Board game design as an alternative informational tool and original visual language in city themed board games

In the world we live in today, the concept of "game" is no longer just a life activity that children spend time, but an "innovative" tool that needs to be analyzed or fictionalized in many different vital areas where the purposes of existence are questioned. The games, which are believed to exist with human existence, are unique structures that are constantly questioning for their effectiveness in different fields from social siences that their interpretation as systemic structures shape the culture to the fiel of art or to therapy, to communication, educational sciences and marketing, and been considered as new mediums for new method proposals in these areas. The thesis titled "Board Game Design as an Alternative Informational Tool and Original Visual Language in City-Themed Board Games" was shaped by defense that among many game types board games can be effective tools in the field of visual communication or especially in informational communication. In this direction, first of all, the process of human understanding of information is examined with its physiological background and approaches that are strong in the field, and how games are associated with this comprehension and interpretation process are analyzed with current examples after a large literature review. In this direction, firstly the process of human understanding of information is examined by including its physiological background and strong approaches in the field. And after a large literature review and over current examples, it has been analyzed how games are associated with this comprehension and interpretation process. Afterwards, from the concept of the game that formed a comprehensive framework, it has been focused on board games and was studied how these unique systems evolve in the denominator of information communication for human culture. With the impression obtained from the analysis, the elements that should be considered in the process of designing a board game with the aim of information communication were tried to be determined in game mechanics, game narrative and visual design layers through current good examples. In this direction, the values that stand out in practice provide the possible principles of the study. In addition, at the third part of the thesis, three city-themed board games are analyzed in order to create the infrastructure for the informational board game "Izmir1900: The Game That Keeps History" presented as the application project of the study. It has been questioned how concepts such as urban culture and city image shape the urban-themed board games visually. This application study, developed with the impressions gained from the whole thesis, is also a method proposal on how to develop a board game to be structured as an information tool in the processes of theme determination, game narrative and visual editing.