| Instructional
Objective | Learners
& Context | Object
of Game | Game
Materials |
| Time
Required | Rules | Design
Process | References |
Instructional
Objective
The learners will be able to identify the
factors that lessen or aggravate the acne and be able to
get better understanding of the causes, symptoms, and
available treatments of acne and simple skin structure
Learners
& Context of Use
The game is designed for teenagers,
age 12 to 16, who are interested in acne information.
This board game would be used off
school for self-learning, or be used after a unit of
study on acne problems. Discussions would precede the
playing of the game and a debriefing would follow.
Object
of the Game
The object of the game is to remove all
the zits on the face card and have some treatment left.
Game
Materials
- Game board
- 4 playing pieces, each a different shape
- A six side die
- 4 pieces of face paper
- A bunch of zit stickers
- a bunch of playing money
- 1 stack of chance cards
- I stack of opportunity cards
- 1 stack of treatment cards
- 1 stack of do or don't cards
- 4 copies of cheatsheets contain correct answers
Time
Required
The game is for 2 to 4 players and will
play for approximately thirty minutes to an hour. Players
can determine the length of the game by deciding to
either assign a certain amount of time for responding
questions or a designated amount of treatments or money
needed to collect before they begin.
The Rules
Roll
the die to see how many zits the player needs to
put on. Highest amount of zits goes first.
Roll
the die again to decide how many spaces to move.
on
their turn, each player rolls the die and moves
the number of spaces shown on the die in a
clockwise direction around the board.
If
the player lands on a:
Opportunity
Space-Take one card on the top of opportunity
deck. Read the card to the group and
either follow the directions or answer the
questions. The rest of players either check
the answer or respond the request. For
example, the direction could be "Choose
one player to explain why stress aggravate
acne", "Ask
one player point out the sebaceous gland
on the picture of skin structure" or the
player have to demonstrate the proper washing
routine and the rest of players will be the
judge.
Chance
space- Take one card on the top of chance
deck. Follow what the card indicates, either
positive results (remove zits, collect money,
and etc.) or negative results (put more
zits back on, lost turns or lost money)
Question-mark
space-Take one card on the top of do-or-don't
deck. Read
the card to the group and answer the yes-no
questions. If correct, remove one zit away or
gain $10; if incorrect, put one zit back
on.
Triangle-face
Space- Take on card randomly from the treatment
deck and keep it until needed or sold.
The player negotiate to decide the selling or
buying price.
Ghost-face
Space-Put one zit back on.
Smiling-Pumpkin
Space-Remove two zits away.
Clinic
Space-Lost three turns unless the player
has the pass card.
Chain
Space- Move to the inner or outer circle
. The inner circle is designed to be the
Risky Path where player will have more chance
to remove zits meanwhile have larger
possibility to put more zits on.
If
the players do not sure about the correct
answers, they can refer to the cheetsheets.
There
are two discussion activities shown on
the opportunity card which are designed to make
the game have different level of difficulity. If
the players know the contents well, they can
discuss in-depth issues such as the side-effect
of the medication, the questions they should ask
the doctor when they have a clinic visit, the
glossary of acne and etc.
When
the player removes all the zits away and has the
designated amount of treatments left, he/she wins
the game.
Design
Process
In the beginning, I try to design it as a
race game. The player arrives at some place first
will win the game. However, it's not really relevant to
the instructional goal. Then I start to think my goal,
help players lessen the acne, and another idea comes up.
How about remove or put zits on? Therefore, I
design the layout of the board as two square cycles,
inner and outer. The inner would be a risky path to
increase the excitement of the game.
Another question arises, how to create a
time- and cost-efficient way on the put-or-remove zits
process? How about paper and pencil ? Put zits by drawing
and remove zits by eraser. Mm...seems not good enough.
Drawing and erasing on the same paper again and again
will make a mess. Having new blank papers every time when
play is not cost efficient. Having this question in mind
for a while, one day I think about one of my hobbies,
sticker collect. Then, a solution comes up. View
the zits as round stickers and a page of
sticker-collection book as a human being's face. After
that I begin to decorate the paper face and the rest of
game materials.
After I build the game prototype, I ask
two of my friends to actually play it. They as well as
the instructor provide me with some good feedback on my
ideas. I modify the game based on those feedback, such as
different category different color, less reading on the
cards, money as prize and etc. One thing that I didn't do
is design a 3D structure board based on the skin
structure. Because I couldn't think any feasible method
to create it. Moreover, because of the time
limitation, the players that I can find are not
teenagers. That could result in some problems that I
didn't recognize so far.
References
Electronic
- E-Body is a great web site for providing health
information (http://ebody.com/)
- Face facts is a wonderful web site for solving
teenager acne problem (http://www.facefacts.com)
- Yahoo! Health is a web site provides acne
overview and treatment
(http://health.yahoo.com/health/Diseases_and_Conditions/Disease_Feed_Data/Acne/)
- National institute of arthritis and
husculoskeletal and skin diseases
(http://www.nih.gov/niams/healthinfo/acne/acne.htm)
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