Sai Fah, a team of computer software engineers, has beaten more than 200 teams and was crowned the winner of the "Gifts From Dad Board Game Designing Contest" with its "Sai Fon Game", winning more than 100,000 baht prize.
The team incorporated the principle of King Bhumibol Adulyadej's artificial rain project into a board game, helping players understand the history and implementation of the royal rain-making programme. The project was highly crucial for alleviating drought issues and agricultural limitations in Thailand.
The contest, sponsored by Sea (Thailand), under the topic "Fun Learning With Agricultural Development" aims to continue and pass on King Bhumibol's knowledge.
"Gifts From Dad Board Game Designing Contest is our determination in communicating and passing on King Bhumibol's initiatives that has been gifted by us to the younger generation," said Maneerut Anulomsombut, chief executive officer of Sea (Thailand).
The project received support from the Chaipattana Foundation, which also advised the project.
"We hope this project will help educate the younger generation to understand the problems and help develop sustainable solutions to problems faced by Thai farmers," he added.
The contest, which began in October last year, had over 200 teams. Ten top teams were then selected to join various activities such as field trips to the Chaipattana Learning Centre in Lam Luk Ka, Pathum Thani, in order to gain hands-on experience and collect useful information to help them develop their games.
As part of the contest, participants debuted their projects during a workshop day before a panel of gamers and judges, taking the criticisms and suggestions to help polish the final product.
By winning first prize, Sai Fah gained entry to the Popular Vote by AirPay prize which has the public voting on games through the AirPay Mobile Application on Facebook.
Broccoli Lab, a team of students from Chulalongkorn University, was the first runner up, winning 50,000 baht in prize money with their "Parcel Game", which focuses on sustainable land management, adding interesting facts about various royal projects to the game.
SamAor, a team of students from Srinakharinwirot University, was second runner-up, winning 30,000 baht in prize money. The game focused on sustainable land management. Farm No.9 team won honourable mention for their game, which focused on integrative agriculture.
"All four games will be produced as a full box set and distributed to various schools as fun learning material," said Maneerut.
All four games will soon be available for free download at garena.co.th/giftsfromdad.
