If you're anything like me,
you love a good game night.
you love a good game night.
As a designer, I've always been passionate about creating games that are culturally relevant and inclusive. I noticed that mainstream games often lack cultural relevance and inclusivity, and I wanted to change that. My concept for the game was to create a card game around meme culture, inspired by Black Twitter.
To develop my concept, I did a deep dive into meme culture and studied the anatomy of memes. I spent hours scrolling through Instagram and Twitter, looking at how memes were created, shared and received. I also reached out to friends and community members to get their perspective on what they would like to see in a card game around meme culture.
With this research in mind, I came up with the concept of creating a card game around meme culture, inspired by Black Twitter. I wanted to create a game that would be fun and engaging, and that would spark joy for people of all backgrounds.
I set up a Google Photos Folder and a Spreadsheet and invited a few friends to help curate images and captions for the game. I also brought on a co-founder to help develop the game dynamics. After curating and refining the images and captions, we printed 'em, cut 'em, and placed the image cards in plastic sleeves.
We brought the prototype with us everywhere, and watched, we listened, and incorporated feedback based on insights. We were able to iterate the game and make it even more fun and engaging.
The Meme Game has connected thousands of people globally, it has been featured on Blavity's 16 Black-Owned Companies To Gift From This Holiday Season, it was used as a tool to engage and connect with interns by an Employee Resource Group Chair at Visa and helped people socialize and mingle at the TechConnext Summit Kickoff Brunch.
This game is a small step towards creating more culturally relevant and inclusive games, and it's just the beginning."
Research
The process began by using Instagram and Twitter to study the anatomy of memes
to figure out a way to bring the online format to an offline experience
to figure out a way to bring the online format to an offline experience
The Recipe
Teamwork Makes the Dream Work
I set up a Google Photos Folder and a Spreadsheet and invited a few friends to help curate images and captions for the game
Oh, the Possibilities...
I brought on Lance, my co-founder to help develop the game dynamics.
Prototype
After curating and refining the images and captions, we printed 'em, cut 'em, and placed the image cards in plastic sleeves.
Playtesting
We brought the prototype with us EVERYWHERE
Iterate
We watched, we listened, and incorporated feedback based on insights.
Challenge
The printer needed each image and caption on its own individual page. I had 200+ images and captions but didn't want to copy and paste each of them one-by-one onto an InDesign doc.
Solution
Workflow automation - I used a script that exported all the captions from a spreadsheet and images from a folder into individual InDesign pages.
Ta Da!
This saved me hours of time.
MVP
It was time to get the game out. Lance found a deal on Craigslist. A couple was selling a bunch of gift boxes and he thought it would be great for the game. We didn't love the colors, they didn't match our branding, but we loved the idea of a gift box and we couldn't beat the price. After all, this was just the MVP and we wanted to get the game out in the world.
More Play Testing
The first batch sold out. We continued to play test and made minor tweaks and adjustments and rolled out the next batch.
Results
The Meme Game has connected thousands of people globally.
We collaborated with Black Enterprise + The Wood Brunch for the TechConnext Summit Kickoff Brunch. The Meme Game helped people socialize and mingle.
An Employee Resource Group Chair at Visa used our game as a tool to engage and connect with their interns.
We were featured in Blavity's 16 Black-Owned Companies To Gift From This Holiday Season.
Testimonials
