The Hidden Heroes

The aim of the game is to learn more about young carers and what they experience throughout their childhood. The board that you play on simulates different childhood life stages for a young carer: they go from primary school to secondary school, college then university.Your aim: is to get around the board and remain the last one standing. The dice rolls are completely random and how you increase or decrease your energy points will therefore be random. This is to represent what a young carer's life is like... sometimes it can be random.When you land on a tile, you are either increasing or decreasing your energy points. Energy points represent the energy that a young carer has, to do the things they do on a daily basis. The cards are randomised from a list, and when you draw a card, they represent a situation that a young carer goes through.

My Responsibilities

• Designing core board game systems from the ground up, allowing the player to go around a traditional monopoly-style game board.​
• Implement rule sets wholly based on luck, where moving across the game board is determined by a physical dice roll.
• ​Designing UI to ensure gameplay is clear for all players.
• Designing gameplay elements that fit within the core theme of 'serious games' and 'young carers'.
• Designing and implementing serious game-specific features that educate the player on the topic of young carers through personalised videos/fact videos.
• Perform initial play-testing to ensure that luck-based mechanics are varied and not predictable, which would result in the same player winning.
• Research heavily into serious games, the context of serious games and their impact within the gaming space, and how 'Hidden Heroes' relates to being a serious game.