What is bespoke game design?
This is a design service for teams or organizations that need a game or activity designed by an expert to meet a specific need and deliver long-lasting results quickly and effectively. The games I design are similar to party games, board games, or role-playing games and can use paper, digital assets, or both!
What can a custom game solve?
Onboarding
Soft skills practice
Team building
Celebrating
Employee recognition
And more!
"★★★★★"
Pitch Perfect: a recent case study
For their One and All entrepreneurial cohort, the Lansing Economic Area Partnership (LEAP) needed a way to take building a business on paper off the page to actually teach entrepreneurs how to make a sale. The director wanted student founders to be able to find the point in a conversation to make a sale, recognize and respond to common objections, and practice being confident without over-explaining.
To meet these learning outcomes, I created a role-playing game that asked these business owners to pretend to be each other's potential clients. Everyone role-played being at a networking event and responding to or making a pitch on the fly, with a twist! Each customer had a secret win condition and business owners had to try to win the business without knowing what each customer needed to hear.
After I facilitated the game, we sat down to reflect and share takeaways. We listened to players explain what they learned, share what was challenging, and listen to each other's wisdom. One founder told the group it was the best guest session the cohort has had all year. It was quite something to watch the game and see players having their own aha! moments right there in the room.
Photos from LEAP's Pitch Perfect game in progress
The process
Send a message!
Tell me what you're looking for and we'll have some back and forth to understand learning outcomes.
Concepts
I'll send over a few ideas to get your feedback. If we pick one, we'll then have a call to discuss it and talk next steps.
Design
I design your game and all necessary components.
Play ball!
We'll have a final hand-off call to teach you how to run the game or you can hire me to run it for you.
Sometimes I feel like we're thrown things in life and we're like, oh no, what am I going to do? How am I going to handle this? And having it happen in a controlled space, like Lissy's speaking game, where I am being thrown something and being able to see that I can think on my feet was super confidence boosting. Like my self esteem just shot right up. I can only say good things about this program. I think that lissy is doing a wonderful job. She's such a great human being.
Questions you might have
What if we're not sure abut our outcomes yet?
No worries. If you can tell me what's going on, I can see whether or not there are concrete learning outcomes we can design around.
Do you run it, too or just design it?
I design almost every game to be self-sufficient, which means your team can run it anytime, like in the case of a new arrival to onboard, so you don't need me again. All games come with every piece needed, a facilitation guide, and a hand-off meeting to ensure you have everything you need to run a successful game. If needed, I can run the game for you for an additional fee.
How long does it take to design?
If I can reuse a familiar framework, it can take anywhere between 2 to 4 weeks, but if I'm creating a game from scratch, that can take anywhere from 1 to 2 months depending on complexity, taking into account that I create all the assets in house and playtest my own game concepts at least once before running them with your team.
Can this work for remote or hybrid teams?
Yes! I take the environment into account when designing.
What's the cost?
Bespoke games start around 1k with most hitting between the 2-3k mark. For complex games with many assets, more than one session required, or persona facilitation needed, quotes start around 8k. A 30% deposit is required to begin design work. I offer special pricing for non profits!
Interested?