In communications with Unicef Mongolia and Dr. Plinio Morita of the Ubiquitous Computing Lab at the University of Waterloo, my colleague Marcela Costa and I advised the development of LIFEHACK, an educational simulation game made by youth in Ulaanbataar around sexual health, drug use, and other topics. The result was an example of global collaboration using local knowledge of the startups and the software development life cycle (SDLC) in Kitchener-Waterloo, and local knowledge of youth experiences in Ulaanbataar to co-create health products. The project was presented at a Toronto conference on global health, and methods and findings are documented here.
Mock-ups of the LIFEHACK game created by Mongolian youth. The full project can been seen here.
LIFEHACK was born out of a hackathon in Ulaanbataar with support from Unicef Mongolia as a roleplaying game showing the effects of daily choices Mongolian youth based on the creators’ own experiences. Topics ranged from health and sexuality to bullying and addictions. There were identified roadblocks in translating the idea into a commercial game leading to my involement with the project to provide expert advice.
Problem
An initial meeting over Skype with the LIFEHACK team was facilitated by a translator (Russian ← or → English) from Unicef Mongolia. Mock-ups and pitch decks previously provided were reviewed and the following problems were shared:
- Difficulty sustaining player engagement
- Lack of development talent
It became known in future meetings that a prototype needed to be developed for LIFEHACK to renew funding from Unicef Mongolia, thus the short runway for development was acknowledged.
Approach
The original approach proposed by LIFEHACK was to create 6 personas the player can play as through 6 different lifestyles, through 12 different topics. Each persona and topic combination would feature unique narrative, art, and minigames (ie. a basketball hoop shooting game for the fitness-related topic) to add interest to the narrative gameplay. Although comprehensive, the proposed content and development heavy approach was misaligned with the LIFEHACK team’s timeline.
In review of the LIFEHACK’s vision, resources, and talent, the teams’ strengths laid in their lived experiences as youth growing up in Mongolia, connections to experts in Unicef Mongolia, and artistic talent (graphic design, photography, writing).
Through two more video calls, we further understood the vision of LIFEHACK to bring the game into middle school classrooms, and shared our intentions to use concepts from Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and iterative testing in the SDLC to help them develop their project.
Proposal
The following suggestions were presented to the LIFEHACK team prioritizing prototype development and scaling:
- Prototype. Focus on creating one storyline (one persona, one topic) that has a clear flow and thoughtful research. This allows for early testing to identify issues and inconsistencies early. The perfected flow (including research processes and internal team management systems) can then be scaled to making new storylines to reduce technical debt. Developers can be later hired to scale the prototype when tested.
- Focus on narrative. Given there is limited development talent on the team, it is advised that minigames would be difficult to create. Other ways of engaging players should be revisited, and the assumption that narrative alone cannot be engaging should be tested.
- Introduce multiplayer. Social relatedness according to SDT could contribute to intrinsic motivation to continue play. If designed for classroom play, social elements could encourage discussion.
Impact
In consideration of proposed changes, LIFEHACK chose to focus on one topic (drug use), and consider other elements in future designs.
This consultation effort was presented as a poster as an example of global collaboration health research and game development.
Reflection
Local development knowledge from the Kitchener-Waterloo region could be applied to the development of products in international markets.
What I would have done differently
It was assumed that the availability of developers and classrooms in Mongolia were similar to the Canadian environment. If time and opportunity had allowed it, it would have been worthwhile understanding the startup and game development ecosystem (e.g. talent costs) in Ulaanbaatar outside of LIFEHACK’s experiences to provide more insightful advice.