Games

GAMESMelissa Haynes

Thursday, December 8, 2011

INVESTIGATION


Design BriefClient: My clients are lower school kids, such as grade 3 and lower.

Time: 5 weeks

I need to prove to my parents that games can have the ability for both entertainment and education.

Speci!cations: Educational, entertaining and easy to understand.

Unit question: Can games educate?


Areas of Interaction

Making a game goes into the community and service area of interaction. I think it goes here because we’re helping to educate little kids, and they can enjoy it because games are fun to do, so then they will be willing to play it. So by making a game I am helping them in two ways. Community and service is about helping others in our community, which in this case the community is our school.


How are games made?Basically,

1 - Decide the concept of the game.

2 - Decide the long term goal (the ‘why’ part. What is the purpose of the game? What happens in the end?).

3 - Create layouts/prototypes.

4 - Set up a special software for game making and create the designs for the game (characters, setting). The software basically does the rest, after you program it to do things such as move around.


Client Interview What’s your favorite game? Halo Reach because I like !ghting games

In your opinion, are games good for you? Not really... but I like them because they entertain me when I’m bored.

Can you think of a reason why games are good and why they are bad? It ’s bad because you can get addicted and not be socialized. It can be good because some games educate, so it can possibly improve your brain.

As an kid, what was your favorite game? I liked racing games, none that really educated me...


Client Interview What kind of games do you think LS students prefer? Cartoon, and maybe a bit of education but fun.

How much time per day do you spend playing video games? On school days, 3 - 4 and on weekends 6 - 7.

What design do you think my game should have? Since it ’s for LS students, it ’s more attractive to them if the character is a cartoon, maybe an animal. I also think it should be in ‘3rd person’ point of view.

What subject should my game be based on? Math is an important skill to learn, so I think it should be based on mathematics.


Works Cited

http://www.thegamesarena.co.uk/Video%20Game%20Design.html

http://www.stormthecastle.com/video-game-design/video-game-overview1.htm










DESIGN


Design 1 This game will ask math questions and it will use a timer. If they

answer correct, they get a point.

Pros: Improves math skills

Cons: Not original, very common game.


Design 2In this design, they have to count the number or characters there are while they’re

moving to make it challenging.

Pros: Since they are moving, their eyesight can become more keen

Cons: If I repeat the same concept but in different levels, it ’s going to bore them

Video: double click to watch :)


Design 3In this game, there’s a math question with a character, and then they answer and get

points. The higher the level the harder it gets

Pros: Improves math skills

Cons: Might be hard for some ages once the get to a higher level


My Duck Game Idea

This game can make your eyesight more keen

(double click to watch)

This is only a prototype~ I want to add points if they answer correct, and then go on to level two~


Final designFor my !nal design, I’ve decided that I’m going to merge my designs into one game. So each level will be one of those, but with different questions, etc. I think if I made it only one of those designs, it would eventually bore them, so I’m making each level different so they stay interested while learning.


PLAN


Learning the Game

In this game, the duck spins and the player has to answer how many times the duck spun. This game should improve the

keenness of their eyesight.

In this game, the cookie monster says “do you love me?” and then after the answer, it becomes hyper and then says I love you :)

We also used other designs to work with Scratch but I didn’t screenshot...


Gantt Chart


CREATE


Creating the Games

This game is a quick math question where they choose the

answer that they think is right and then it changes (if it ’s wrong it

says wrong, if right it says correct)Thursday, December 8, 2011

Creating the Games

This is another quick math question. It ’s basically the same idea as the bat game except with

a different question.


Creating the Games

In this game, they just need to count the number of characters that look excited. It ’s

simple, but I think it can help make their eyesight more keen because the characters look

alike.


Creating the Games

This was one of my originally planned games, but I improved

it.


EVALUATION


Investigation and DesignInvestigation - I think my investigation did have enough information, I had all the necessary things, and works cited list. I put useful information that was important in my investigation, so I think I did well in that stage.

Design - I don’t think I did very well in my design stage. I didn’t have many ideas for a game, and my 3 ideas I had weren’t very good. Also, we didn’t have as much time for this as we did for our last project, so it ’s harder.


Plan, Create and Final ProductPlan - I did do a lot of playing around to learn more about Scratch, but I didn’t screenshot all of it for my planning stage. My gantt chart isn’t really detailed enough, but I think the timings that I put are accurate enough.

Create and Final Product - I don’t really think that my !nal product turned out that great. I wasn’t able to !gure out how to merge it into one game. I don’t really have many things that move around or anything in my game, just sprites that change when you get the correct answer. I could have improved this with a better design for a game.


Meeting Specifications

My speci!cations were that it has to be educational, entertaining and easy to understand. I think that my game was educational because it helps with math. It might not be very entertaining, though. I do think it ’s easy to understand.


Peer EvaluationI think that your game has good math problems for younger ages because it ’s not too hard. I think that there aren’t enough instructions, so although it ’s easy to understand, there aren’t a lot of things to do in your game besides answering the questions. They should have to click something else !rst, and then the question comes later.

-Thalia


LINK: HTTP://SCRATCH.MIT.EDU/USERS/MEL_MONKEY


http://scratch.mit.edu/users/mel_monkey




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Transcript of Games