So on 17th December we gathered in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and formed 4 teams of 3-4 people. We started of with a little memory exercise where cards were placed upside down on the grass and each team had to find matching pairs by taking turns in turning 2 of them over. It was a lot of fun and got the teams in a competitive mood.
The cards were actually portraying gifts from TEAR Australia. Those gifts are things like a toilet $70, a goat $50, save water $20, school supplies $5 and many more, therefore these are the “World’s most useful gifts”, giving twice – once to a loved one and once to a person in need in the developing world.
The idea was to take the cards won in the memory exercise and go and buy those gifts or find people to buy them the in order to raise funds for TEAR Australia.

On another layer the game we were running was a serious game and the purpose was to practice some creativity tools which will help individuals and businesses to be more innovative. Participants were asked to tune in to their surroundings, experience them and then use their reflections, visual and sound impressions to tackle a particular problem, in our case an ad campaign for “How to make Sydney more creative and more sustainable. We’re talking sustainable design and sustainable consumption at every level.” It is amazing how looking at Sydney Harbour Bridge in a different way or thinking about rats or just really experiencing The Rocks, Sydney gives you new insights simply by applying the different viewpoint to the problem at hand.

It was a challenging task for the participants and a very valuable learning experience for us. By going out and running this prototype we could see immediately what worked and what didn’t which will assist us in the development of this and other serious games. Thanks to the Future Journeys community for joining us on that day and helping us on that path while having some fun and hopefully taking away some insights into creativity tools as well.

The game finished on Observatory Hill, where to reward the participants we enjoyed the view and heard the game outcomes over Pizza and Champagne. It was a great way to finish a great year!

The Future Journeys Serious Games Lab creates serious games that easily integrate into corporate programs or training programs incorporating learning aims of your choice or that create awareness of your organisation, project or product. We are developing a range of games to go on the market in 2010, so keep an eye on this website and on the Future Journeys Serious Games Lab.