Igraj.me

Our board games help people gain a better understanding about the country of Montenegro, our culture, history and way of life in a fun and creative way.

The first problem we focused on when we started this ide was a lack of proper education about our own country here in Montenegro. Our educational system is not perfect and while it tries its best to explain different aspects of our country, it has mostly failed, resulting in a great lack of knowledge among our people and some very embarrassing situations anywhere from everyday interactions and social media up to national TV and parlament. During our work on the idea we realised something else as well: people outside our country aren't really aware about it either, sometimes not even our neighbors. That too led to misunderstandings like the assumations that English version of our name contains a racial slur or that our native language is Russian. Being lucky to grow up with chances to interact with different cultures (some of them including Albanian, Italian, Russian, Cheese, Bulgarian, Romanian, Moldavian etc.) the three of us understand that these experiences helped shape us and form a better understanding of differences and respect for them and as such want to help others, less likely to have that chance, do the same by sharing our culture in a fun way (that will also hopefully distract people from their phones and offer some good old family quality time)

Our solution is a rather simple one. A series of board games that focus on Montenegro and its parts which works on both Serbian/Montenegrin/Bosnian/Croatian and English language so players can pick one more convenient to them. In order to progress in the game, players will have to answer correctly to questions about the country, which variate from easy to very hard ones. That way, players are more motivated to learn as each guess brings them closer to the finish line. It's a simple board game that requires just a box, board, cards with questions, pawns and dices (with printed instructions to go with it of course)

We are primarily hoping that our game might try and lessen the knowledge holes created by faults in our education system for everyday people, help students learn in a more fun and creative way than the boring sitting on a chair with a textbook next to you and bring some quality time together for friends and family. In addition, we want to encourage diversity and multiculturalism by helping gain a better insight in a culture different than the players' own (in case they are not from our country) in a way more accessible than traveling and more fun and attention keeping than just googling bunch of informations

Considering we are born and lived in Montenegro our whole lives, we had a great chance to see a lack of knowledge first hand and also experience it ourselves (something we had long fought to overcome). Thanks to our family background, the three of us have graphic designers, historians, geographers, psychologists and linguists as our family members, and all were more than willing to help in realization of our idea. We even had small beta testers in shape of my little cousins and their friends as well as ones more experienced such as people from our local nursing home. During our (as of recently) one year long work on this subject, we managed to gain great experiences both in our own country and on recent SIA summit in Vienna and accomplish amazing results. 

We had first hand experience with the lack of knowledge and education system faults and interact with people who face ones to on a daily basis. We also sometimes meet people outside of our country who are always surprised by the amount of history, culture and diversity our small county has to offer

There was no such thing as our game in Montenegro, it is a completely new game design by us as a way to make learning easier and more interesting. We are hoping for being able to enable boarder positive impacts from others in this space

We hope that by playing our game, people will be able to learn more and by the end of year we somehow lower the problem in education, even if just slightly 

Currently we mostly use technology for advertisment and way to gain publicity (plus the fact we use digital design for box, cards and board as well as 3D printer for dice and pawns) but we are also hoping we could maybe make a digital version for our game in the future to make it more easily accessible to people aboard

We have so far made 30 current versions of the game and 6 prototypes that had all found their home in households that enjoy them regularly, not only in Montenegro but also in Serbia, Bosnia and even one in Germany 

Our biggest barrier is our age. We are still high school students and will be until the end of this school year which also creates certain legal problems as, although being 18 years old, we are still high school students and therefore still not seen as adults in some fields and requiring parental consent. We are also looking for improving the quality of our product in terms of better packaging and board

We currently aren't partners of any organisations but we consider ourselves associates of University Donja Gorica (UDG) and Social Impact Awards (SIA) who helped us develop our idea and recognized our effort and achievements and awarded them. We are also associate of American Corner Pljevlja and Tourist Organization Pljevlja, although not nearly as close in relations as with previous two