Significance and domain

Choice of form
As a design project, the development of Tama Tama Paradise aims to address the issue of sponsored trolling and consequent group conflicts and propose a mitigation measure of the issue, given how significant and harmful the situation is. To achieve the aim, Xiao chose the form of strategy simulation game under the realm of practice named serious game based on her research of multiple design solutions to the issue, including online interactive cyber citizenship courses and role-playing games.

Serious games are games whose primary goal is addressing a social issue or teaching players a piece of information (Li, 2020) : this game should be considered as a serious game under such definition. To deliver the educational message, a strategy game is selected because it has been proven to be an effective tool for education, training, and social change (Shifroni & Ginat 1997). The Strategy-simulation game is especially powerful in simplifying complex dynamic and teaching coping strategy (Shifroni & Ginat 1997).

Apart from strategy simulation, another core mechanism is a collection to align the game better with the target players’ preference. It will be a mobile game that can be played daily and for a long period (months and even years). According to the audience interview, the mobile collection game is chosen because the audience group play mostly mobile games, and the collection game is one of their favourite genres (Wu 2020, Chen 2020).