Bounce takes just ten minutes to play. When you call the game, you're connected live on the phone with a "senior experience agent" - someone at least twenty years older than yourself. You follow a series of computer prompts to swap stories about your past, in order to discover life experiences you have in common. For example: What is something you both have made with your two hands? What is a useful skill that you were both taught by a parent? What is a faraway place you both have visited? Your goal: find out how many points of connection you can make with your senior experience agent before time runs out.
...Our prototype was highly successful. Nearly everyone who played once came back... to play again, and the senior players reported much higher moods after playing the game. The simple fact that they were described as "senior experience agents" in the game seemed to play an important role in their enjoyment. It set a playful tone and gave them confidence that they could participate. But perhaps the most successful design element was the score, which was both a number - your total answers out of a possible ten - and a poem.
We wanted both players to leave feeling like they had not only talked to each other, but created something together. So at the end of the game, the website turned the players' answers into a simple, free-verse poem. Players could print the poem out or e-mail it. Poems are also captured and viewable online. Here's an example of one of the free-verse poems that two players created as their final score together:
Rougemont, making wedding pictures, tango in a barn,
Bend paper clips, cinnamon buns, tongue of a cow,
In a skirt, in the Pacific, putting together a darkroom.
