design

Phase II Complete: Music in Motion

This is the final design of our second game. After playtesting with the initial UI layout, our observations indicated that we needed to make changes in order to stay within our display area constraints and improve the player experience. We decided to change from a square layout to a triangular one in order to keep gameplay elements within the bounds of the display mat in the Elizabeth Forward SMALLab setup. We also added feedback pop-ups that indicate correct, incorrect, or missed notes as a player goes through the game. We added scoring to encourage competition among players, and drive them to perform better in the game, thereby increasing their ability to read notes on a staff as well as their speed at which they sight-read them.

Music in Motion

Week 11 Newsletter

Hello again everyone! This week we built our first protype of Project Arc-Fall and play-tested it at the Elizabeth Forward Middle School. Project Arc-Fall is designed to help students practice note recognition by having them match multiple notes with their corresponding letter names as they play along with a song…

Phase II: Project Arc-Fall (Working Title)

This is the second tier of our game design. In this game, three players each get a musical staff and 3 monster creatures they control. Each monster has a letter on it. These letters correspond to the musical notes on a staff: A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Notes stream in towards the player (from right to left) and they must select the correct monster to eat corresponding notes when they reach the player’s hit zone (the yellow circles for the two side player positions in the image below). When a note reaches a player’s hit zone, they lower their wand over their creature choice and that monster will jump into position to eat the note. They “sustain” the note by keeping the monster active as it eats the duration trail of each note (can be seen at the bottom player position in the image). The notes follow the rhythm and pitch of an accompanying instrumental track.

Project Arc-Fall

Week 7 Newsletter

Hello again everyone! This week we continued building our prototype and refining our game design. We also worked on creating the tech that will allow music teachers to put songs of their choosing into the game. We are planning to conduct two playtests next week with students from grades 2, 3, and 4 in order to determine if our current design is clearly presented, approachable/easy to pick up, and most importantly… fun!