Following on from my ICEDIP Inspiration and incubation phase I want to now turn my attention to clarifying the goal/outcome. “The main aim of the clarification phase is to discover where you are heading, to find the meaning or purpose of what you are doing” .
What specifically do I want to achieve from this game jam?
- Design, develop and submit a working prototype for a game that meets the theme of the game jam by October 28th.
- Develop a simple to use game that
canwill help children to get better at basic mental arithmetic and times tables. - I want the game to be visually appealing to a child.
- I want the game to present the right level of challenge that they feel accomplished and don’t get bored because its too easy or give up because it’s too hard.
- I want the game to be very easy to use with a intuitive and obvious UI
- I want the game to be fun and feel like a game, not homework and not a maths test
What features do I want in the game?
Initial feature list. This will be reworked and modified later
- Start screen where the player can select the level to play and view high scores
- Game over screen where the player can see their progress, score and how well they’ve done
- Deck of cards (remember the theme?) from which numbers and the operation (+, -, *, /) are drawn
- Input field and/or multi-choice answers. Question — Could this be selectable on a Settings screen?
- Progress bar through level
- Timer expiry bar that changes colour as time runs out. Answering questions quicker Gets a bigger reward. The bar will have two timer thresholds to represent the stretch and normal challenge. Stretch will be green, normal will be amber.
- Timer expiry sound (can we get the tune on the Japanese metro that increases tempo the closer it gets to the time to close the doors?)
- Simple animation. (Think mouse animations from Bagpuss, specifically the “Row your boat” episode)
- End game –> sky castle?
- Obstacles. Colliding with an obstacle will lose one life (present)
- Projectiles, maybe birds that fly horizontally towards the player’s avatar? Colliding with a bird will lose one life.
- Wind — speed up/slow down boat making the game momentarily harder/easier
- Winning streak — answer 10 questions correct in a row and win one life back
References
Photo by David Travis on Unsplash
