from research and analysis to hands-on experimentation, allowing us to start visualizing how our design improvements could enhance gameplay and user experience.
Reflections
Experience
Although I had designed games before, this was my first time collaborating across different batches to develop someone else’s concept into a physical game. It was quite challenging because we were not allowed to modify the original rules or fill in missing parts freely, which limited our creative flexibility. We had to carefully refine and patch unclear sections of the game to make it playable without major loopholes.
The time constraint also made it difficult to fully understand and test the entire gameplay flow, leading to some confusion during the early stages.
Observation
After discussing with the original creators, we realized that their initial idea was not fully planned for gameplay design, which explained why several mechanics were either missing or inconsistent. This discovery helped us understand the root cause of many unclear rules.
We also noticed that the game’s target audience (bioscience students) did not align perfectly with its mixed biology–economy content, which raised questions about how to maintain both educational and entertainment value effectively.
Findings
This experience taught us how to analyze and improve an incomplete system while respecting the original creator’s intentions. It strengthened our ability to collaborate under constraints and adapt creatively within fixed boundaries.
Moving forward, I hope our team can obtain a physical copy of the game to conduct more playtests. This will allow us to discover hidden flaws and refine the gameplay further, ensuring smoother progress in the next stages of prototyping and design development.
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