CTZN 410 is one of the most influential classes I have taken, personally, as it has shown me what I can do as an entrepreneur and designer. In this class, the students were tasked with creating a product with a working prototype that would be shown at the spring 2022 symposium. I use to think that creating a product that would be marketed would be super intimidating, and I am not saying that it is not difficult, but instead, it was fun and doable.
The product I decided to make was an area control board game, like Settlers of Catan or Risk, called Stickler for Conquest, and the purpose of making it was to help people, specifically adults, to help talk with one another. The way this game does this by offering question prompts that the players would answer in order to gather additional resources. It also encourages cooperation between players, to an extent, by giving them the ability to trade and gain resources from asking questions. The questions asked can vary from standard ice breakers to bizarre thought-provoking puzzlers.
Some of the other additions to the board game are that the board is customizable, as it is made out of several tiny pieces that can interlock with one another. It has a comprehensive rule book so that the rules are clear and explicit, and with a guide like this, not much will have to be improvised. It also comes with ten different fantasy factions/races that one can play, which give certain benefits and cons. Along with everything comes several token pieces, which represent each of the minions and machines that a player would control.
As a result of the success I have come across when creating this game, this has become a part of my senior project where I will be complimenting this board game with an animation talking about how play can help adults improve socially. My with this board game is to market it and sell it to the masses by the time I leave college.
Here is a website where I keep track of my progress on the game and animation on occasion.
This class has shown me that I can do just about anything if I follow through with it. In the beginning, I thought this idea would be a long shot. Now I have several dozen 3D print pieces that proved myself wrong.