BOARD GAME
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Tanish, with his younger sister, Riya, started BillionKidsCode, a nonprofit that aims to break barriers in STEM using gamification and cross-curricular learning. The board game is their first product, launched in the summer of 2022, after two years and 8 iterations.
Prototypes
Prototypes
The first board game prototype (top left) was created on an A4 paper in August 2019. Long train rides during a trek in the Scottish Highlands sparked imagination and deep conversations, leading to the first concept.
Later prototypes were designed on flattened shoe box covers, until the first formal board was made in Adobe Illustrator (top right) in June 2021.
Game Board
Game Board
The board is 24 by 24 inches to accommodate 64 spaces for People and Technology resources. People resources include developers, designers, product managers, tech leads, and geeks (those skilled in security, tech blogging, growth hacking, big data, patents, machine learning, networking, and more).
Technology resources are represented by cyber security, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and digital marketing. The final iteration of the board was completed in January 2022.
The board is inspired by the workflow of technology companies. It includes concepts like working in sprints, launching products, getting hacked, running hackathons, having product deployment issues, and being out of venture capital funding.
Game Box Front and Back Cover
Game Box Front and Back Cover
We had the most fun designing the game box cover. From crowd sourcing the name of the board game to an obvious choice selecting a Unicorn as the mascot (a billion-dollar startup is called a Unicorn, and the Unicorn is the national animal of Scotland— where the game was born).
The focus of the box cover design is marketing the game to not only students but also educators and parents. While students want something fun, parents and educators want something educational. We wanted the design to cater to both these audiences.
On the back cover, we wrote a game story that speaks to today's youth, who are passionate about changing the world, while also providing facts on what they can expect from the play. The box cover was designed in February 2022.
First Copy of Launched Board Game
First Copy of Launched Board Game
A picture of the first board game launched in August 2022.
List of components, also called Game Widgets:
64-bit Gameboard; 6 Movers / Players ;2 Eight-sided Dice
42 People Cards; 14 Technology Cards
20 Artificial Intelligence Action Cards; 20 Cloud Computing Action Cards
20 Cybersecurity Action Cards; 20 Digital Marketing Action Cards
16 Feature Tokens; 24 Product Tokens
32 User Tokens; 1 Pack of Cryptocurrency
1 Rules Booklet
Action Cards contain technology concepts that help players build their startups.
Rules Book Front and Back Cover
Rules Book Front and Back Cover
The front cover of the rules book is designed to show players that technology unites those from all different parts of the world!
Nailing down the game rules was the hardest. When we thought we had finalized the rules book in January 2022, little did we know, we would rewrite the whole thing! It wasn't that the rules were incorrect, but the players who tested our game interpreted them differently.
After many rounds of play testing, we were ready in July 2022 🥳
Rules Book Glossary Page
Rules Book Glossary Page
A page from the rules book that covers a list of tech & computing concepts and careers experienced in the game.
We want the players to be introduced to these topics in a fun way and feel inspired to dig deeper.
Game Play Tournaments
Game Play Tournaments
This 1.35-minute video is from a few game tournaments we hosted at Valley Settlement House and with a Scouts BSA Girls Troop. I vividly remember a player coming up to me after one tournament, emphatically proclaiming: “I want to become an AI Researcher!”—despite not knowing what AI was an hour earlier. I'm thrilled to see students exposed to a new world—and empowered to shape their futures.
Since August 2021, with the help from volunteers, we have hosted 22 play events with 250+ students at schools, libraries, and homes.
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