Hi Orin. It's Brett from Green Lab C here. Our Lab is planning on developing a computer game to help guests of the Mustard Seed improve their cognitive skills. I remember from your presentation that we are encouraged to make the game fun first and educational second - everyone agrees that this is a very important concept to keep in mind as we are developing the game. In addition to being generally inexperienced in programming we have a very limited amount of time to produce the game.
Do you have any specific advice on what works well to make games fun without creating complicated graphics or programming? Are there any common pitfalls that people in our position should be aware of so we can avoid them if possible? (we want to avoid trial and error processes as much as possible)
Thanks in advance for any advice you have.
Brett
Green Lab C
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Hi Brett
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely possible to make a fun and engaging game without making it complicated or flashy, otherwise no one would still enjoy games like Pong, Pac-Man, etc. Based also on the target audience, it's risky to make the game mechanics too complicated.
As a first step to developing a game, I try to figure out what I want the central challenge to be. In Poker it might be guessing whether others are bluffing while keeping cool, in Pac-Man I'd say it's collecting all the dots without unnecessary risk. Often this challenge is about keeping some sort of balance, like risk vs reward. This central challenge will depend on what sort of game you want to make and what you are trying to teach, but every part of the game should build off of and reinforce it.
Another thing you want to make sure of, particularly for this audience, is that the game isn't too punishing. I don't recommend the classic structure of lives and game overs. Instead I would think in terms of rewarding success, and trying to structure the game so that players of any skill level can play, have fun and improve.
If you're having difficulty coming up with a basic game concept, I would come at it in terms of what you are trying to teach. How can you represent this challenge or system with game mechanics? Are there other games that you feel are related to the subject, and could they be boiled down to teach that more simply and effectively?
Best of luck, and let me know if you'd like me to go into more detail about anything I've said here.