The Development of Sei Leiferser!
- Lorenzo Tondo
- Jun 27
- 3 min read
Looking back at our journey in South Tyrol
It’s finally out! Sei Leiferser is a collaboration between Novak Studios and Logos Dolomiti to create a fun experience for middle-school kids. The project goal was to bring attention to local businesses and small shops in the area of Laives, a town in the region of South Tyrol, Italy.
After months of work, we’re ready to look back on our experience and revisit important steps along the process that made Sei Leiferser! a reality.
How it Started
During the summer of 2024, we got in contact with Logos Dolomiti. They were currently working on a project with a clear goal: to bring more attention to local businesses in the area, especially among the youth, and make them understand the importance that these small businesses hold in fostering the local economic ecosystem.
This project sounded incredibly interesting to us, as our goal is to use Applied Games to tackle real-world issues, so we immediately jumped aboard.
The project was already in the prototyping stage, and Logos’ developers had already concepted a game and created a prototype. Their concept was for a board game where the players would move around a board resembling the town of Laives, and have to purchase products from stores to win. Needless to say, we found this idea very intriguing and welcomed the project with open arms.
How it Developed
Our development process started with a simple step: Playtesting
Playtesting the prototype, both with ourselves and with other players, gave us valuable insights into the current workings of the game, how it achieves its goal, and which areas can be improved upon.
Out of this playtesting, we found X key areas that we could focus on to ensure that the game’s message would come across clearly:
Interaction Between Players
With a target audience of middle-school kids (which in Italy correlates to kids between 11 and 14 years old), a key component of the perceived fun of a game is the level of interactivity between players. Those moments where you can steal resources from your opponents, or counter their play to give you an advantage.
To encourage more interaction, we introduced a mechanic to allow players to trade with each other (similar to games like Monopoly). We also added many “Chance” cards that can be drawn throughout the game and then played against other players.
Board Design and Player Agency
The design of the board is a very powerful tool in a board game. It directs the flow of play and dictates what options are available to the player at any given time.
We found it particularly important to give players more agency over their movement, which is why we created a board with many junctions and split paths. This allows for an extra layer of strategy and decision-making, as well as creating the feel of “roaming around” in a town, rather than being stuck on a path.
Distinction Between Shops
The main element of the project was, undoubtedly, the different local stores participating in the initiative. This was in part accomplished by having them on the board, and being the main way that players can obtain the products needed to win. We decided to put even more of a spotlight onto these stores by allowing players to use an “Equipment Card” related to a store of their choice, which would give them benefits throughout the game.
This helped a lot in giving each store a unique identity and ensuring that players remember them for longer.
How it Concluded
After months of work, both on our part and from Logos Dolomiti (who supported us for some of the visuals), the project was finally ready to release!
Sei Leiferser! was played by kids in the schools of Laives and received a lot of attention from local news and media outlets.
This project worked as a great learning experience for us, teaching us deeper insights about collaborating with external parties, as well as adapting content to serve a specific goal.
We’re very grateful to Logos Dolomiti for involving us in such a great project. It’s incredible to see a game that we worked on being played by kids in their schools.
We hope to continue to create projects like these and to keep fostering the value of Applied Games as a teaching medium.
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