The Board Game

Abstract

The SUSTAIN board game is not a didactic game but a game designed for teaching. Typically, managerial didactics make use of “playful” but not strictly “playing” tools: gamification solutions are not infrequent in didactics, but they are precisely didactic tools, which exhaust their function in conveying information contents within controlled and extremely piloted environments, often coordinated by a facilitator to whom all forms of mediation and interaction between players are delegated. Alternatively, board games or role-playing games are used in didactics, or playful environments (such as “adventure parks”) to reinforce transversal skills such as leadership, teamwork or highlight negative dynamics within working groups. In these cases, the skills conveyed are almost never vertical, strongly linked to the contents of the courses, but generic as they are based on commercial games created for purposes other than training.

SUSTAIN’s challenge, instead, was to create a real board game, playable in itself even outside of training environments, but which would still serve as a support tool for educational activities by conveying the vertical contents in an experiential way. This challenge, we feel we can say, has been won; and this thanks to the collaboration of an extremely varied and competent team that has seen in Ergo Ludo Editions only the last link in a very strong chain.