The prototype game is designed as a part of my thesis “Place! Steal! Design! The Use of Game in the Urban Design Practices“. The game aims to create a playful and engaging activity for the users where they can unlock difficult conversations and collaborate with the assumptions, desires, and ideas of inhabitants regarding their surroundings. The game mechanics were conducted based on the research to make the participation process lighter, playful and open-ended. This prototype is a test field to understand better the game’s potential and mechanics regarding the participation process and how it can contest to be a medium of small-scale urban design projects for inhabitants.  But in the future, the game can also be developed further to create an actual urban design solution.

Games can be an empowering medium for participants where they can play, decide, express, or learn regarding urban-related situations. However, games also can be a manipulative tool where they can be used for directing participants towards a predetermined goal. The game will try to allow participants to create design concepts, harness the enthusiasm and creativity of users regarding their surroundings without setting any goals, directly governing them, limiting their creativity, or directing them to a predetermined outcome. It aims to work as bridging the gap between experts and users. It aspires to encourage the dialogue between different participants through the mechanics of the game. In addition, it intends to also be a learning process for the experts where they can easily observe the user's interest regarding space in various forms throughout the game and different effects of the designed game mechanics.



The game designed at Miro. More information about the game and the research can be found here.