Gamification Lab

The Gamification Lab was an youth arts project developed by Ampersand Projects for mac Birmingham's Next Gen strand of work. 

The  group meet each Monday for twenty weeks to work on four projects for three organisations, Craftspace, Birmingham Open Media (BOM) and Work in Progress, based on a specific brief.

What did they learn?

• They explored gamification theory and its application in non-­game environments, how games work, how they make us feel and how they can motivate people to achieve goals and engage with activities.
• They  gained an insight into how big corporations like Nike and Starbucks use them to encourage consumers to buy their products, and how they can be used for social good, healthcare and community activities. They did this partly by playing existing games and developing their own game ideas to gain a deeper understanding of game theory.
• They have  taken part in a lively discussion on the ethics of these techniques and debated whether they could change the way the world approaches social issues.

What have they developed?

Project 1: #Belong Scavenger Hunt for Work in Progress (Lucy Sweeney, Kamara Bennett). An Instagram scavenger hunt to promote Work in Progress’ new production Belonging.

Project 2: ‘Beat the Sunflower’ for Craftspace (Tom Ward). A game encouraging people to learn a new craft, plotting their progress as a growing sunflower. Taking the style of a goal driven level game.

Project 3: Collaborative Patchwork for Craftspace (Karen Pang). A collaborative making project based around a patchwork quilt, that will tie into Craftspace’s recent work around craftivism.

Project 4: Glitch Art Hunt for BOM (Christian Maoudis and Josh Clifford). A city-wide scavenger hunt that will introduce new audiences to BOM and other arts organisations in Birmingham city centre as participants will hunt for unique ‘glitch’ artworks that contain information on where to find the next artwork.

What Skills Have The Group Learned?

The group have developed skills in:

• Effective use of social media and marketing tools and how to identify and communicate with audiences;
• Managing a project and making an idea a reality;
• Pitching an idea to a client and meeting the requirements of a brief;
• How to collaborate and work in teams to develop and deliver an idea;
• Gamification and game design theory and practice