Game Redesign: Kaiaulu

Each semester, student copywriters and graphic designers from Grand Canyon University (GCU) join to work on a passion project that allows them to improve collaboration skills, embrace their creativity and have fun. In Spring 2022, the student passion project empowered students to redesign a game of their choice and develop a social media campaign to promote it.

One group chose to redesign the classic sequencing card game, Skip-Bo. From there, they identified a fresh audience, developed goals and objectives and created a moodboard for the redesign.

Deliverables:

• Discovery questionnaire
• Moodboard
• Brand story
• Game redesign (including packaging and instructions)
• Promotional social media posts
• Presentation deck of final design

The students decided to target adults ages 40 – 50 and embraced one of the student’s Hawaiian backgrounds, combining it with the Skip-Bo game founder’s Western background to create a Hawaiian cowboy (paniolo) theme.

Now called Kaiaulu, this game includes helpful and interesting messaging that teaches players about the culture of Hawaii through Hawaiian phrases and their English translation. With the rules of gameplay unchanged, this version of the game boasts a bold block-style print inspired by elements of Hawaiian quilts and traditional tribal designs. Imagery features relevant Hawaiian cowboy elements such as traditional garments, tropical adornments and lush foliage. Vibrant reds, greens, yellows and oranges anchored by earthy browns and bright whites bring the Hawaiian paniolo island experience to life.

This passion project allowed the students to not only think through the creative brainstorming process but consider the operational decisions a client would have to make along the way.