We have created the vision of our game world and potential superheroes. Of course, we can’t forget about one very important individual in the game and that is our villain! Without the villian, our superheroes would not exist, so here it is. Enjoy!
Today, I watched about 5 hours of The Electric Company.
“What is that?”, you inquire. “Why would you do that?” you ask. “What’s wrong with this guy?” you wonder.
Well it’s this spectacularly 70′s and rather well done show put on by PBS in the 1970′s to help children learn to read. In our group-to-group meeting we were asked if we’d heard about it. We had not, seeing as the three of us were born in the late 80′s. We only knew of Sesame Street. The Electric Company was apparently the show for those that were a step past Sesame Street. It stars Morgan Freeman and Bill Cosby, among others.
So, why did I watch it? First, because it was a great way for me to see some ways that children are taught to read. Secondly, and more tangibly, to come up with ideas for this project. I have three game ideas that I think will be great additions to the mini-games we’ve already come up with.
1. Meaning Match
Present phrases or words to the player and have them match the meaning of those to another given phrase. For example, if the player is asked to identify who is asking them, “How are you?” Then they would not choose an Non-Playable Character (NPC) that is saying, “Bad,” because that’s an answer to the question. They would want to select the NPC saying something like, “What’s up?” or “How’re you doing today?”
2. Fill in the Missing Letters
A player comes upon a sign, note, or some other grouping of words. The player then has to decide which letter is missing. For example, given the phrase, “_us, _o _et _as, please. -_ary.” The player would need to recognize that filling in the blanks with ‘G’ would correctly fill in the spaces to make, “Gus, go get gas, please. -Gary.” Difficulty can be increased by making more than one letter missing or leaving out whole words.
3. Rearrange the Letters/Words
This game would involve being presented a whole word or phrase. If it’s a whole word, the letters would be scrambled and if it’s a phrase, the words would be scrambled. To solve the letters version, a picture might also be provided to direct the user or the word said aloud. In the phrase version, just one word might be in the wrong spot or the whole phrase might be messed up. For example, “You are cute very.” The player would need to move the word “very” in front of “cute.”
Yesterday, Sunday March 20th, we met again to expand further on our storyboard. Using our work from the previous week and the feedback that we got from talking with other groups, we began to layout the flow of our game. We came up with the following illustration to show the general idea of our game:
We started by mapping out what we knew. From the start screen up unto actual gameplay. We talked about what the initial setup would look like, including an interactive tutorial to help players acclimate to the game. We then came up with the structure of gameplay by reviewing what we’d already done and by looking at our notes from the group-to-group meetings. All that we came up with is in the flow chart and hopefully makes sense. We think it does.
Today we began our storyboarding. We drew different scenes in the game. We drew these scenes on 8.5″ x 11″ sheets of paper and outlined the iPad form factor on them. I handled drawing a screenshot of a bunch of the games and a few other screens.
Each of the games usually required multiple screenshots to show what is intended to happen. Small descriptions were also written when needed.
Nicole drew the title screen, story intro, secret lair, and a few of the games. Cindy drew the city map and a few of the games as well.
As soon as I get a chance to scan all these pictures, I will add a gallery to this post so that our storyboard can be viewed here.
Today we received feedback from Professor Quintana on our expanded project description in preparation for our upcoming storyboard. We were told that for the most part we’re on track. One thing that we need to make sure we do better is to fully describe the connection between the mini-games, what the students learn, and then how they use what they learn later in the game. It’s also important for us to make it clear where the learning goals are being met for each grade-level. We also want to make sure that we keep including Jim Gee’s learning principles, specifically call them out, and talk about the other learning theories we’re employing.
We start storyboarding Sunday at 4:30. Our plan is to storyboard the following:
Recently we brainstormed mini-game ideas. We wanted the games to be interactive, use the touch-screen to it’s full potential, and be in-context. By in-context we mean that the activity shouldn’t be arbitrary like “paste the letter ‘v’ on an envelope.” We wanted them to be more like activities you would encounter in the real world. Here is what we came up with:
Meet some of our Super Readers! Mark and Maggie are two of the super heroes that I designed for use in our game. These two are just representations of what the super heroes might look like. In the game, the player will get to customize their character to look however they want (within reason). The game will allow the player to choose hair, eyes, skin color, face and body shape, and customize their costume and mask. The point of all this is to let the player create an identity for themselves. This creates a greater connection to the game and hopefully motivates the player to continue playing.
Here are the original sketches the superheroes came from:
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