Newsletter #13: April 16th

• By vsangubh
• Posted in Uncategorized
• On April 19, 2015
• 1 Comment.

Overview:

This week we had a lot of finalized art assets got integrated into our game. We also had a full build ready for the playtest on April 17th. We are still compiling and going over the results of that playtest which was very informative in terms of how much the students took away from our game. Also as the playtest was a teacher-led playtest we were able to get feedback from the teacher and were able to make observations that we can use to improve our game for the classroom learning experience.

 

Build:

Our current build can be found at:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0gyQphBXokCVnQ3enVYemtFWkU/view?usp=sharing

It can be downloaded on any Android tablet device and will install the game onto that device.

 

Tasks Completed:

1. Updated Art assets
2. Created a lot of new art assets
3. Updated UI with new icons and images
4. Improved the Shrew-Pitcher plant game
5. Balancing (a constant process) previous games
6. Got a working journal Quiz for the playtest

 

Playtest and Design:

On Friday April 17th we had our teacher-led in-class playtest. This playtest would be the first time that we would see the game in use as it was meant to be a teaching tool for the teacher and a way for the children to experience what a rainforest biome is.

From the playtest we learned a lot about our target audience and their approach to the game within a proper classroom setting. Contrary to our prior beliefs the kids actually enjoyed reading some interesting facts about the wildlife and communicating that to the teacher. We are going to use this information to improve the journal experience.

Another interesting note was that the cool blowing feature we had for our elephant mini-game was not suited for the noisy classroom setting. The ambient noise itself was triggering some game mechanics, so we will need to re-think and rework that mechanic in the game.

We were also able to log some bugs within our game that we found thanks to the kids playing our game in some unexpected ways.

We were not able to put together a proper documentation in time for the playtest as primarily we were not sure what we needed to provide. Now having completed the playtest and having to the teacher we have a clearer understanding of what is expected and what kind of information would help make the teaching experience better.

The teacher also brought up some interesting ways to use the various maps we had made from world to local in order to provide a deeper experience and teach the students more than merely a particular science concept. Having talked to our advisors previously we knew that the maps had the potential to be something more… which we were pondering as we went into the playtest. We can really play with the idea of extending our game to include essences of social studies and vocabulary through the core of the educational standards of science.

The above are some initial notes that we gathered and we are still compiling the data we got from the playtest. Overall this playtest was really fulfilling and we learnt a lot from it.

 

Art:

Our artists have been creating new assets everyday here are some from this week:

Photo taking Background in Congo:

 

We also got a lot of the local maps done:

South-East Asia:

Congo:

 

Australia:

 

We also have some new icons for the new games that we have:

 

Lastly we have some new wildlife:

 

 

 

Programmers:

The programming team has been hard at work updating assets and fixing bugs. With the design team using what we learned to improve the games the programmers will be working with them to ensure that these changes can be rapidly implemented and tested. They are also looking into the different ways to log and save the state of progression of the students.

 

Moving forward:

In the upcoming weeks we will be looking:

1. New assets and updates
2. Tutorials for the mini-games
3. Update the Journal system to have more interesting and fun facts about the wildlife
4. Polish the art
5. Fix bugs in the code

 

Important Dates:

April 20th : Softs Presentation

April 22nd: Meeting with our Content Advisor