Game Design · City of Vancouver · Feb & Sept 2020
Vancouver Survivor
A team-based card game and microsite for the City of Vancouver that empowers newcomer youth to become aware and prepared for potential earthquakes.
How do we make emergency preparedness more accessible?
The design brief was provided by the City of Vancouver's Community Resilience team, who were looking to change how they deliver and target the distribution of existing emergency preparedness materials on their website.
The scope was narrowed to newcomer youth due to a 51% increase in the amount of international students coming to British Columbia, and because a 2014 Emergency Preparedness survey showed immigrants and visible minorities are significantly less prepared for earthquakes than their domestic-born counterparts.
Three insights from 10 interviews
From conducting 10 interviews with newcomer youth from a variety of cultural backgrounds — China, India, Vietnam and Italy — three main insights drove the design direction: newcomer youth are not engaging with existing emergency preparedness materials because of pre-existing assumptions, reliance on others, and ineffective distribution channels.
The solution needed to be mindset-challenging, empowering, and targeted.
Four principles guiding every decision
Team-based card game to build awareness
Learning through play has shown to be effective in long-term behaviour change. A card game can use visuals and simple language to help newcomer youth communicate with more ease, overcoming cultural and language barriers.
Entry point: The City of Vancouver was recommended to partner with the Vancouver School Board and MOSAIC's Engaged Immigrant Youth Programs as an initial entry point to introduce the card game during their social events.
View game instructions
Learning through play
Resource cards need to be collected to overcome hazards in the game, stimulating awareness about the resources you will need for different potential situations that could arise from an earthquake. Resource content was retrieved from PreparedBC's website, representing actual items needed for an emergency. Universal icons were used so newcomer youth could identify with the resources regardless of language background.
Mind-shifting from unaware to aware
The design challenges the perception that Vancouver is not prone to earthquakes through Vancouver-based hazard cards inspired by local testimonials from BC's past. Local landmarks were depicted as stories within the cards to bridge a personal cultural connection to the risk. An NFC tag embedded in each card plays a local hazard video when a phone is placed on top.
Empowering on personal responsibility
Newcomer youth are empowered through the game by taking on a role in their team, representing that they play an important role in helping others in their wider community during an earthquake. Each role card gives players a specific responsibility — making preparedness feel personal, not abstract.
Bridging the physical and digital experiences
Players scan a QR code within their role card for a more intuitive transition to the microsite — a mechanic borrowed from multiplayer trading card games that newcomer youth are already familiar with.
Microsite to reflect on real-life preparedness
The questionnaire is integrated within a gamified microsite placed within the existing touchpoint of the City of Vancouver's website. The downtime when a player gets eliminated from the game is used to set them up to be prepared.
View microsite prototype
Self-reflection on personal preparedness
A questionnaire helps newcomer youth critically evaluate their in-game knowledge and household preparedness behaviours. The data behind the preparedness levels of all other players of Vancouver Survivor is revealed so newcomer youth don't feel like they are alone.
Celebrating preparedness, maintaining encouragement
Regardless of a high or low score, an uplifting tone is maintained to ensure newcomer youth still feel encouraged and compelled to become prepared.
Sparking the conversation about preparedness
Inspiring their social network
Newcomer youth are prompted to share their preparedness scores on social media through a premade Instagram story with a hyperlink to the questionnaire — creating an individual commitment for self-preparedness and acting as a call-to-action for others in their immediate social circles.
Igniting a conversation at home
A personalized earthquake kit list is provided — tailored to each user's individual home needs with real prices and links to locally-partnered retailers — serving as a conversation starter when they go home to talk to their families about earthquake preparedness.
Two playtesting rounds, iterated in the open
Two separate playtesting sessions with newcomer youth allowed the team to iterate on the game's mechanics, progression, and card aesthetics to improve learnability for novice players. Rough paper prototypes were used first, then more refined cards with visuals.
Feedback from testers indicated the game made them aware, but not prepared in real life — which led directly to the inspiration for the microsite, extending the experience from the physical card game to the City of Vancouver's website.
