Reimagine Creativity and Connectivity in the Remote World: Introducing Games by InnovatorsBox
Don’t let the passing passage of time deter you from making your dream come true. We’re excited to announce InnovatorsBox Games, a game studio by InnovatorsBox Studios, that will develop and produce online games to promote innovation, collaboration, and connection.
The Dream
Since the first time we created our first card game, SPARK, in March 2016, I’ve been thinking about what it would be like if this game could be played online. Making creativity accessible has been a core mission to the work we do. As I watched how the card games we created were a powerful tool for refocusing and reflecting for many, I wondered what else we could do to make it more accessible. But how can we develop an app? How long would it take us to build this online? I just knew one day we were going to make it happen. I didn’t know if 2021 would be the year until we finished it.
The Journey
From the start, SPARK was a success. My first event in December 2015 proved that my question cards were popular. Mentors who impressed me for their ability to create safe rooms raved about the questions’ depth of authenticity and playfulness, and asked if they could bring more back with them so that they may use it in their next team building meeting. That’s when I first considered developing it into a card game.
I was humbled by the community’s love for card games. I was a novice to game creation, yet my desire for deeper connection, cooperation, and innovation drove me forward. That’s how the games kept evolving.
With our success with SPARK, a set of open-ended question prompts to help you reflect and rethink relationship building, I continued to launch SPARK 2, a set of harder questions. Soon followed by the new games like ReImagine and Infinity.
ReImagine is a set of challenge-prompts to help you rethink what you can do in your daily routine to infuse creative thinking practice. We made ReImagine notebooks with four distinct designs and an uplifting message to help innovators reflect and encourage them to capture their thoughts and ideas.
Infinity Card is a set of creative question prompts to help you rethink problem-solving. Bonus cards such as ‘5-Why’ and ‘Wild Card’ made it fun for participants to practice exercising their questioning by saying ‘Why’ five times, or by making their own questions to practice asking deeper questions. Infinity Squared is our dice game that helps you practice creative questions and answering them creatively such as in a sketch or through a dance. It was fun to see teams bursting into songs as they try to solve a business problem and find new ideas.
Each game reminded players how rethinking creativity starts by changing something small in their routine and these games provided a playful, safe way to do so. And thanks to our talented Graphic Designer Monica Escobar Beasley, who has also done our InnovatorsBox logo, each game came into its own color and unique visual identity.
Monica: What did you enjoy most about designing the card games for InnovatorsBox? Why?
Monica Escobar Beasley:
I really enjoyed putting together the visual identity branding for each of the card game themes. From working on the typography, exploring the patterns and colors, to prototyping the packaging design, putting all the visual elements together that attract the customer to the brand experience was key for the branding strategy and why I enjoyed the process.
Monica: What was the most difficult part and why?
Monica Escobar Beasley:
Conveying key differences in the visual branding for each product was a challenge but very rewarding to see it all come together and work out. Each card game has a unique style and tells a different story.
Monica: What was the easiest part and why?
Monica Escobar Beasley:
The easiest part was working on the colors and patterns for some of the packages, diving into the limitless possibilities was an enjoyable time of exploration.
Monica: What was your favorite game or question prompt?
Monica Escobar Beasley:
I enjoyed all the games but my favorite was the SPARK cards with thoughtful questions you can reflect on at any time by yourself or with others.
We didn’t stop there. As we continued developing, I knew how users were looking for games that were not only useful but were also travel-friendly, aesthetically beautiful, and environmentally friendly. The vendor we used was a fantastic start, but we needed higher-quality paper. That’s how I met our current South Korean partner. The factory is one of the top paper printing manufacturers and our print job, while unique and unusual, was something they could do very well. While their minimum order quantity was 5K+, they were able to do print orders of 1,000 per product with us and helped produce the high-quality cards we have today. It made all the difference. And they’re waterproof!
People loved the cards and praised them for being a great reminder to fuel creativity, curiosity, and courage. The hand-size box, which is lightweight yet easily wipeable cards, was easy to stow in your purse or wallet and a welcome diversion from “what do you do” at any networking event you’d go to. This has been my travel hack to any meetings and conferences. Whenever I feel that there’s a chance to dive a bit deeper, I’d pull out these cards and ask “do you want to play a game?”. Within minutes, we’d have a circle of business leaders, all wearing suits, laughing out loud while enjoying themselves connecting. Being fully human – with emotions and thoughts.
And the games continued to empower people and brought a smile to their days. I’d receive photos of how it reached new countries, new friends, and new ages. Yes, even my Korean nephew who was two years old was told to enjoy the cards due to the colors and design. They started using it for English studies. Even during the pandemic, the cards played a key role in empowering the community. We would use this frequently for team building and online connection game prompts and many sought it out as they were looking for innovative ways to stay connected online.
In September 2020, we donated 600+ card games to 20+ organizations in the country to support networks that were hungry for creativity and connectivity tools for team building, ideation, and community building. I personally went out with all the boxes to ship them and thank them for their devotion to creativity and community.
It’s amazing to me how these games that we worked so hard on can make people happy, laugh, take a break, discover healing, and find the space to feel understood. But I still wondered, ‘how can we help make more creativity accessible?’ Online access and the online game were still on my mind so I decided to go all in.
HOW WE DEVELOPED
I always advocate the use of visualization when it comes to any ambition or goal. I had no idea how we would achieve it because we hadn’t found a developer yet, but I knew exactly how it would feel. I created a thorough road map of what the online interface could look like, as well as how it might feel to users. I didn’t want to break up the four games into four separate entries; instead, I thought it would be more effective to have one entry point that allows players to switch between all four games for team building, innovation, and reflection points.
As someone who loves design and beautiful aesthetics, I focused on how the visuals and mood may feel. How would I want people to feel when they play the game? What mood would they feel as they enter each zone of SPARK, ReImagine, and Infinity? So many of us were feeling tired, fatigued, and burnout. I wanted this to feel like a treat to people so they feel recharged to play these games. That’s when I gain new inspiration, curiosity, and courage to try something new. How can we model a design that made people feel that way?
One question led to another, and one input led to another clarity. By the time that we found our developer, I not only had a clear insight into the visual journey, but had the specific illustrative backgrounds, zone feeling, diverse music cues, and original music by InnovatorsBox Studios ready to go – in addition to the card game visuals that Monica Escobar Beasly had designed for us already many years ago.
The magic came to life by working with a game developer who truly understood our vision and was patient to bring all the different elements I wanted to come to life. I appreciated Carsen Asterino’s deep curiosity and patience and willingness to learn but also have fun, which is how we knew he was the developer we wanted to work with and build this together. As we began to combine the elements, it felt magical as I witnessed my long awaited game develop week by week.
As any development will, good work takes time. But both his aptitude and my vision and determination led us to create our first game within two months – just in time for all the workshops and events I’m running as will our communities and you will in the next few weeks and months.
Monica: What was your highlight working on InnovatorsBox’s Game creation project?
Monica: You’ve created a lot of other games before, how was this game different from the ones you’ve done before? Why?
Monica: Why do you like creating games?
Monica: Why is this game meaningful for you? What do you hope users would enjoy or feel?
Monica: What is your favorite game out of the four?
As you can hear from Carsen’s comments, he truly understood the company’s goal and mission, which is why he not only came up with additional methods to bring my concepts to reality, but also suggested even more ideas for subtle changes to the user experience. I couldn’t wait to share this with you.
As I saw more details coming together each week, I thought about how a client and friend had expressed his dissatisfaction in connecting remotely. Their team has expanded considerably, yet it hasn’t been easy for everyone to feel genuinely linked and know one another. How do you accomplish that while you’re so busy? Even researching question prompts is extra work and can be hard to do. I hear you! Even for me, I have to carve out thinking time to ideate what question is the right one to bring up for a particular workshop.
What if there was a means to connect more intimately with people by using such a tool? What if it also played relaxing music and made your trip to engaging more pleasant, enjoyable, creative, and playful? I could see this being played not only in business meetings, conferences, tradeshows, ideation rooms, but also in intimate gatherings with family and friends, at schools by teachers and educators, and more.
You could even try using it during online dating if you are not sure what else to ask to your date and want to get to know them more personally! Or of course, just play while you chill and recharge and reflect on your own. I certainly will be playing it on repeat to reflect and ideate my next ideas and projects!
Monica: What is your favorite question prompt out of the four?
The Game Is Ready For You
So here we are. The game is ready for you. Share the link. Save the link. Add to your next event agenda. Play the game!
In our continued commitment to make creativity learning accessible for all, I’m pleased to make this first online game set we have developed to be free for all to use and only ask for proper attribution and credit when using. I hope this removes one more barrier to making creativity learning, collaboration, and connection fun and accessible for you and your community.
Please use it, share it, and let us know your thoughts. We thought deeply about all the people out there who would use this. Although where they are and how they use may differ, I hope we have done the right job of help bringing another smile, joy, and warmth to your day.
So do share this and tag us at InnovatorsBox and Monica H Kang. We’d love to create more games that could help bring a smile to your day with creativity. If you have any ideas, suggestions, feedback, or collaboration interest, please don’t hesitate to reach out at info@innovatorsbox.com. For now, I hope you enjoy this magical land with us.
Thank you for taking a moment to celebrate this moment with us and taking a moment back to reflect on the journey we took to be where we are here with you today. Here is to dreaming more dreams and not giving up on them.
More from the team
Monica: Looking back how has this helped you be a better designer?
Monica Escobar Beasley:
As a designer, working on product design sharpens skills in solving problems working with the concept design, and thinking about the customer's experience.
Monica: What advice do you have to share for those who want to design and brand games?
Monica Escobar Beasley:
Make sure to bring out the brand personality when building the design, you are sharing the brand story with customers and building on their expectations. Customers take notice of packaging before experiencing the product inside so it's important to catch their attention from the beginning.
Monica: What tips and advice would you share with other game developers on how they can do better game development?
Monica: How do you hone your skills to be a better developer?
Monica: Any other final thoughts you want to share?
P.S. It’s desktop ready and mobile and tablet versions are still in development.
About the Author
Monica H. Kang
Monica H. Kang, Founder, and CEO of InnovatorsBox® and Author of Rethink Creativity is transforming today’s workforce through the power of creativity. She helps companies rethink culture, leadership, and team development by making creativity practical and relatable regardless of industry or job title. She has worked with clients worldwide including Fortune 500 companies, higher education, government, and nonprofits. Monica’s work has been recognized by The White House, Ashoka Changemakers, National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC), and Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). Prior to InnovatorsBox®, Monica was a nuclear nonproliferation policy expert. She holds an M.A. from SAIS Johns Hopkins University in Strategic Studies and International Economics and a B.A. from Boston University.
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