Game: Watt A Waste!

Watt A Waste! is a sustainability-focused card game created as part of my MA final project. Set in an apartment building where each player is a tenant, the game challenges players to manage a limited amount of electricity, make smarter everyday choices, and finish with the most energy left.

The idea was to turn a serious issue — electricity consumption and its impact on carbon footprint — into something interactive, relatable, and fun. The game uses familiar household scenarios to make players think about their own habits while still feeling light and engaging.

This project is both a piece of game design and a behavioural design experiment: it explores how playful experiences can encourage awareness and positive change around sustainability.

View all the files from this project here

The brief for this project was open-ended: create something that encourages people to reduce their carbon footprint. From the beginning, I knew I didn’t want to make some posters or a social media campaign that simply told people what to do. Instead, I wanted to create something people would choose to engage with, something they’d enjoy enough thinking about even after playing.

The design goal became to bridge the gap between awareness and action. I wanted to explore how design could make sustainability feel tangible, approachable, and even competitive. Games are uniquely suited for this because they create systems of cause and effect — just like in real life. If you waste energy in the game, you lose; if you conserve it, you win.

To understand the problem space, I started with desk research using sources like Uswitch’s Free Energy Saving Tips and the Alliance to Save Energy’s 10 Energy-Wasting Habits at Home and How to Fix Them. These gave me factual grounding in how and where energy is most often wasted in domestic spaces.

I complemented this with short interviews and conversations with people in my target demographic: Gen Z renters and students. I asked about their energy habits, what they pay attention to, and what makes them feel motivated to save energy (or not).

Three major insights shaped the design direction:

1. Overconsumption feels invisible: people rarely see immediate consequences of wasted energy, so it’s easy to ignore.

2. Comfort and convenience drive behaviour: even environmentally conscious people prioritise what’s easiest.

3. Awareness is shallow: many people know they “should” conserve energy, but few know which actions truly make a difference.

These insights confirmed that a behavioural approach and not just an informational one was necessary. I wanted players to experience the effects of waste and conservation through gameplay mechanics.

The early concept focused on the metaphor of a shared resource. All players live in the same apartment building, drawing from the same energy grid. This setting immediately created opportunities for tension, collaboration, and competition.

I mapped out the core mechanics using MDA (Mechanics–Dynamics–Aesthetics) thinking:

• Mechanics: Drawing, playing, and trading cards; gaining or losing kWh.

• Dynamics: Players react to one another’s actions, form alliances, or compete.

• Aesthetics: Humour, strategy, and a light sense of responsibility.

I took inspiration from games like Monopoly Deal, Fluxx, and Sushi Go! — especially their use of quick rounds and unpredictable turns. I also looked at educational “serious games” that balance learning and play, analysing how they communicate information without interrupting flow.

The card system evolved into three main categories:

• Action Cards (Positive or Negative): Represent real-life energy habits like leaving lights on or switching to LED bulbs. Each action affects your total energy (in kWh).

• Neutral Cards: Introduce surprise events or global factors (e.g. energy prices doubling or renewable energy reducing costs). These affect all players for one full round.

• Resource Cards: Represent stored energy — the currency players spend or gain.

Each card includes a short piece of factual context (based on verified UK energy data) to make learning feel organic.

To ensure visual and textual consistency, I created style and tone rules for the microcopy. Text had to stay under 35 words per card, use conversational humour, and remain easy to read in one glance.

I began with paper prototypes — simple sketches with handwritten text. The goal was to test flow and pacing, not visuals. I ran two playtests with small groups (4 players), noting confusion points, turn clarity, and how often players laughed or discussed real habits.

Key findings:

• Players found the “gain/loss” mechanic intuitive but needed clearer visual cues for multipliers.

• Short rounds (15–20 minutes) kept engagement high.

• People remembered the relatable examples more than the numbers, confirming that context creates memorability.

Later, I designed digital mockups in Illustrator and refined the illustrations in Photoshop, aiming for a clean, modern style appealing to Gen Z audiences.

The final design used bright, sustainable colours — greens, yellows, and light neutrals — paired with clean typography for readability. Illustrations were simple and friendly, inspired by flat design with a touch of playfulness.

For printing, I formatted the cards in InDesign, fitting 64mm × 89mm cards efficiently on A3 sheets with 3mm margins and bleeds. I also designed foldable, card-sized instruction inserts.

For exhibition setup, I designed an interactive display where visitors could play short rounds by setting up the game on an elevated board, along with a large poster explaining the gist of it. The setup invited curiosity and allowed for both passive and active engagement.

The most rewarding feedback came during playtesting, when several players mentioned they began noticing their own energy habits afterward — small changes like turning off lights or avoiding half-full dishwasher runs.

While not a scientific study, it showed the game could spark reflection — achieving the goal of design for awareness and action.

This project helped me grow significantly as a designer.

• I learned to translate research insights into intuitive, interactive systems.

• I practiced balancing educational purpose with user enjoyment.

• I strengthened my visual storytelling and microcopy skills.

• I improved technical proficiency in Illustrator, InDesign, and print workflows.

• I deepened my understanding of behaviour-change design, empathy, and play as a UX tool.

Working on Watt A Waste! reminded me that design’s power lies in shaping experiences — not just visuals, but feelings, habits, and decisions. I learned to embrace iteration, listen to feedback, and simplify complexity without losing depth.

Most importantly, this project reaffirmed my belief that UX design isn’t limited to screens, it’s about creating interactions that connect people to meaningful issues in creative, human ways.