Two Wins to Win
a board game that teaches young professionals about salary negotiation
Carnegie Mellon University
Collaborators: Haley Carter, Vivi Nguyen, Amanda Piccolini, Ham Siripanichgon
Project Synopsis
Two Wins to Win is a two-player cooperative, competitive digital board game designed to transform the way college students and recent graduates approach salary negotiation.
How can a game be both cooperative and competitive?
In this game, players step into the roles of a recruiter and a recruit where they will apply negotiation strategies and techniques to achieve interest-based goals and maximize their income and benefits, however, a player can only be declared a winner if both players end up with a positive score.
Learning Goals
Through the gameplay, players will learn concepts and professional jargon used in practice such as: BATNA, logrolling, interest-based negotiation, and more. They’ll develop familiarity with the diverse offerings of a benefits package and experience the value of a cooperative relationship between recruit and recruiter.
The Process
We began by brainstorming several ideas for the topic our educational game would cover. Once the topic was settled on, we began our initial research on negotiation strategies and potential card mechanics that could tackle these strategies. Our prototyping process consisted of three iterations and two playtests. Read more about each iteration and playtest in the project report.
Two Wins to Win bridges the gap between fantastical and realistic environments to create a low-stakes, scaffolded environment for players to strengthen their ability to confidently navigate the complex, and often intimidating, process of job interviews and offer negotiations.