Access & Belonging
Games created a social entry point: a clear invitation to sit down, learn, and participate.
Case study / 006
Board Games
The origin story: playable systems designed, manufactured, and exhibited.
- Year
- 2018–19
- Mode
- Project-based studio
- Disciplines
- Game design / Systems / Graphic design / Fabrication / Exhibition
The project
An early M‑LAB project asked teams to transform rules, story, graphics, objects, and audience testing into complete tabletop games. Its public exhibition established a pattern that still defines the studio: make the work real enough for someone else to use.
493archive files indexed
234project photographs
2019M-LAB origin chapter
Essential question
“How do rules, story, and objects combine to create meaningful play?”
Project architecture
- 01Rules and mechanics
- 02Visual system and components
- 03Manufacturing and assembly
- 04Public play and exhibition
Learning made visible
Personalization
Teams built distinctive worlds from a common production framework.
Authentic Work
A game only worked when another person could understand and enjoy it.
Collaborative Design
Rules, art, fabrication, and testing made authorship necessarily shared.
Exhibition
The room became an arcade of tables, with visitors learning each game by playing it.