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Denise Levy (Impact at the Core) designed a boardgame in collaboration with Brûs Design (Almar Bok) and Studio Nadia Nena (Nadia Pepels), in which players do not only learn about impact-driven education, but do actually get to experience it. They do so by stepping into the shoes of a group of students trying to make a positive impact in a city that's being attacked by a dangerous AI virus.
About the game
This board game mimics the experience students can have during an impact-driven course. “Roffanova”, the city where the game takes place, faces grave danger as it is under attack by an AI virus. The municipality has appointed a group of students enrolled in “The Impact City Challenge” course to address this issue. Participants must redesign the city to make it resilient to the AI virus. Each player represents a student with a different profile. During the game, participants receive updates and feedback from their teacher, the municipality and about their team dynamics: the three main parties in an impact-driven course.
This experience sets fertile ground for deep and meaningful reflection about the challenges and opportunities of impact driven education for students, teachers and learning innovators. Roffanova! is free to play for all EUR students and employees.
Objectives
The main purpose of the game is for participants to experience and reflect about the complexities involved in an impact-driven course: managing expectations from diverse stakeholders, finding their role within their team, drafting an agreed strategy and dealing with uncertainty, among others.
There are four key elements in this game
- Team Collaboration: each participant plays a unique student, with their own values and priorities. Cooperating and valuing different perspectives is needed to thrive in this game.
- Resilient Cities: the main goal of the players is to design a city that’s resilient to the AI virus, ensuring spaces that promote face-to-face interaction, community building, and knowledge sharing, among others.
- Navigating Complexity: from a glitch in the city’s computer systems to a miscommunication about the course deadline and high demands from the municipality, participants must manage the inherent unpredictability of impact-driven education.
- Experiential Learning and Reflection: the game can play out in infinite ways. The richness of this game comes from the reflection that comes afterwards. What role did I play? How did we do as a team? Were we able to create a positive impact in the city? The questions posed will depend on the target group and the focus of the activity.
Game mechanics
- Players: 3-5 players per game
- Location: any room with tables and enough chairs for each game table
- Duration: 45 minutes to 1 hour and 15 minutes
- Read the Facilitation Guide and plan your session. Depending on your target group, and focus of your activity, select the reflective questions you want to work with after playing the game. You will find great suggestions in the facilitation guide.
- Make sure you have all the materials needed: Instruction Booklet, City Tiles, Role Cards, Daybreak Cards and Resources. The Instruction Booklet contains all the information needed to start playing the game.
- Each person starts their turn by taking a Daybreak Card. Together, the team must respond to the event and can earn or lose resources. The Daybreak Cards can address 3 dimensions:
- Glitch: the Ai virus affecting the city.
- Stakeholder Notification: addressing the teams’ working relationship with the municipality.
- Assignment Update: about the team’s progress in the course assignment.
- There are 6 types of city locations that the team can use to build a resilient city: Community, Wisdom, Politics, Creativity, Teamwork and Adaptability. The team can use their communal resources to activate City Tiles. For example, if the team views knowledge sharing as important, they can use their resources to activate the City Library.
- Each participant, according to their role, has a special power that they can use during the game!
- The team has 15 days, meaning 15 turns, to make a positive impact in the city and must activate at least 10 locations to win the game.
The game is free to play for all EUR employees and students. We have 4 sets available at the Impact at the Core offices and the game is easily re-printable if needed (see Downloads).
If you have any questions about the game, please contact the Community for Learning & Innovation.
Downloads
