The first board games vending machine has been set up at the National Design Centre in Singapore and will remain on display up till the coming November 30th.

Very similar to the traditional vending machines where we can buy snacks and drinks at any time of the day, that vending machine is equipped with a large colour touchscreen display and includes 18 educational games - with boxes of different sizes - created by local publishers and designers who want to teach something by playing: in fact, amongst the topics there are hot ones such as global emergency or cryptocurrency.  

This is the case of Bye Bye Virus – created by the designers Denise Lim and Yasmine Khater – which encourages players to behave in a socially responsible manner, such as safely distance ourselves, checking the news reliability and promoting good standards to protect ourselves from infection, and of the game Shake Up – by Dominic Michael Huang – which will involve us playing in a business consultant role called to save an IT company close to bankruptcy or Cryptocurrency – by Steve Ng – by a  gameplay designed to provide key knowledge about cryptocurrency and teach us how to trade responsibly by applying the most effective strategies in the digital investments world.

From Black Souls and Dream Catcher, all the board games can be directly purchased from the vending machine: in fact, all you have to do is to choose your favourite and make a supported payment method.

The National Vending Gallery is a project founded by Hans Tan Studio and supported by the DesignSingapore Council, the first phase – known as Topic 1 – has been named Cardboard while the other five will be gradually unveiled over the next 18 months.