Abstract:
As a geography major, I have routinely heard about Americans and their general lack of world geography knowledge. My area of concentration, geography major option #3, deals with cartography, or map making, which I think puts me in a special position to help in this area. Maps are the basic tools of geography, used to convey information, so I wanted to do a creative project that would utilize my geography and cartography education. I also saw an opportunity with this project to include one of my other interests: board games. I have always seen an opportunity with board games to educate the players, but the games that are considered "educational" usually suffer from low entertainment value. Could it be possible to make a game that allowed the players to absorb valuable knowledge, but that did so while maintaining a high entertainment value? I decided to find out, so for my project, I set out to design and construct a board game that would entertain the players while also teaching basic world geography and place identification. This paper chronicles the design process through the concept, the game play development, and the production of the game, as well as my personal analysis of the final results.
