This movable puzzle follows a solution-based play model, inspired by the childhood boardgames produced by Belgium toy company SMARTGAMES. During my childhood, one of my favorite toy to play with was the pyramid. The toys made by them almost always consist of a board, some parts and a booklet that instruct the initial set up of each challenge.

Apart from exploring the form and play mode of this toy, I was also keeping in mind the opportunity to incorporate narratives into the game play as many of SMARTGAMES toy do. I wanted this toy to not only entertain the young fairy tales, but also to exercise their concentration, hand-eye coordination and the ability to plan ahead. I created numerous sketches that require twisting, tilting, submerging in water, guessing, planning etc. were made to create a board game that consists of a board, parts and a booklet that sets up the board and provides corresponding solutions.

I wanted to create a game that can be initiated with a plane simple marble ball. With a booklet coming with the toy, the player can select a challenge to set-up and solve. Some of my ideas despite being interesting, require an unrealistic large amount of time and fabrication to realize and create in two weeks of project time from ideation to hi-fi prototype. Some other ideas are also intriguing but do not align with the solution-based play model I was envisioning. Therefore, I finally selected the following idea to pursue, which I call "the Concentric Circles".

The goal of the game is to tilt the game board and send the marble to the center of the game board.

After securing the idea, a primary model is made out of plywood and cut-up embroidery rings to test whether the way of play is viable and pleasurable. After arbitrarily assigning starting points and trying to get the ball to the center of the game board, I realized that this toy needs more variation but also consistency.

To ensure the player can start every time with the same board with the same position of the concentric rings, I created an illustration intentionally embedding a blue river running across and uv-printed it on to the playing board. In the beginning of the game, players can align the board with the help of the pattern.

In order to have more variation and to add difficulty while in the planning phrase, I created two different types of trees. They both blocks the marble's way but one fixes the circle to the base board, and one does not.

To add more excitement and tension to the game, I embedded a piece of strong magnetic into an obstacle that resembles a wolf, echoing the story of the red riding hood. The wolf can potentially "catch" the marble on the same lane and side lanes. When players are maneuvering the game board, they would have to restart when the marble is caught by the wolf.