Bloqs was developed in collaboration with Southern Denmark University and aimed to adapt the Danish board game Captivated, designed to reconnect incarcerated individuals with their families, for a UK audience, taking into consideration the different conditions of the UK prison context.
DACRL worked with four BA Product Design students (Alexis Bardini, Alexandra Evans, Xiangie Lee, and Robyn Veitch) during their industry placement year. Together with prisoners from HMP Thameside and the staff overseeing the ‘Families First’ programme, we co-created the Bloqs game, tailoring the game to be more functional and suitable for the visiting context in UK prisons. The Bloqs project was funded by TrygFonden from 2018 to 2019.
Collaborate with us
If you are interested in finding out more about the Bloqs project or want to collaborate with us on future game related projects, please contact Lorraine Gamman, l.gamman@csm.arts.ac.uk.
Alongside our research partners in Denmark, we are actively seeking further funding to evidence the findings of Bloqs and move the design from a prototype to a final product.
Outputs
The project resulted in the Bloqs game prototype, which consists of a tower composed of blocks with each one relating to a question and an allocated point score. As players remove blocks, they must respond to prompts such as ‘talk about the best birthday you’ve ever had’ to claim the points. The game uses the social penetration theory, known as the ‘onion theory’, encouraging players to move from more superficial questions towards a meaningful conversation. If you would like to view a copy of the game, please contact Lorraine Gamman, l.gamman@csm.arts.ac.uk.
Team
UAL
Principle Investigator: Professor Lorraine Gamman
Co-Investigator: Prof Adam Thorpe
Southern Denmark
University Project lead partner: Thomas Markussen
Project lead partner: Eva Knutz
BA Product Design students involved in the project
Alexis Bardini
Alexandra Evans
Xiangie Lee
Robyn Veitch
Partners
Southern Denmark University
HMP Thameside
HMP Doncaster
HMP Peterborough