The Origins of It’s Alive!

Hi, I’m Dan. Together with my partner, Saki, we run Studio Playfool, a design studio with a mission to create opportunities that spark imagination and cultivate creativity through play. Applying our background in design and engineering, we’ve been realising our vision through award-winning products and experiences.

We created Knotty (2018), a simple creative tool for kids to learn, create and play with technology through an intuitive and innovative knot tying interaction. Our Playfool Workshop (2017) allowed professionals to nurture their creativity through a series of unique and playful activities. Whether it’s digital, analogue or something else entirely, we’re continually experimenting with new ways to get us playing for the better.

Some of our past work as Studio Playfool: Knotty (left) and the Playfool Workshop (right).

Our latest project follows a similar sentiment, but is a little different; we’re venturing into game design to develop an imaginative and silly party game titled It’s Alive!.

In It’s Alive!, players use special googly eyes to create characters, or “googlies”, out of random objects and compete to be hired for various jobs. What sort of googly eyed object would make the best bodyguard? How about a supervillain or ninja? Players need to use their googly’s physical features and on-the-spot-improvisation to convince the judge and get the gig!

Can you make the best googly for the gig?

In line with our values at Playfool, It’s Alive! presents a new, more casual opportunity to exercise creativity by getting players to see the world through playful eyes, literally! But at the same time it’s unlike any project we’ve ever done before. While creating workshop exercises may be somewhat similar, the world of board game design is completely untouched territory for us. So why are we making it?

From Icebreaker to Party Game

The idea for It’s Alive! actually originated from an exercise in our Playfool Workshop. The first, icebreaking task requires participants to use googly eye stickers to create characters out of random objects. They then write a business card for their googly creation, detailing its name, occupation and dream.

Some of the original googlies from our Playfool Workshop

This simple yet effective exercise got everyone up on their feet, interacting with their environment and practicing a little improv storytelling all within the first moments of the workshop. It also acted as an approachable intro to the later, more challenging tasks, which was vital as participants came from both creative and non-creative backgrounds.

The simplicity and accessibility of our icebreaker made us consider how it could work in a more causal, non-professional context. When past participants also suggested that we should offer it as a standalone package, we were sold, and decided to bring our googly icebreker to the masses.

It’s Alive! wasn’t only inspired by the Playfool Workshop however; our previous experience with Knotty also gave an additional motive. At the time, having created working prototypes and validated Knotty’s potential through numerous tests, we explored how we could bring it to market. Unfortunately, we soon learned that doing so would be a far too risky investment of funds and life, especially at a time in which our studio was only just starting off. As a result, we shelved Knotty and continued to work on other projects.

Children’s imagination never field to surprise during Knotty’s testing.

While this was the right decision at the time, the consequence was that we missed out on the experience of bringing an idea to market, something we feel is particularly valuable for us to evolve as a design studio. So when the lower risk opportunity of realising It’s Alive! arose, we had all the more reason to jump on it.

So that’s why we started pursuing It’s Alive! but how did it go from workshop activity to board game? Although simply repackaging our icebreaker exercise and calling it a day was an option, in order to appeal to a wider, casual audience we had to transform it into a more familiar and informal format. Thus we went in the direction of a board game (more specifically a party game) and here we are!

As is the case with the many board games these days, It’s Alive! will be taking the Kickstarter route to make it a reality. While daunting, the crowdfunding process will give us the full picture of bringing a project to life, from collaborating with manufacturers, to communicating with supporters. Thankfully, the board game community is a very wholesome and welcoming one, offering seemingly infinite resources for game designers of any level. Nonetheless, we walk into this cautiously but ready to embrace both the highs and the lows along the way. It will no doubt push us out of our comfort zone but we’ll be stronger as designers for it.

Onward!

With It’s Alive!, we’re excited to deliver a new way for both kids and adults to nurture their creativity in a simple and playful way, and we hope you’ll look forward to playing it!

One of many incredibly silly play tests for It’s Alive!

If you want to learn more, please check out our whimsical website. Also, consider signing up to our mailing list! We’ll let you know when we launch on Kickstarter, plus you’ll get the printable version of the game, which you can play straight away!

Next time I’ll go a little more in-depth into the game design behind It’s Alive! and the surprisingly complex process of developing the perfect googly eye.

Keep an eye out till then! 👀