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Bonding through board game

SINGAPORE — Students from Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) have created a board game designed to get children talking to their mum and dad.

Nanyang Polytechnic students developed Famitopia from a final-year social work project. Photo: Xabryna Kek

Nanyang Polytechnic students developed Famitopia from a final-year social work project. Photo: Xabryna Kek

SINGAPORE — Students from Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) have created a board game designed to get children talking to their mum and dad.

The game, Famitopia, gets players to either share something or carry out a dare, such as holding a family member’s hand while saying one good thing about him or her, during their turn. Their favourite food, books and childhood experiences are just some of the topics that come up.

Players will vote on whether the action was satisfactory and, based on the number of votes the player receives, he will then move ahead in the game. It ends only when all players have reached the finish line.

“It revolves around the idea of the family and, through components of the game, it helps to encourage conversation,” said 19-year-old Edreon Goei, one of seven students from NYP’s Diploma in Social Sciences (Social Work) programme who are developing the game. Initially designed as a final-year project by last year’s students for their social work diploma, the current batch of students decided to further develop the game given the “overwhelmingly positive response” from two Family Service Centres (FSCs) and families that tested the game.

With funding from the National Family Council, the students have also distributed the game to 33 FSCs for test play, and are collecting feedback.

The team has conducted training sessions at the FSCs, which have each been given two sets of the game.

Ms Esther Goh, a social worker at Ang Mo Kio FSC, said: “This board game helps us understand the level of closeness (between family members) ... whether they are distant, or conflictual, basically to assess the family’s relationship with each other.”

“It also gives the family some perspective on the effect that particular relationship has on another family member, whether it is good or bad,” she added.

The initial game design was test-played by 56 families.

One of the developers, 20-year-old Nurul Nadiah binte Noor Mohamed, stated that over 80 per cent of the families said the game was “interesting and aided communication”. More than half said they would buy the game, she added, although it is not for sale.

In refining the game, feedback and suggestions, like the introduction of a dare component to make it more exciting, were taken into consideration.

“This is a great alternative to other family activities ... even the grandparents can participate as it is not physically demanding,” said Ms Nurul Nadiah.

The game, which is suitable for all ages, was designed with seniors in mind, with enlarged wordings and a bigger board.

Mr Mohamed Hassan bin Awang, 48, who played with his family, said: “This game is very good. It helps my family bond because you really spend that quality time needed to get to know each other better. It encourages deeper sharing and greater understanding of my family ... the cards contain certain questions that we might not always ask one another.” KATHY CHENG

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