Saverio Cavicchi

Saverio was born in Rome, living in the surroundings most of his life. Once graduated in Graphic Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Frosinone, he took the long jump and moved to Milano, where he begun attending master’s degree in Communication Design at Politecnico. After two years which felt like ten he finally found his way: Interaction Design, for he thinks that a meaningful, usable and effective design for users is worth a thousand gradients, or so he believes. In real life Saverio actually works as User Interface Designer. More than gradients he hates talking about himself in third person.

Project

The widespreading and cheapening of sensors and components that allow smart connectivities to open up interesting scenarios within the discipline of Game Design.

Objects are the cornerstones of board game experience: pawns, cards, dice are necessary to the player in order to carry out actions to influence the course of the game. One might think of them as interfaces between players and the world lying inside the Magic Circle. What would happen if these objects were able to perceive the world around them? Would players’ actions become more meaningful if, instead of using an interface to pretend an action –like rolling a die to attack– they could perform the exact action directly on game objects? Which new mechanics could be designed thanks to this the new spectrum of possible interactions?

The aim of this project is the prototyping of a board game embedding the new set of possibilities made available by smart technology, to enrich gaming experience with new interactions and to design a real and meaningful hybridisation of analog and digital. The prototype will be shaped as an artifact/interactive system designed to be potentially showcased in a science and technology museum and aimed at curious and tech enthusiast audience.

The design methodology applied is the result of the dialogue between different disciplines: Communication Design, since the aim is the creation of a system which shall communicate a theme through different media, Game Design, for the prototype will be a board game, and Interaction Design, because the game experience will be the result of interactions between users and a set of interconnected sensors and object.