Divergence is a fast-paced storytelling game for 3 to 6 people, designed to guide the players to understand this process and allow them to dive deep into the behaviors and needs of a character to come up with innovative and user-centric solutions. We ensure the bilingual game kit is not only fun to play, but also visually stimulating. It is packaged in a soft string bag with eye-catching herringbone patterns, while the box is contrastingly in plain grey. Once the box is opened, the players would quickly find the colorful deck of cards inside printed with beautiful abstract illustrations, helping to ignite and unleash their creativity during play. The toolkit also comes with a set of collectibles, including embroidered badges and stickers, to reverberate the connections between the players and Design Thinking even long after the game has finished.

Design thinking is a creative problem-solving approach that helps us develop innovative solutions through a human-centred approach, yet it does take time to master its skills. With Divergence, we reduced the learning hurdle by boiling down the essential skills into an interactive gameplay of about 1.5 hours. Divergence is a first-of-its-kind game kit designed to let players quickly grasp the process of Design Thinking in a practical sense and equipping them with this knowledge to understand how they could come up with innovative yet comprehensive user-centric solutions.

We had the pleasure to develop a toolkit for Hong Kong Design Centre (HKDC), mainly to be used on their learning platform Institute of Design Thinking (IDK), so to help people quickly understand the process of Design Thinking and how it serves as a great way to solve problems in a fun and creative way. The game kit is free of charge and can be obtained through arranging a Divergence Design Thinking workshop with IDK. It also comes in a downloadable version for people to download and print out.

Hong Kong Design Centre (HKDC) is an NGO and has set up the Institute of Design Thinking (IDK) as a learning platform offering specialised training on the topics of design innovation and creative leadership in Hong Kong. We have seen many business organisations and schools joining the Design Thinking workshops by IDK using this game kit and had much positive feedback on the UX and UI of the game and inspirations on how they could solve problems.

Creative Director: Mandy Tsang, Art Director: Kat Luk, Project Manager: Christy Chan, Illustrations: Ivy Sin, Graphic Design: Charmian Cheung, Helen Cheung, Packaging Design: Helen Cheung, Charmian Cheung, Script writing: Wilson Lui, Animation: Stephanie Ng, Steven Chan, Hazel Huang, Kai Yeung, Man& Yiko@MorningGiants, Sound Design: Anthony Liu, Game Design: Hong Kong Design Centre, Press Start Hong Kong

Bearing in mind that Divergence is a hands-on game, we carefully sort through how we could connect the players with the cards through the touch and visuals stimulations. We designed the card sizes that can be handled easily by a majority in the demographic, and the visuals and text in both English and Chinese on the cards can be clearly and easily read. The cards are lightly laminated with matte plastic coating with rounded corners providing a soft touch, making them non-reflective so as to increase readability, but also playability as the cards are sturdy and would not stick together when they are stacked and being distributed during play. Divergence is created bilingually in English and Chinese, so it could be played by a wider audience, especially when both languages are widely used in Hong Kong. Besides being a physical set, the game is available for download and anyone who could access the internet could download a copy to use as they need.

The project started in January 2021 and launched online in January 2022. And invested HK$150,000 in this project.

HKDC is an NGO, and IDK promotes design thinking in Hong Kong. IDK wanted a gamified toolkit and goodies designed for young adults and educators to learn key design thinking skills quickly, or run short facilitated workshops, normally taking hours. The toolkit should appeal to young, professional audience in its gameplay, content, and graphic design, and should encourage creative brainstorming with peers by providing a balance of inspiration and information. Co-designed by IDK, EmotionLAB and Press Start，Divergence is a bilingual game kit giving a fun and easy way for entry-level learners and creative teams to pick up the process via an interactive, storytelling focused gameplay of about 1.5 hours, guiding players to collaborate and compete to solve a user-centric challenge by practicing essential techniques. The final product comes in physical and downloadable versions, with supporting print designs, introduction videos and an online campaign for promotion, focusing its immersive, collaborative, and imaginative elements, and showcase four stages of gameplay in a welcoming manner that matches with the kit’s design.