producing Immersive Experiences for Good
Overview
I worked on this solo game project to produce, design, and develop an interactive game for students ages 6 to 11 to explore biology, chemistry, and physics via 4 main minigames.
Originally, this was part of the a pitch for a Math & Science Academy to take the final product on the road to showcase at local elementary schools.
Here, I will show you samples of my work to demonstrate the skills I've gained across the game development pipeline through indie game dev and my passion for teaching through interactive experiences.
Problem/Solution
It isn’t easy for low-income schools to give students access to not only educational material but also mentors in STEM.
What if I produced a science themed game for my Math & Science Academy senior project so I can give back to my community by creating a game that’ll be the centerpiece of speaker sessions at local elementary and middle schools?
Overall Process
Concepting
Rapid Prototyping
Asset Creation
Minigame Development
Playtesting & New Features
Polish
The indie game development process looks a little bit different. The asset creation took the longest but needed the least visual iteration so it had to be timeboxed at the very beginning. The development process iterated upon initial ideas as I "find the fun" through prototyping.
Prototyping
Here are concept sketches and pseudocode for game logic to create a learning experience that allows kids to try out multiple kinds of sciences.
Since I want to build upon great educational game experiences I had as a child, I wanted to draw inspiration and adapt mechanics from the Animal Jam Summer Carnival to form new teaching affordances.
Learning x game experience
Unlike my previous games, Willy Walko includes a polished title screen hinting at the location of the experience with a parallax galaxy background and distant carnival music as a auditory and visual cues
The user plays the role of Willy, a walking whale (a reference to evolutionary science) exploring each exhibition and entering spaces which generates a sense of continuity and worldbuilding.
There are chances for players outside of the four main minigames to participate in experiential learning. For example, pushing on bumper cars with different force and weights allows for kids to gain an intuition for physics. Fun Facts are a supplement to these interactive elements.
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