Designing Digital Games For Rural Children

Ankit AgrawalHarshvardhan

OutlineIntroduction and Target Users Games(Digital and Traditional)ObservationsOur Observations and ApproachOur Target Users and Our Digital Games

IntroductionObjective : Designing meaningful digital games

for rural children .

Action :• Facilitate rural children to play their digital

games . • Observe their traditional games.• Observed & collected the experiences of the

children.• Comparative study and key points.

Target UsersThe games were tested in the following three

communities :1. Public School in a remote village of Mysore. 2. Private school in lucknow where the

children enjoy high parental income .3. Public school in Lucknow near the above

mentioned where the parents income were not that much .

Digital Games Some of the digital games employed were : 1. Crocodile rescue .2. Dancer3. Train Tracks4. Frogger There were total of 10 games that were used

for testing for a period of 17 weeks .

Traditional Games

A total of 28 traditional games were used , some of which are

Halla Guli Maane Siya SatkanaCops and RobbersTrump CardsPen-Pick

Hide and SeekGucchi GaramKabaddi Giti Phod Kite Flying

ObservationsThe following observations were made : Character or team development has no

central role in traditional games , as required in video games unlike video games .

Traditional games do not have skill enhancing objects , as they are mainly meant to be acquired or moved around only .

No pre-programmed logic so games advance only when players act .

Simple social interaction and engagement in traditional games as compared to digital .

Improvements After interpreting playable issues with the

digital games and the results from newly designed game(Tree - Tree) , the following modifications to existing games are suggested :

Game has to be challenging , enjoyable without being too difficult .

Adavanced levels should have more subgoalsUsing same game mechanics that are there in

traditional games guarantees the success of digital games.

SHORTCOMINGSThe target users that they chose are not the true

representation of rural Indian children.Even their digital games are not much meaningful

skills enhancing.Number of schools are very less

STRENGTHSTheir observation is true that Indian

traditional games are not much skill enhancing.

• Most of the games require more physical stamina rather than mind exercise .

• The suggestions to make digital games more engrossing are really magnificent .

Tree-Tree game is entertaining and at the same time it is educative and easy to implement on mobiles as well

TARGET USERSOur target users will be children between the age of

5-15 residing in villages closer to semi-developed city

OUR GAMESBusiness(to teach the business skills )Driving In real world.Finding the cattle (To enhance logical and

mathematical reasoning) .Defenders(For enhancing team skills)Our games have a wide range based on the age and

living environment of the children

Thank you

Questions??