Inside the design process at HABA, a world leader in children’s games

The very concept of kindergarten was born in germanyand with it the idea that young children can learn a lot by playing. It’s no wonder, then, that some of the best educational games for kids in the world are made there too. But how do you design games for five-year-olds? HABA, the German toy maker with top-selling board games like First orchard Y dragon breath, you may have the answer.

Parents and educators are likely to recognize HABA games by their bright yellow boxes on store shelves. According to game designer Markus Singer, it all starts with a prototype, usually something made by hand. His team receives about 1,500 prototypes each year, but only 600 of them make it to the testing stage. Even fewer are put in front of their target audience: young children.

“We have two kindergartens here in our department,” Singer said in an interview with Polygon. “We take the games and play them with the children in kindergarten. That’s a big part of trying these shortlisted games, because sometimes we think, ‘Well, they might be good for kids.’

But, as with most things, children have the ability to poke holes in the design of a game. Take, for example, the soon to be released game called Hammer time, which hits U.S. stores this fall.

When the prototype appeared, created by Shaun Graham and Scott Huntington, it was a game about an old damaged truck. Players needed to hit the truck with a hammer to loosen some bolts. The number of bolts that fell out determined how far a player pawn moved on a separate track. Its novelty (What kid doesn’t want to hit things with a hammer?) Made it a hit, but the theme and mechanics of the game itself needed more work. That’s when Dr. Jan-David Freund helped take it off the table and refine it.

Freund is a specialist in early childhood education and psychology. Your job is to evaluate HABA’s entire catalog of roughly 300 games, and then align those games with the learning goals you are trying to support. In terms of game design, it is also there to simply expose what children are capable of at what age, effectively helping tailor a game to suit a very specific audience of gamers, and the parents and educators who serve them. .

“This is really the point where I start to negotiate [with] product management, ”said Freund. “They have to focus on the numbers: what sells well and what age groups do we have, [and] Where are we missing a game of this or that size? There may be no games [in a certain category at all]. “

The theme of those games is also important, both to match the age range and for the convenience of certain populations. For example, the old broken truck of Hammer timeThe prototype became a gem-filled mine during the design phase. Players also switched roles, from truck drivers to colorful little dwarfs. But it’s the mechanics of these family-style games where the rubber really meets the road.

Freund says that a lot of attention was initially paid to the hammer itself. “What is the design of the hammer? Is the hammer okay for the age range we are targeting? Is this a task that children can do? We did it [so that] the kids wouldn’t have to hit too hard, so the gems would fly everywhere. Are they capable of fine hammering movements, etc.? So these were questions that they asked me to answer. “

But the contribution of the doctorate did not stop there. The new themed game required players to remove a certain amount of gems from the mine. But there were different consequences depending on whether an odd or even number of gems were dropped. How do you teach the concept of odd and even to a five-year-old who can barely count? The answer came in charming little drawings of two dwarves trying to share their stash of gems equally. One card shows two full bags and two happy dwarves, while another shows two unhappy dwarfs, two bags, and a gem left alone between them. Pictures clearly illustrate the concept and parents and educators can be available to reinforce it.

“This is called the scaffold concept,” Freund said. “[A child] You may not be able to do it now, but if someone helps you get started, we can lead you to this. The thing about scaffolding is that if you take kids to that point, you really encourage them better. If you do [do something] that, at first, they could not do, only with help, and they begin to do it on their own, this is really the impetus for their development. So we try to find the sweet spot between what they can already do, what interests them, and what helps them the most to move to the next level. “

Together, Freund and Singer went even further by suggesting additional tasks that would help extend the game’s replay value and further reinforce the appropriate learning goals for five-year-olds.

Included with Hammer time It is a simple wooden die with a bright color on each side. Roll the dice each round and, on a purple scroll, the children will have to hit the box with their hand instead of the hammer; on a red they will need to lie with their head on the table, as if they were sleeping; on a blue they will need to hammer with the left hand. All of these modes help develop a child’s manual dexterity.

With those additions and changes in place, it fell to Singer and his team to bring the game to market. The independent and independent truck became the bottom of the box. Once removed from the lid, all you have to do is place a special adhesive pad on the bottom of the box to make the game much quieter. Dwarfs were then illustrated on the sides of the box, with a set of gems pictured to help younger children count, comparing their gem collection to the goal.

In the end, of course, it is in the game itself that the magic really happens.

“There is this last aspect,” Dr. Freund said, “of daring and risk-taking. So children, really, if they are too cautious, they will lose the game. But you have to risk it. You have to assess the situation at the table, ‘Oh, he only has one card left! I have to give a push! And of course, this can be a bad decision. But that’s how risks work and children have to dare to do something, but in a controlled situation. And daring and getting out of yourself is something kids need some support for. ”

Hammer time was viewed with a commercial copy provided by HABA. Vox Media has affiliate associations. These do not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased through affiliate links. You can find Additional information on Polygon’s ethics policy here.

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