Play to learn

The problem

PwC approached PLAY in order to create a better way to validate employees' training. They were already using a third party "escape room" game, but wanted something they could customise and make their own, so they could white-label it for their clients. It needed to be multi-player and enticing users to work together finding a solution rather than putting them in strong competition with each other. The goal was to validate previous training, not to grade individual employees.

The solution

After organising a couple of workshops with the client, to define scope of the game, mechanics and to collect information about its users, the initial and most pressing goal was to obtain stakeholder buy-in. For this, I oversaw the work of another designer and an external illustrator to create an initial library of UI game interfaces and background environments.  I then used these to create a prototype which I used to present a walkthrough of the game to the client’s main stakeholders, ensuring initial funding was approved.

The hard work

I remained as sole designer and worked on the interface panels to build the room experience: I devised the UI elements and interactions needed to create the experience (action events, questionnaires and room asset placement) as well as designing all assets needed for the initial product, many in multiple states. The graphic style conformed much more to a corporate clean design and for the game interface itself I opted for a 2D flat design (as 3D would pose a whole range of technical problems which we could not tackle at this stage of the project).

I designed and delivered all admin panels first, so the game could be built and we could start experimenting and testing (user stories and QA), while I left the bulk of the illustrations at the end, making sure I was designing and building in the right size and format (svg files) just once. This also allowed me to design batches of client-specific assets and environments PwC requested while they started presenting the product (as part of their services) to some of their clients.

The outcome

I remained close to the project through the testing and QA phase as I ended up being the only one who was on the project from the initial meeting all the way through delivery, about 6 months later (this from our side as well as from the client’s side) and therefore I had the best knowledge on the logic behind the game and our choices. One could say I became the product owner...

We delivered the MVP, which was well received internally by PwC who proceeded to transfer the whole game into their environment. We have continued support for a while, just to ensure they were able to set it up properly and start testing it with clients, but after that we have had no contact with PwC as PLAY ceased to exist after merging with hundo.