Giving play more space in the future!

April 13, 2023

Partnertreffen 2023 - Giving Play More Space In The Future

March 2023 was all about our partner meeting. A milestone in the history of espoto because it was the first hybrid partner meeting where participants could be present both on site in Berlin and online. We have been looking forward to and preparing for this for weeks. Over the past year, we have completed many successful projects and developed new ideas to share them with our different partners. We also wanted to hear their opinions so that we could better customize our latest developments to their needs. For this we conducted workshops and it is remarkable to see the results of the exchanges. We would like to thank everyone who worked with us for two days and shared their valuable ideas and feedback.

On day 1, we discussed various topics, including the annual review, new features, and a new game concept that is currently in the prototype phase. During a world cafe session, we collected use cases for the new features and brainstormed further ideas. In the evening, we all had dinner together and shared our thoughts and insights with everyone who was present at the meeting.

On day 2, we provided an overview of our current game concepts, which resulted in some enlightening moments for the participants. Green City, an environmental rally for children and young people, as well as Tara, an outdoor rally on the subject of artificial intelligence, generated a lot of interest among the attendees. To conclude our partner meeting, we held a game design workshop that covered the fundamentals of game design.
With this article, we aim to offer you initial insights into our latest projects and current topics, especially for those who were unable to attend this year’s meeting. For our other readers, this article serves as a recap of the partner meeting.

New Features 2023

We presented our new features at the partner meeting, which offer numerous advantages and user-oriented solutions. We hope you enjoy using these new features and that we have made some processes easier here.

The following features were newly developed and / or adapted:

Dynamic Layout
Keywords
Gadgets
Custom Pages

1. Dynamic Layout

We are excited to introduce an important new feature in our Serious Games Scavenger Hunt App, the dynamic layout/custom layout. This feature allows you to choose 2 to 4 options in the main menu to create a customized and user-friendly layout. You can arrange the features in the main menu according to your needs and preferences, making the app flexible and adaptable. With just a few clicks, you can switch between the outdoor scavenger hunt, indoor app, or quiz app, which provides convenience and efficiency for your use.

The dynamic layout offers a solution that is adaptable and user-oriented. To learn how to use this feature, please refer to our espoto Academy for instructions.

2. Keywords

We would like to draw your attention to our new features related to keywords, which offer a great boost to your storytelling and make team addressing in the game more personal. The installation of keywords has created a fascinating motivation and storytelling mechanism that provides considerable added value and achieves a great effect. Furthermore, using keywords is effortless and straightforward. We highly recommend trying out the Keywords feature, and if you need guidance, we have included a comprehensive tutorial for this feature in the espoto Academy.

3. Gadgets - The Innovative Way To Promote Team Interaction And Fun!

Our new gadgets provide an excellent opportunity for team interaction and entertainment during events. The focus of these gadgets is primarily on competitive features, such as mutual obstruction, but they also include cooperative elements, allowing teams to support one another. There are various gadgets available that can be sent between teams, including text bombs, photo bombs, video bombs, disabling and enabling groups, and more.

What sets our gadgets apart is their customizability. You can give your gadget a unique name to make it more meaningful in your storytelling, as well as add a description to help players understand its function and use. You can also define the number of gadgets per event to create an optimal mix and provide variety. Soon, you’ll even be able to define the icon for your gadget, giving it a personal touch in terms of your storytelling. Overall, the gadget feature provides a professional and creative way to set new accents and promote interaction and creativity among participants.

4. Custom Page - Your Individual Playground For Creative Content

Custom pages offer you the possibility to create an individual game experience. With little programmatic effort, you can use this feature to create game-relevant content outside of TabSpots and general game info. It doesn’t matter if you want to include text, HTML, iFrames, keywords or other content – with Custom Pages there are almost no limits to your creativity.

The primary objective of Custom Pages is to provide you with the ability to integrate your own game-related material outside of TabSpots and the game info, without requiring extensive programming knowledge. You can effortlessly incorporate your content and create a customized experience for your participants. Custom Pages allows you to create up to three uniquely designed pages per game. This allows you to showcase different aspects of your game or project on separate pages, ensuring a clear and organized structure. You have complete control over the design of the pages – you can prioritize which content is most important and how it is presented.

Custom Pages are the ideal solution for anyone who wants to customize and enhance their games and other applications with little programmatic effort. The easy integration of different content, from text to HTML to iFrames and keywords, gives you a high degree of flexibility and creativity.

New Game Concepts

At the partner meeting, we presented not only our familiar game concepts. We also presented our new concepts “Green City – Environmental Rally” and “TARA: Save your city from chaos”. We were very pleased with the reactions! Here you can find more information about both game concepts:

Green City - Environmental Rally

With this game, you can explore any city with your customers from a new perspective, namely with ecological glasses. The concept has been specially developed for working with young people and school classes and focuses on the topic of sustainability as well as the critical examination of climate and environment in the city.

The players will encounter various questions and will also be encouraged to reflect. At the end, there will also be reflection questions for the teacher with which the topic can be continued in the classroom. The aim is to sensitize children and young people and to develop new perspectives on the subject of sustainability. Further product information on the game will be made available separately to all partners in the coming weeks.

The Outdoor Escape Game "TARA: Save Your City From Chaos!"

We introduced “TARA”, an innovative outdoor escape game centered on the theme of artificial intelligence. The game covers a range of topics, including future mobility and traffic congestion, energy supply and cybersecurity, smart homes and online shopping, environmental pollution and sustainability, and digital resilience in the face of information overload.

The story revolves around TARA, an advanced AI designed to enhance city life. However, a split-off entity of TARA called XARA emerges, with the intention of throwing the city into chaos. Only by solving puzzles and cleaning up messes in different themed areas can players stop XARA and save the city.

In this action-packed adventure, teams must join forces to help TARA overcome this crisis. We will also provide further product information here separately in the coming weeks.

Game Design Workshop - Introduction To The Basics

The game design workshop was the next item on our partner meeting agenda. As our Mobile Serious Games philosophy encompasses content from the fields of e-learning, gamification, and video games, this workshop was aimed at shedding light on the creation and development process of espoto products. The participants were also provided with insights into how Mobile Serious Games can be optimally categorized and classified for specific target groups.

For many attendees, this part of the meeting was an absolute highlight, as it offered a lot of inspiration and a detailed structure. We are currently in the process of writing a detailed article on this topic.

Conclusion espoto Partner Meeting 2023: A Hybrid Event Full Of Success And Innovation

The espoto partner meeting 2023 was a great success! At this hybrid event we were able to present exciting new highlights and features that will support you in your use cases and provide a lot of fun. The enthusiasm and positive feedback from our partners confirm that we are on the right track. We greatly appreciate the input and numerous good ideas that arose during the partner meeting. Through this exchange and the feedback, valuable approaches have emerged for the continuous improvement of our concepts.

Together, we can work towards continuously improving our products and solutions, as well as growing as a team. Moreover, we were delighted with the positive response to our new game concepts, “Greencity” and the outdoor escape game “TARA”. It is exciting to see these innovative approaches being so well-received, and we are eager to implement them.

We would like to express our gratitude to all of our espoto partners for their excellent cooperation and are excited for the joint projects and developments that await us in 2023. If you are not yet an espoto partner but are interested in our developments, we invite you to get in touch with us. Let’s collaboratively design processes in a playful manner. We look forward to working with you and achieving new successes together.