This was a slower week for Team Fortitude, since extremely cold weather and snow cost us two days of development. Nevertheless, we have made significant progress on our game, especially in finalizing our application of Sabrina Culyba’s Transformational Framework, and putting together the first prototype of our game.
The team finished reading the Transformational Framework, and went to a workshop led by the author, Sabrina Culyba. We were able to apply these principles of the framework to The Poverty Spiral, which we converted into a poster, shown below.
Sabrina Culyba also said she was interested in helping us out throughout the process, which was great news for us.
Using the knowledge and basic game design we have planned out so far, we were able to make a small prototype of the texting portion of the game using proto.io, a website useful for making prototypes of mobile apps, since it comes with all of the art assets Apple uses in the various interfaces of its apps. Our prototype presents a branching narrative that walks the player through one of the situation cards from the original board game, but instead of the situation being presented by one of the other players, it is revealed via the player character’s son, who is asking to stay with you, since his partner kicked him out for excessive drinking. The player then has to make a decision about how to respond to the situation directly to the character who would be most affected.
More situations like these are to come in future versions of the game, for which more documentation has been put together this week.
We also put together a broader picture of what our game will be by organizing the different apps we may include in the game. Here are our plans for each app:
- Texting will allow the player to carry out informal conversations with their character’s friends and family. These interactions will have the same format as the prototype we currently have, re-purposing the situation cards from the original board game.
- Email will work similarly to texting, but for more formal conversations with people like employers and landlords.
- Banking will help players keep track of their money, simulating their place on the poverty spiral.
- Health will give players a window into their character’s mental health, as well as information about information like current address (if any), emergency contacts, state of family members, health insurance, etc.
- News will replace social action cards, showing real-world events and policies that will affect how the characters live their lives.
The following apps are potential apps that may not make it into the final game, but we find have merit.
- To-Do List will list out mundane activities of the player character’s day.
- Calendar will list important events or appointments for the player character.
- GoFundMe will give a window into the player character’s relationship, since the amount of donations friends and family will make are reflective of how invested they are in that character.
- YouTube will show videos from interviews we’ve conducted with real people who have experienced poverty firsthand.
- Phone/Voicemail will let the player see different messages that other characters have left theirs.
- Music will show what kinds of music the player character listens to. This one will be more difficult due to copyright, but talks of creating original songs have been happening.
We’ve also been revamping the project website, logo, and poster, making sure that they reflects what our mission with the game as well as possible.
Next week is quarters for us, where we will present the current state of the project to faculty for review. We hope they will think that this game is going in the direction that will be the greatest benefit to those experiencing poverty as possible.