Over the past two weekends LLST Director Matthew Stevens and Project Assistant Ben Stevens had the privilege of attending an online workshop on Building Virtual Board Games provided by Vancouver Film School. The course was delivered by Jay Cormier, owner of Off the Page Games and designer of many successful board games including Akrotiri, Junk Art, Belfort, In the Hall of the Mountain King, and MIND MGMT.
Throughout the course, Matthew and Ben learned the ins-and-outs of Tabletopia, which appears to be an excellent and affordable program for anyone looking to recreate a tabletop experience online. Learning about game design from an experienced designer like Jay Cormier provided many lessons that are sure to be useful in the creation of future LLST simulations. Additionally, Ben and Matthew were able to meet with other professionals and enthusiasts from the gaming world.
Perhaps most excitingly, course participants were asked to form teams and build an alpha prototype of their own board game designs. Matthew and Ben were able to convince two classmates to put their collective efforts toward a humanitarian learning game, which is showing some early promise. We look forward to our continued work with Terry Pearce (of 360 learning designs and Untold Play) and Victhor Kronemberger as development on this project progresses.