Balancing Inequalities: A Board Game for Young People from Coastal Communities to Discuss Plausible Futures

This paper describes and summarises the design process of making a board game for young people from coastal communities in England to engage and discuss perspectives about their futures. The board game was created around imagining plausible futures and aimed at providing scenarios for players to make decisions about their futures considering social, economic and health inequalities. The paper showcases an exploratory approach of identifying game design elements based on co-design sessions with stakeholders (young people between the ages of 14–17) and experts, while using real-world scenarios and game design balancing techniques. The contributions of the paper are twofold: 1) it describes the process of making the board game via stakeholder participation, game design systems and game balancing; and 2) it provides a research-through-design method in which the design of the game reflects the intrinsic system in which young people live and suggests ways to overcome barriers established by these systems. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research such as the use of the game in participatory design sessions, mentoring classes and as an initial framework for serious games that can emerge from the discussions (e.g., teaching life skills, entrepreneurship competencies, etc.).