'The Ring Road - Icelandic Summer' - Board Game

There's an easy and cheap way to bring tourists back to Iceland, entertain and educate them and make sure they will choose it as their first destination as soon as COVID-19 is over. It's a board game!

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Inspiration

Have you realized that Iceland lost half of its population this year? You may ask how.

In 2019 we welcomed around two million international tourists here. That’s around 170 000 people visiting us every month. Half of the whole Icelandic population! This year because of COVID-19 those people were forced to #stayhome.

They are frustrated, bored and they are dreaming about travelling again. What if we let them travel to Iceland meanwhile letting them to stay safe at home? Impossible you may say. What if we give them tools to explore this country without a need of leaving their safe homes? Even more impossible? What if we encourage them to plan their trip to Iceland even though they are being stuck on their quarantine and can’t travel yet? And what if I tell you they actually may like it and want to stay even longer at homes? Still impossible?

Nothing is impossible here. It’s Iceland, country built from the ashes. We live on top of the volcanos, we grow tomatoes in Arctic climate, we are part of NATO without having army, we are one of the happiest nation in the world although we don’t see much of the Sun here. It's Iceland. Impossible doesn't exist here but supposedly elves do.

And what If I tell you it's all POSSIBLE thanks to the BOARD GAME?

What it does

The Ring Road - Icelandic Summer is a family board game that will guide you through Icelandic attractions, winding roads and hidden touristic treasures. Every road piece on the board corresponds to the actual 20-30 mins drive of a car during Icelandic summer in a real life and every cost of attraction represent the actual average time needed for each of the attractions. By playing this game you can actually plan your real trip around Iceland and learn about the most interesting attractions this country can offer. All in one place. Prepared by experienced local guide. Planning by playing with a lot of fun!

This game is designed to inspire people to come and visit Iceland and be familiar with almost all Icelandic tourist attractions.

How I built it

I used my knowledge from few years of guiding in Iceland to provide the players the best possible know-how about Icelandic attractions, roads and sites of interests. I used Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to create a board, cards and an instruction. I used my experience in board games to create rules that are understandable and easy to follow while giving lots of fun from playing.

Challenges I ran into

I needed to learn how to operate Adobe Illustrator without any training or previous practice and how to create easy rules that will provide lots of fun while playing. However, the biggest challenge was to conduct in-depth research about all Icelandic roads and attractions and to embed it into the rules and look of the game.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I created a board game that can be scalable for almost any country around the World making similar games in other places possible in the future. This game can help countries to bring tourists in and help them get familiar with local attractions in a nice and enjoyable way.

What I learned

That when we loose a job we discover a huge potential in ourselves to do new things, to begin everything from the scratch and to create something unique using the best of our knowledge and experience. The potential is within us, a hard work and a determination can bring it up.

What's next for 'The Ring Road - Icelandic Summer' - Board Game

  1. Process of finding partners to finish the project (graphic improvements, printing pieces, create a marketing and publishing strategy) and promote this board game worldwide.
  2. Release the game in 2020 and boost tourism on Iceland.
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