🧱 LEGO City Race Challenge

Building Social Skills Brick by Brick

Transformational Game Design

Published March 05, 2025

Project Overview

A transformational game for LEGO® Brick Clubs using collaborative building challenges to develop middle schoolers' social-emotional skills. The project was shortlisted and is soon to be distributed throughout Allegheny County.
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Client: LEGO® Brick Clubs
Context: Transformational Game Design Studio
Role: Game Designer
‍Timeline: 4 weeks - Fall 2024 (October 11, 2024)
Team Size: Individual
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Skills

- Transformational Game Design
- User Research
- Iterative Design
- Playtesting
- Educational Design

Mockup of title with city cards on a red background

The Problem

Middle school students, particularly those affected by pandemic-era isolation, are struggling with social-emotional development and communication skills.
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LEGO® Brick Clubs needed a playful learning activity that would foster a sense of pride and belonging in children's environments, and empower them to communicate their feelings effectively.

Target Audience

Primary: Middle school students (ages 11-13)
Setting: LEGO Brick Clubs, in-class activities, or after-school programs
Group Size: 3-4 players per group, with facilitators overseeing 12-30 students
Transformation: Relationships, creative problem solving, attitudes towards STEM

Children building a LEGO Robot at a Pittsburgh Brick Club

Children build a LEGO robot

Prototype Features‍

No-peek build, performance analysis, spotter, technican cards

The front and back of the underground city, desert oasis city, and arctic research city cards

Unexpected Discoveries

Adding constraints and removing rules actually helped players make better decisions rather than limiting them.

Players were so invested they took photos of their LEGO creations before deconstructing!

"Hot Seat" questions failed as a game mechanic but made excellent guiding prompts for city design

This project, shortlisted for distribution across LEGO® Brick Clubs in Allegheny County, demonstrates my ability to design inclusive experiences using evidence-based frameworks.

Key Transformations

A visualization of the high-level before and after changes for the game

Switch roles, non-verbal communications, hot seats, no-peek build cards

Fun for Audience: Gender-Inclusive Design

For Girls: Creative Expression

Open-ended building phases encourage creativity without fear of mistakes
No "wrong answers" approach addresses lower self-esteem common in girls at the middle school age

‍For Boys: Strategic Challenges

Active play with quick responses and rapid-fire techniques
Strategic play manipulating resources to achieve longer-term goals
Problem-solving with constraints and racing elements

‍All Players: Guiding questions help players incorporate personal values into their city designs, creating elements that resemble themselves. Playtesting confirmed engagement across genders.

Research Basis: Kinzie & Joseph (2008) found middle school girls prefer creative play while boys prefer strategic play with quick responses.

Research & Frameworks

The game design was informed by various academic sources:

Transformation Game Design (2018) to foster audience transformations in relationships, social interactions, knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
Embedded Design (Kaufman & Flanagan, 2015) to obfuscate educational elements.
"Yes-and" improvisation techniques to foster storytelling, risk-taking, creativity and collaborative communication (Benjamin and Kline, 2019).
Age-appropriate inclusivity based on research across gendered and non-gendered play preferences among middle schoolers (Kinzie & Joseph, 2008)"
Cognitive Load Theory using minimalist game mechanics, game theming, and relayability (Fath et al, 2022)

My Non-Linear Design Process

Initial Approach: Too Complicated

In my first iteration, I started with freestyle building + "Think Aloud" method to encourage communication

Created city cards and strategy cards for replayability and structure
Added role-based dynamics (Performance Analyst, Spotter, Technician)

Playtest 1 Revealed: Players needed more time with constraints; non-verbal communication as a strategy card contradicted game goals; instructions lacked clarity about deconstructing builds and role assignment

Original strategy cards that did not fulfill the transformation game design goals

Pivoting the Experience

In my second iteration, I added more game mechanics with the hopes that it would clarify things for the players

Measured engagement with strategy cards with time rather than rounds
Added dice mechanic to randomly assign roles and clarified instructions
Introduced context to orient players at the start of the game

Playtest 2 Revealed: Players enjoyed open-ended play but lost direction in abstraction; assigned roles were ignored and irrelevant to players; strategy cards were inaccessible; disconnect between Parts 1 and 2

Pivoting the Experience (Again)

In my third iteration, I aimed for greater coherence in the player experience

Preserved city artifacts from Part 1 to integrate with race cars in Part 2
Transformed "Hot Seat" questions into guiding prompts on city cards
Removed explicit roles but incorporated their principles into strategy cards

Playtest 3 Revealed: Players initially feeling overwhelmed highlighted the need for clearer starting points; collaboration difficulties actually indicated successful social-emotional challenge