Lightning in a Bottle: Analog Winner
Lightning in a Bottle is a game for beginning designers from a range of disciplines who want to learn about common methods and how they are connected into deliverables. It places the player in the role of designer, without assuming any prior knowledge or skill but it quickly introduces them to a substantial repertoire of designerly thinking. Through the interconnection of game pieces and mechanics, players learn about the iterative double-diamond phases of design; about dozens of individual actions that designers engage in on a day-to-day basis; and about the layered process of transforming ideas into finished products. There is an impressive amount of knowledge about the design profession synthesized here, without it ever feeling overwhelming or stifling for players. Lightning in a Bottle provides an authentic glimpse into the role of being a designer.
A second strength of the game is that it contains several possible uses that can scaffold a budding designer’s learning through cycles of expertise. At the simplest level, it functions as an abstract strategy game where players are trying to quickly collect colored tokens. Played in this format, the cards are designed to introduce ideas like user personas or focus groups through succinct descriptions. However, the game really shines when players approach it as a unified process and role-play the process as if they were designing an actual product. By imagining the results of each step and the milestones they build to, players end up inadvertently simulating the transformative process of design. Something that seemed like a good idea, necessarily changes in the process of play, and ends up looking rather different. That in itself is a crucial lesson and experience. Finally, the game is open-ended enough that it could be used as a long-form tool rather than a short competitive game. It can become a personal prompting device, or a semester long set of tasks where players must actually follow the game’s directions for a project that is underway. Lightning in a Bottle thus builds on itself by leveraging real design activities and allowing them to function abstractly, imaginatively, or realistically.
Finally, Lightning in a Bottle is a beautiful game that presents complex information clearly and succinctly. In that regard, it models the outcomes of the graphic design processes it is showing. The designers have playfully appropriated diagrams from design textbooks that have a kinship with the visual abstraction of board games. It has a subtle effect of bringing those diagrams to life, as if we were playing cartoon characters jumping onto the page. While the visual style is minimal, it is well chosen. It leaves the game open for players from a variety of subdisciplines to imagine themselves as the primary audience.
Lightning in a Bottle is still a prototype, and somewhat rough around the edges, but it showcases innovative and thoughtful use of many of James Paul Gee’s learning principles.
