education

This is the final design of our first game. Our playtests indicated a positive response to our initial art theme utilizing animals as instruments. We took it further and created a natural environment for our characters to inhabit. We removed the scoring aspect that was present in our initial game design in order to adjust game difficulty for the second graders.

This is the design we are moving forward with and currently prototyping. In this game, the class is broken up into teams of three. Each team of three players gets a chance to play a song. Once every team has taken a turn, the team with the highest score wins. Each player has a lane in which music note values are streaming towards them. When their wand is raised, they are in their ‘off’ position. When a note reaches their instrument, they must lower it into the ‘on’ position to play the note and sustain the ‘on’ position for the duration of the note. The more precise and correct their note, the more they contribute to their team score.

Our fourth musical concept directly tackles rhythm. Three simultaneous play-groups would each be given a pond of lotus leaves. A frog hops across the lotus leaves following a particular rhythm. The children hear the rhythm and play it back by retracing their frog’s path. To do so, they aim their wand at each lotus leaf and sustain it for the duration of the note’s value (i.e. eighth, quarter, half, and whole).

Our third musical concept sought to invoke the competitive nature of children and incorporate the iPads that the Elizabeth Forward School District provides its students into the gameplay. At its core, this game is a duel. A class would be broken up into 2 teams: one team playing melody and the other playing accompaniment or rhythm/percussion. On their iPads, students would have notes streaming into a keyboard or drum that they could play on. The more notes a team’s players get correct, the harder their push against the opposing team. Harder difficulties would turn a staff that would then force students to interpret notation in order to play rather than just having keys/drums light up when it’s time to hit them.