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Where The Fellowship Continues.
Dungeons and Companions is an app designed to keep players motivated to play Dungeons and Dragons while they're waiting for the next planned session.
What is Dungeons and Dragons?
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Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game where players embark on adventures as custom-made characters, guided by a Dungeon Master (DM) who describes the world and leads the game.
Dice determine the outcomes of actions, and the game can be played either in person or online, with sessions ranging from a few hours to years-long campaigns.
The goal of this project
I've started this project out of personal interest in Dungeons and Dragons. I've played DnD with my brother and his friends before, and recently rekindled my passion for the game when I started running a DnD campaign with my friends.
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The problem I wanted to tackle was as follows:
"Despite the enjoyment Dungeons and Dragons provides, players experience a loss of motivation due to long wait times and limited connection with the group."
Design Challenge
"How can a digital interactive product keep Dungeons and Dragons players engaged and motivated between sessions, reducing the chance of players dropping out due to a lack of interaction?"
Research
In order to get a good view of the problem, how real it was, and the target audience of the product, I've taken some steps to ensure I did proper research on the topic.
Literature study
In-depth reading about the subject through online articles and forums
Enquête
Sharing a form amongst active DnD players to gain insights on their thoughts and habits.
Interviews
Interviews with several players, regular and Dungeon Masters alike, to gather more info about the target audience than I would've gathered from just using the enquête.
Personas
Creating several personas based on the results gathered from the above research and using those to work on my prototype.
User Journey
I made several user journeys to improve my view of the project and understand the goal I wanted to achieve.
Main insights
Below are some of the main insights I gathered from the above research.
Motivation
Loss of motivation due to insufficient connection with the group and long wait times between sessions.
Desire for more interaction
Players consider role-playing and interaction as their favorite aspects of Dungeons and Dragons and want more contact between sessions.
Communication
Effective communication strengthens the group bond, making players feel more comfortable and enhancing the gaming experience.
Self-centered
Players enjoy immersing themselves in their own characters and want to further develop them.
Final product
Based on the conducted research, I created a prototype for the final product.
The final product touches upon the stated issues from my research as follows:
Motivation
Alleviating wait times and improving motivation through increased interaction and engagement.
Desire for more interaction
Enhancing mutual interaction through text-based roleplay.
Communication
A single hub for all communication related to DnD.
Self-centered
Developing characters through text-based roleplay.
Additional progress
Additional progress can be viewed in the PDF below (documented in Dutch).
Conclusion
After spending around 13 weeks on this project, I am happy with how it turned out. In the future, I wish to fully develop this prototype. to become a true app.
Software
Figma