Fly to Parsons

This games is designed for both the people who want to apply for Parsons and those who are studying in Parsons now. Applicants will have a brief understanding about the application procedures. Accepted students can recall their application experiences and always remember their initial determination.

We had a draft at first. Later we gave up that one because it was complicated and might confuse other players. Our final work aims at being as simple as it can be but showing the essential of getting into Parsons. The game consists of three parts, the situation cards, avatars, and the map. There are stars on the map. When a player stops at a star, he/she may pick one situation card and follow the instructions on the cart. The instruction cards can be lucky cards or punishment. They are designed according to possible situations on the way of applying for Parsons. The lucky ones can make players move forward getting closer to the end. The punishment can stop you for one turn or move players backwards. Our map is a one way map. Except the two fast passes (where the airplane icons are), every player is taking the same path. The avatars are made based on each group member’s own design. There not so many colors used in the whole work. The cards are black and white; the map only uses colors on fast paths; only the avatars are colorful.

This design implies our emphasis on the players. Our members came from different cultures. Our experience are also different, even though we prepare similar materials. We faced different situations, bad or good, on our ways. These are not only showed on the avatars, they are also showed in the situation cards. All of the situations are based on our own experience. For example, some cards are obstacles like late application submission, mistakes made by agencies, being rejected on the first year, being on the waitlist, etc. They are all our own experiences. The procedure to Parsons seems the same for each player. Only the applicants are diverse. It is the applicants who enrich Parsons. It’s the applicants who make Parsons colorful.

When we became one group, it was a little bit hard for us to discuss and make decisions. The aim of this project is to hear from each individual’s opinion in order to create a game that suit for the public players. However, having a group to make works done involving different weights of roles. Some people are making more decisions than others. Some people are having more ideas than others. Some people may do more works than others. These are inevitable. We tried to ask individual’s thought by directly call on people’s name while discussing. When people are having strong ideas, instead of going opposite ways trying to stop their ideas, we join the idea and make it even strong. We support the ideas to make the individual’s idea become our group idea.

Out of my expectations, the assessment from other groups are mostly positive. They agreed on out rule instructions; they like the decorations on the map; they appreciate the avatars. The only big problem we had is the storage. We needed a box to store the pieces so that we can carry it. After discussing about the size of the box, we let the box be the same size with our map. Even though it is big, we don’t want to fold the map to destroy the wholeness and clean style.

I was responsible for the game draft and preparation part, but the old design wasn’t understood and accepted. I provided the materials for the first class. Later, I’m in charge of the avatars: I collected people’s avatar designs and scanned them. I edited all of them to make sure they are in the same size. The front and the back need to match with each other as much as possible. I also followed up the people who didn’t give me their avatars. I built a little box for the avatars. Also, I built the big box for the game. Other than the game itself, I tried to support our group by speaking in English all the time. I tried to ask everyone’s opinion when we were having hot discussions. Trying to keep our group on track, I reminded my group members to bring the materials and answered their questions, like the class contents they missed while they were doing something else, confusion about the homework assignment which were posted on the blog, and any kind of stuff.