About the game
Well Spent! is an educational game in which the player visits a grocery store to shop for themselves or their families. They’re challenged to balance budget, time and nutrition, while also facing other real-world challenges. The game’s arts and craft style makes it a joy to play and lightens the delivery of an otherwise intimidating topic.
The game won first place in a three phase national competition held by the US Department of Health and Human Services, Office on Women’s Health and received a total funding of $75,000.
My role
- Led narrative and game design
- Co-developed game in Unity
- Published the game on TestFlight and the App Store
- Managed team in remote environment
Project Management tools: Slack, Github, Google sheets, Trello, Milestone deliverables document.
Our goals
Decrease obesity in women and their families by having them practice reading nutrition labels to identify healthy food with a time constraint, budget, and distractions.
Decrease stigma around obesity & raise awareness about the challenges that come with shopping for healthy food in low-income communities.
World and level design
I decided to use Philadelphia as an inspiration for the level design since there is a significant gap between access to healthy food and household income in the city. Below is an estimation of where each character would live if they are real people and what kind of grocery stores they would realistically shop at.
Game design evolution
I began by creating the game narrative and mechanics based on real stories and statistics about people struggling with food insecurity. Throughout the development process, I improved the game design based on feedback from over 30 playtests (done with health experts, food activists, and members of the community). On the left is a picture from our early game flow planning when we were trying to decide which features to keep and improve. The final version of our game has a total of: 4 Levels, 9 characters (5 main characters) and 7 mini games.
Level 1
- Middle class single mother of two kids.
- Scored on calories.
- She goes to a grocery store with many healthy options.
- She can afford to buy everything on her shopping list.
- Minigame challenges:
- Draw serving size
- Craving bubbles
- Checkout monsters
Level 2
- Lower-income mom, living in a food desert area.
- Scored on sugar.
- She and her child walk to a nearby corner store.
- She does not have enough money to buy everything on her list.
- Minigame challenges:
- Sorry no
- Sugar ranking
Level 3
- Single woman with chronic back pain, living alone.
- Scored on calories
- She takes public transportation to a store with some healthy options.
- She monitors her energy level while she shops, and must leave if she runs out of energy.
- She can afford everything on her list.
- Minigame challenges:
- Draw serving size
- Checkout bags
Level 4
- First generation, low-income student, living on campus.
- Scored on sodium.
- She walks to a small grocery store near campus.
- She can buy most items on her list, as long as she balances nutrition and price.
- Minigame challenges:
- Distraction bubbles
- Sodium ranking
- Checkout monsters
Visual evolution
We recreate the visual and the UI of the game to make it more user-friendly. For example, we simplify UI for easier score tracking, moved to more pop and brighter color to lighten up the shopping experience and contemporary store design to create familiarity.
