Oh My Gourd!

Oh My Gourd! is an autumnal educational board game that teaches users about the importance of food waste. By approaching dark topics with an essence of fun and youthful appearance, households can learn the importance of sustainability without fear-mongering narratives.

Services
Graphic + Product + Branding

Tools
Illustrator, InDesign, Fusion360

Year
2022

Team
Lara Tottewitz

Why Pumpkins?

Around 18,000 tonnes of pumpkins are thrown out every year during the Halloween season. The tradition of carving pumpkins is something familiar in North American households. By relating to a problem that is familiar to the users, it allows the user to see the problem as more palatable and relative to their lives.

Visual Language

Oh My Gourd!'s visual identity was inspired by children's books and organic imagery. By using loose and rounded shapes it enhances these qualities. The autumnal theme allows it to have a stronger identity—  creating a story for the user's journey.

Joy-Eliciting Education

Topics such as climate change and sustainability tends to utilize fear-mongering approaches. And as the decline of our environment continues, the earlier on these topics are brought up within children’s education. My partner, Lara Tottewitz, and I agreed that this was the opposite approach we wanted to have with Oh My Gourd!. By using gentle nature and exciting imagery, we can educate children and families on the importance of sustainability.

Process + How to Play

Lara and I began with taking scraps of paper and sketching out the board’s journey. From then we chose the system of our cards: action cards call the player to interact with other players, whereas question cards quiz players on their food waste knowledge.

Each player picks a character (trick-or-treater, grocery shopper, farmer, or chef) and starts with 20 pumpkin tokens. As the players roll the dice, they hop along the board and pull either action or question cards. If the players know their knowledge and are lucky with their action card pulls, they can gain even more pumpkins! However, the unlucky players will have to discard their pumpkins in either the compost (where other players can steal) or the garabge (where pumpkins are doomed forever!).

The player that finishes the game with the most pumpkins — wins!