„The Big Game“

The Big Game. (A personal project of Damian Garcia, Spain)

Its name says everything and actually it is a contest, not a simple game, composed by questions of hundreds of topics and games. Designed specifically by Damián to make the people learn new things about the world that is around them, to make them move and to make them think.

The technical part of this contest was developed by PowerPoint, looking for the information on internet and creating games, all make from the scratch. The topics from the questions were totally random, from cats to carpets passing by Disney’s characters. About the games, Damián chose from traditional ones (mimic, drawing…) to totally new and unexpected. Even the game includes rounds that make the players be actor or actress, and that change the rules from the game.

Apart of that, a marketing campaign was developed, including in that: the designing and delivering of posters and flyers, an active campaign (called “the instantaneous wedding”) and a short spot to put on TV. The video was created by Emmeline, with the help of Damián, Alessia and Matteo. For the active campaign, Damián came up with the idea that someone, Alessia in this occasion, could dress up like a fiancée and go around the town, running and hugging the people without telling anything to them. The situation was crazy and the people were surprise, but after explaining the aim of this activity, everyone laugh. In one of the occasions, Alessia chose an objective and started to run, crossing the street and stopping some cars. It was crazy, but everyone has to understand, she was a desperate woman looking for her fiancé.

For playing, the place chosen was Jubox, a club-bar with the technology and space that is needed for The Big Game. The owners and bartenders were very friendly allowing us to play this game there. We are very grateful to them for that.

During the development of the game, Damián tested it with the other volunteers, playing it several times in order to balance and correct some aspects of the game. The first thing that Damián learnt was that designing this kind of things is not as easy as it seems to be. After testing it and improving it, it arrived the time of playing it with the people in town. Unfortunately the summer time, the time needed (five days in a row) and the late promotion made that we didn’t have a lot of participants, having the volunteers to play again in order to have the enough number of players. But these situations happen and the important thing is learning from them. Next time it will be better and successful, this time was only the beginning.

And it was like that. During the Super Volunteers Meeting 2 (SVM2), The Big Game was included in the planning of activities, although only one day. During that time, the contest brought the people together and made them have a really great time. It was the first group activity in the SVM2, and it made the people interact with the others and make of them a team.

 

Author: “The Change is in You” Association`s volunteers