Reliving Tales of Angami Naga is a collaborative project between William Liu Rui Qian, a back-end coding developer student from the faculty of Engineering in Information Engineering and Media at Nanyang Technological University, and myself, assuming the role of designer and animator. This project is guided by the SoH, ADM, and EEE teams as part of Professor Joan Marie Kelly and Professor Alexander Robertson Coupe’s eight-year partnership to sustain and support the development of literacy in endangered languages.
Of the 170 or so minority languages at risk in India, half are Tibeto-Burman languages primarily spoken in regions such as Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland in North-East India. The impending loss of these languages would be catastrophic, resulting in the loss of cultural heritage and linguistic knowledge.
Reliving Tales of Angami is a Pixel Role Playing Game (RPG) designed to promote the Tenyidie language and cultural heritage of the Angami Tribe in Nagaland to a global audience, with a particular focus on younger Angami generations. We heavily rely on Tenyidie folktales as a medium to facilitate the narrative and impart cultural knowledge in the game. We aspire to inspire similar efforts globally towards adopting adaptive and sustainable design approaches for the preservation of language and culture.
Balik Kampung (Going back to Hometown/Village) is an educational board game that guides Malay children from 5 to 6 years old in creating sentences using formal Malay language.
After conducting research on the topic, children from 5 to 6 years old are expanding their vocabulary however, they have difficulties in forming sentences. Apart from that, formal Malay language is a challenge for them, as they are exposed to colloquial Malay language in their daily lives.
Hence, this game’s objective is to introduce children Malay language and guide them in creating sentences. Inspired by Malay heritage and culture, Balik Kampung (Going back to Hometown/Village) is divided into 3 themes – Festive Seasons, Traditional Crafts and Traditional Games.
*The game is originally in Malay language. It has been translated into English for display purposes.
One True Pairing: An informal marriage preparation tool for millennials
Although millennials are spending more time in their search for suitable partners, marriages have ironically become increasingly short-lived. This could be attributed to the cultural shift in marriage expectations — rather than marrying for socio-economic reasons, the younger cohorts are settling for romantic love instead. Such notions have sometimes placed unrealistic expectations on marriages, which could go on to become the cause of disappointment, and eventually dissolution, when couples are put to the test of the daily grind after tying the knot. Hence, couples may not be fully prepared before making a commitment.
One True Pairing is a card game targeted at millennial couples who are dating with marriage in mind. This informal marriage preparation resource aims to encourage conversations surrounding marital expectations early on in their relationships in the hopes of better preparing them for a lifetime together.
Social interactions that lead to positive affect are fundamental to human well-being. It helps improve the quality of life, and fulfils the need to be recognised, accepted and valued as an individual. However, individuals with alzheimer’s, are challenged to achieve positive social interaction.
The challenges become most acute when they begin to lose their grip on the present and their present condition. Seeing other fellow people with alzheimer’s, with compromised abilities, does not necessarily create a forgiving play environment, but rather, the opposite. This results in a common display of agitation and disruptive behaviour, which occurs when the person’s stress threshold is exceeded.
Bloom is a set of three puzzle games which encourages social interaction through solving the pieces together in a day care center setting. By giving them opportunities to understand themselves and understand each other, it familiarises the concept of empathy for productive social play.
Sugar Spikes is a card game designed to target families with children age from 7 to 10 as health communication. The concept of the game is to expose how various foods and its carbohydrates can easily affect our blood glucose (sugar) level. Blood glucose is made up of carbohydrates and used by the cells in our body to give us the source of energy we need. However, if we consume too many carbohydrates all the time, it might cause our blood glucose level to spike and endanger our health. Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) is a chronic disease characterised by hyperglycemia and insulin resistance, which was once a condition only diagnosed in adults after the age of 40. However, prevalence showed that increasing numbers of youths are developing T2D. It can lead to serious complications like heart and blood vessel disease, nerves damage, kidney failure, blindness and amputation if it is not treated well. Nevertheless, by making healthy food choices and have adequate exercises, T2D can be prevented. In all, this project aims to raise awareness and encourage health interventions as a prevention of T2D through the mode of gameplay.
