Problem Statement
Having lived in a refugee camp for many years as a child has given me an idea of what is lacking in the camp. I have learned how hard it is to get an access to many things, including children’s games. Children that left their countries of origin due to civil wars and natural disasters left everything they own behind. Therefore, I decided to introduce the game of Tic Tac Toe to those kids.
Tic Tac Toe is a two-person game played on three by three small, squared board. Each player chooses a unique marker. Mostly, they use X and O. The two players alternate turns, and whoever gets his/her identification in a row, diagonally, horizontally, or vertically wins the game. If all players placed their markers and nobody gets three in a row, the game is a tie. They can restart the game and continue playing or the next two team takes over. The winner of the match stayed, and the loser gives room to the other new player. In that way, the game entertains, bring group of people together. It teaches them on how to solve conflicts.
Creating such a game for kids would tremendously reduce the stress, help in conflict resolutions, change the mindset and fear among the many children from different ethnicities and countries that are residing in the camp.
The stakeholders
- The children in Kakuma Refugee camp.
- The vision impaired kids in the camp.
- The camp leadership – I had to involves the camp management for permission.
The Interview:
Two interviewees participated in the interview.
- Has anyone of you played a computer game before?
Answer:
Person 1, no, none of us plays a game of computer. We only play soccer, but there are not enough soccer fields for everyone to play. Person 2 added. We have computers centers with many computers; it would be great if some of us plays computer games. Those of us that are not good at soccer can utilize computers…
- Apart from soccer, can you mention some of the games you have played?
Answer: Person 2. We play Mancala a lot.
Mancala is a generic name for a family of two-player turn-based strategy board games played with small stones, beans, or seeds and rows of holes or pits in the earth, a board or other playing surface. The objective is usually to capture all, or some set of the opponent's pieces.
Mancala Board Game
- What do you think of Tic Tac Toe?
“What is Tic-Tac-Toe?” the interviewee asked.
And I explained, Tic-Tac-Toe is a game is like Mancala. (They are familiar with Mancala). It is played by two persons; they take turns marking the spaces in a 3×3 grid. The player who succeeds in placing three of their marks in a diagonal, horizontal, or vertical row is the win of the game. And you can play it on your phone or laptop, and on cardboard as well.
The TIC-TAC-TOE players
The two in front are playing tic-tac-toe, the two behind are waiting for their turns…
Ideation
The idea of designing a tic-tac-toe game for the vision- impaired children in the refugee camp came out of my own experience. Access to such a simple game is limited, and therefore, bringing this board game would help.
Brainstorming
- Group zoom call.
- Discussion of how to access tic-tac-toe game.
The challenges
- Accessibility problem
- Lack of recreational games
Prototyping
prototype for a graphical interface for Tic-Tac-Toe.
The objective of the TIC-TAC-TOE game is to win, entertain, interaction, involvement, sharing and many more benefits of the game.
The first player to get three in a row win the game. Each player picked a symbol in form of X’S and O’s, and they alternate turns. Each player takes one empty space on the board and put his or her symbol in it, whoever gets three in a row, horizontally, or diagonally won the game. If all the space are taken and there is now winner, the game tie.
Game One
Game Two
Game Three
Testing
You can now test a fuctional TIC-TAC-TOE Game blow...