Cubicles & Computers
Role: Designer & Game Manager
Timeline: 4 weeks
Deliverables: Player Handouts: 16 unique characters (PDF) & Game Manager’s Rulebook (PDF)
Cubicles & Computers is a rules-light work themed role-playing game that I created as a team-building and improv exercise at our division's yearly onsite. It’s inspired the ever flexible Lasers & Feelings framework, but I put my own corporate spin on the rules.
Timeline: 4 weeks
Deliverables: Player Handouts: 16 unique characters (PDF) & Game Manager’s Rulebook (PDF)
Cubicles & Computers is a rules-light work themed role-playing game that I created as a team-building and improv exercise at our division's yearly onsite. It’s inspired the ever flexible Lasers & Feelings framework, but I put my own corporate spin on the rules.
Dungeon & Dragons...is UX?
I’ve been running a Dungeons & Dragons game for over two years, and playing for six, and I’ve found that it actually has a lot in common with the product UX work I do. At their heart, roleplaying games are about understanding other people’s motivations, agreeing how to solve a problem, accepting that sometimes unexpected things happen, and being ready to adapt at a moments notice. And as the Game Manager, it was my responsibility to facilitate that creative problem solving. Sounds like a lot of UX meetings I’ve been in. I ran it with thirteen players in one hour in the flow state that one only achieves when the timer’s on, laughter is building, and you are surrounded by creative people riffing off each other. |
A few spoilers for our play-through:
- The players did save the day.
- They defeated the mysterious monster at the heart of the corporate building with a combination of teamwork, supportive plain-speak, a catchy tune, and one soothing office plant held up like baby Simba.
- One fictional laptop was destroyed, but no cubicles were harmed in the activity.