i know a guy...︎︎︎ a two player trading and deck building game that highlights the absurdity of career chasing and professional networking in the modern age

2019 - Branding, Game, Product, Package
Made with Asumi Hasan︎︎︎

Beginning as budding designers, the players must race to climb the ladder of success by building their resumes, networking, and discovering their identities as designers. However, only one player can achieve the coveted Dream Job. Life just ain’t fair.
        We wanted to approach the complicated process of advancing in the working world from a light-hearted angle. The topic can be practical and tedious, but we chose to primarily showcase its more ridiculous and haphazard side.

Game Briefcase

CONTACT CARDS ︎︎︎

The game is filled with colorful personalities in the form of the Contacts you encounter and utilize. In reality, it seems you are shaped more by the people you meet than the items on your resume. 

OPPORTUNITY / CRISIS / ACTION CARDS ︎︎︎

Variety is the spice of life, so i know a guy... is packed with specialty cards. They range from devious sabatoge via Action cards, to mundance, unsexy Crisis cards.

VISUALS ︎︎︎

The visuals of the game are inspired by old technology and the idea of a personal work space. Our goal was to construct a parody of a rising professional through technology related to communication and organization (i.e. spreadsheet, briefcase, cell phone).
        We also wanted to put a spin on the dated look, so we abstracted the items to simple, organic lines, and color blurbs. Our visual system is modular and we transferred and adapted it for the game’s various components, from packaging to resume items.

THE NITTY GRITTY GAMEPLAY ︎︎︎

The objective of the game is to fill up each category on your resume (Experience, Education/Skills, Achievements, and Activities) to its respective point value. This is done by collecting Contact cards and trading them in for resume items. Each player starts with three Contact cards which are categorized by colors which correspond to different combinations of resume items. At the beginning of each turn, players must draw a card which will either be a Crisis, Action, Event, or Opportunity card. Additional Contact cards can be obtained by drawing an Opportunity card which will specify the amount to add to your collection.
       Crisis cards incorporate an element of chance into the game. These cards can result in the loss of resume items or Contacts, and are avoidable by rolling the die appropriately (even or odd).
       Action cards allow you to sabotage your opponent by making them discard their Contacts, taking their items, and more. Crisis and Action cards keep you on your toes by requiring you to anticipate the possibility of losing everything. This has an impact on your strategy while choosing which resume items to save your Contacts for in order to collect points in each category most advantageously.
       Lastly, Event cards allow you to collect items that you don’t necessarily need to know people to gain, such as Achievements, Education, and Skills.

TAKE AWAYS ︎︎︎

Making a game was so much harder than I thought. There were a many times where Asumi and I would test a prototype we were really excited about only to discover a glaring flaw in the system, or that the game was actually a total snoozefest. This definitely gave me a better appreciation for the complexity of building an interactive system, and I feel much better equipped to approach the process next time.