Four to Score

FOUR TO SCORE

game design

behavioural design

branding & packaging

This solution transforms physical activity into a playful experience. By merging game mechanics with fitness, it makes movement exciting and social. The design encourages long-term engagement beyond traditional sports.

Team Members

Vidhi Shah
Lyric Gupta

Role

Research , Branding & Packaging, Game Mechanics

Duration

2 months

INTRODUCTION

Urban Indian children are becoming increasingly sedentary, and traditional sports programs often fail to engage them.

This project explores how game-based play can make physical activity more appealing by designing a solution rooted in real-world insights and context.

SECONDARY FINDINGS

Social Play Drives Movement

Children are significantly more active when friends are involved — fostering motivation and reducing dropout due to loneliness.

The Problem Of Immediate Gratification

The Immediate gratification provided by screen-based entertainment often outweighs the long-term benefits of physical activity for children.

Change In Priorities During Adolescence

The competing demands of academics, technology, and changing social priorities often take precedence over exercise.

Language And Framing Matter

Activities framed as "exercise" or "work" may feel like obligations rather than enjoyable pursuits.

SURVEY RESPONSES

EMPATHY INTERVIEWS

EXPERIMENTS

INTERVIEW FINDINGS

7 children | 18 parents | 5 siblings

Family Participation Boost

Parental involvement serves as a catalyst, making children more enthusiastic and committed to active play

Free Time = More Screen Time

Idle time, eg. during holidays, leads to increased screen usage. Structured, engaging alternatives are needed.

EXPERIMENTS

Experiment 1: Children aged 6–12 were shown four event invites: Family Games Night, Game Zone, Sports Day with Friends, Solo Superhero Quest. They were asked to choose one, and both their reactions and their parents' input were observed.

Learning (Limitation): Children’s choices were heavily influenced by the visual appeal of the invites rather than the content or activity itself. This made it difficult to assess their true preference, indicating that this method may not be the most reliable way to gauge genuine interest.

79% of the participants chose ‘Game Zone’

family games night

sports day

Experiment 2: With the new knowledge, the invites were replaced with flash cards showing different games and activities. Yet the majority picked the playstation flash card, followed by 4 votes for cricket and 3 votes for subway surfers, yet again digital.

THE PROCESS

Conducted Market Research

Other than Twisters, there are very few games promoting physical play for any age group.

Behavioural Models & Octalysis Framework

After taking 4 scenarios, we considered their corresponding Habit Loops, Hook’s Model, Fogg’s Model and Theory of Planned behaviour and learned something along the way. For example:

This helped us understand that our solution must not completely exert the players, a few mind tasks along with physical activities would be perfect.

Octalysis was applied to balance both the extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.

Behavioural Models & Octalysis Framework

After taking 4 scenarios, we considered their corresponding Habit Loops, Hook’s Model, Fogg’s Model and Theory of Planned behaviour and learned something along the way. For example:

This helped us understand that our solution must not completely exert the players, a few mind tasks along with physical activities would be perfect.

Octalysis was applied to balance both the extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.

Framed the How Might We Statement

How might we design engaging and accessible solutions to encourage children aged 8 - 12 to participate in more physical activities while addressing challenges like space, time constraints, and screen time preferences?

Ideation & Prototyping

The one thing we kept in mind while conceptualising was:

“WHAT WOULD PRISHA SAY”

She was one of the interviewee’s who changed the way we looked at 8-12 year olds.

Ideation & Prototyping

The one thing we kept in mind while conceptualising was:

“WHAT WOULD PRISHA SAY”

She was one of the interviewee’s who changed the way we looked at 8-12 year olds.

THE SOLUTION

A player selects a square on the board to claim by drawing a card from the corresponding challenger deck and reads its task aloud. On successfully completing the challenge described on the card, the player places their tile on the chosen square. If the player fails to complete the challenge, they forfeit their turn.

USABILITY TESTING

Usability testing was conducted with a total of 30 participants. They enjoyed the game and rated it 4.1 on 5.

The children particularly appreciating the characters Baldev and Baba Mosho. Parents found the game effective at keeping children active and promoting family bonding.

Some of the feedback received was:

Some tasks were deemed too easy, reducing the challenge.
Issues like tile confusion, where to start the game and to refine the gameplay experience.