Learning Games: Designing a card game Barkeep for bartenders

Abstract

Many workers at a bar have no education in the field. They are usually taught at the place they are, and this takes effort and time which could be used to serve more customers. The objective of this thesis was to create a serious card game and playtest it to see if that would help people to learn how to make drinks and improve drink component memorization.

This thesis researched how games have been used to improve productivity in different education branches and fields of work. The main categories of games in learning were explored and explained. Aesthetics of design and the connection of it to workability was also delved into, to make the game more pleasant and people more likely to play it.

The result of the project design was Barkeep, a design of how the playing cards would look like and make aesthetically easy to remember drinks. The cards were based on existing drinks, alcohol and component that bars already use. The aesthetic design of the card was the focus of the product as one of the goals was to make cards that players would like to look at, therefore remember them easier.

The game would have needed more playtesting to have more concrete evidence to the functionality of the game. The small numbers could still be misleading, but the results looked promising as how the Barkeep helped people to remember cocktails in their entirety, rather than random components from variety of drinks.