Elderly game design

Building off of what spaff said, a board game is probably not the right tool for this job. But I understand that it's a school assignment.

Large organizations will often have consultants come in and do "team-building exercises" for a location that seems to be having problems. Employees find team-building to be awkward, but that's probably less about the methods and more about no one ever trying explicit team-building before the office gets toxic.

Of course, these are consultants we're talking about. It very well could be nothing but snake oil ;-)

Assuming there is something of value, look for inspiration among "team building" and "ice breaker" activities that were designed for new ventures/projects/teams. A typical component is having small groups compete against each other, which might turn into a board game in which each side requires a small team to work together to perform any actions. If that doesn't fit with the assignment's definition of "cooperative" game, then just scrounge around for lightweight cooperative game mechanics.

Given the target demographic, I would avoid (1) anything with a serious dexterity component, (2) player elimination, and (3) any topics/themes dealing war or loss (so nothing in the Pandemic franchise). Given the design goal, I would also avoid traitor/mole mechanics unless you come up with a really really clever way of making the mole hunt require getting to know the other players.

Best of luck!

Check out: Dinner's at 4:30... By Echo Games.

http://www.bgdf.com/node/19465

It seems like an example of a way to laugh at living in a home for the elderly. Granted it's not cooperative... I've watched the Kickstarter video and the goal of the game is to poke fun at all the idiosyncrasies (not at the elderly).

Maybe you can inspire yourself from this game... I'm not saying yours will be in any way similar - I'm just giving something else you might want to take a look at...

I feel like any dexterity game would be awesome. Haba and mayday games have a ton.
Animal upon animal
Rhino hero
Click clack lumberjack
Garbage day

One of the things that often declines in old age is motor control, in various forms. Perhaps games that require fine motor control might not be ideal.

"I'm a design student currently developing a game for elderly people."
What is elderly?
Two of the toughest things to get past are-
A lot of their lives are routine. Someone would need to break them of a routine to set a new routine, generally speaking.
Nothing in common. We bond through commonalities. People born after the TV was a standard in most houses have a much easier time bonding. Those from before have a difficult time.
Even radio took a long time to filter down through classes, and when some were discovering radio shows, others were moving on to the beginnings of mass marketed TVs.
Commonalities tend to revolve around 'pop-culture', and in the past, pop-culture tended to be regional. (there was no internet, TV, most didn't have access to movies/newsreels until later, etc). What most elderly will readily bond over is family; family was/is usually important (they usually had to rely on each other to make it.
Times were much different, and remain different for many.

Yeah, I'm a million years old hahahaha
No, I used to help out in this frail-care centre with infirm elderly people and I observed them.

Elderly people can have a lot of patience, but this is not something you should take for granted. They like Jigsaw puzzles because they can leave them and come back to them. Elderly people have can high intelligence (unless suffering from dementia, severe Alzheimer [which doesn't effect their cognitive abilities, but really makes working things out difficult if they forget what they are trying to work out and why] or some other ailments) but they often get frustrated with complicated and involved tasks (especially those involving learning to use computers!)
We often encounter the sentiment that "I've learnt it allready, all the important stuff anyway"
I would like to suggest that you make a game where elderly people's experiences would help them, but since I don't know what those experiences are, I can't suggest how to do this.
Also, one thing you may have neglected to take into account;
Elderly people don't necessarily find the company of other elderly people that exiting. Many of the ones I met while volunteering my services were or felt abandoned by their families and quite a few of them would enjoy activities with children where they share their accumulated wisdom with the kids. Just a pity there are only a few weird kids who like hanging out with old people-
I know that when I'm an old man, I'll grow a very long white beard, wear robes and play pencil and paper rpgs with teenagers, making them ummm interesting cups of tea. I can think that something like an elderly person acting as a dungeon master in a game could be interesting.
Old people also have a higher tolerance for abstract ideas, they like card games like bridge (which I don't get and don't want to) and board games like Go.
I thank you for taking the time to try and find interesting things for elderly people to do, I find it encouraging.
Wish I could be more help.
If something comes up, I'll let you know.