Topographic Puzzle Game
I created this puzzle game in response to a prompt for the Strategic Design and Management program through Parson’s School of Design. The prototype is based on the forms found in a topographic map, utilizing the natural flow of lines to create puzzle pieces that stack on top of and below one another in an imitation of altitude increase and decline. The pieces can be configured in dozens of different ways, so the user can invent landscapes full of high mountains and deep lakes, forming their own imagined world through play. Each game session’s result can also be displayed as a miniature sculpture, either resting on a bookshelf in serenity or placed in a higher traffic location to tempt guests to try their hand at creating their own landscapes.
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Designer and Producer
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To respond to the challenge of manufacturing a design object, I drew upon my inspiration for the natural world to build something meant for play but also beautiful enough to display when not in use.
I created the prototype using Adobe Illustrator to form the shapes, a laser cutter to produce them, and painted the final pieces in gradients of blue and green to allow for the dualistic mountain/water effect. The pieces went through several design iterations to find the right proportions and tested the product through having participants explore the game, making tweaks based on their responses.
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Bringing together design thinking, management, and applied social sciences, the graduate program in Strategic Design and Management at Parsons responds to the need for businesses and organizations to address complex 21st-century economic, environmental, and social challenges. Methods from studio practice such as ideation, ethnographic research, prototyping, and service design are used to devise approaches to business and social innovation in global contexts.