Author: Dylan Mowforth

The aims for the project are to create a platform game that teaches the user to code. The user will control a character, as of right now that character is the robot you will see character development for on this blog.

The game will work like this:

The player runs through the world. Equilibrium is in place, everything appears in order. This part of the game will act as a tutorial for movement. Simple W,A,S,D controls. Just as the player reaches the end of the level it will all fall apart, colour will fade and the equilibrium will be broken. The player character will also malfunction.

The player will then have to reboot the character using code, however the character only reboots in a low-power state. Most of the character’s memory will be scattered across the world for the user to find. The memory will be RAM, as that is very fitting of the situation.

For every piece of RAM the player collects, the character will regain some knowledge. That knowledge will be an element of code, gradually getting more, and more complex.

The RAM is important because the code associated with the RAM will help the player solve the problems they will face in the game. For example; Player picks up RAM and learns brackets “()”. The player will continue in the level to a broken element. By the side of the game will be the code screen. The player will debug the code by adding the brackets they have picked up (A tutorial for this will be in place to set them off). The player fixes the game, gets a reward of some sort and continues.

Later, as the game progresses in difficulty, multiple pieces of RAM, with longer bits of code will be picked up. The player will reach the problem of the level and will now have to think about which piece of code fits. Like a puzzle but the player will have to actively think and solve this problem by using the knowledge they have learned form playing the game.

*A side not here is that when the payer character picks up the RAM, the character will say something along the lines of “That’s great! I now remember (insert code here). This piece of code means this… and when (insert code here) is used, this is possible/can happen.*

The RAM pickup will not be near the problem in the level. This will encourage the player to remember the code and figure out the problem themselves.

We are yet to discuss a points/rewarding system for the game. We want it to be as encouraging as possible, but also rewarding so we want to apply gamification so that the user feels like they are accomplishing tasks as they go. Perhaps things along the lines of:

– Aesthetic rewards
– Points/high scores
– Extra characters
– Bonus levels
– Desktop backgrounds
– Avatars

This is something we will discuss and research.

The target audience for this game is yet to be set in stone, but we will come to it in a later blog post when we have the rest figured out.

– Ryan & Dylan

These as you can see are very early sketches but these are just what myself and Ryan have worked on thus far. Ryan worked on the character designs which we wanted to go for a simple approach and a easily recognisable character that the player and see and know who he is. Once final character design has been finished we will even give him a name which will allow the audience to relate to the character more so and hes more human with a name, on the other hand we also like the idea of the player inserting their name as the character to give it a more personal feel to the game whilst playing the game as the character goes through the game so does the player and it gives it a much more personal feel if it feels like their in the game as well as playing it. As far as character level designs we want to go for the same sort of style for each level but different so that the children playing don’t get bored when they are playing the game, we want them to keep playing and keep learning!

-Dylan

 

Week 3 – Myself and Ryan have begun working on our coding skills. Firstly we have started on basic HTML to get back into the swing of things and refresh our memory on coding, we will need to these skills for when we make our website and when we begin on our game so we thought we’d best get started on it! With us both going into unknown territory want to make sure we know a lot about how to make the game and why things do/don’t work rather than just jumping straight in and using trial and error as we want to make a successful project! 

 Dylan

 

 

This is the first week back. Ryan and I have decided that this semester we will collaborate to make one project; and that will be an educational game based on coding.

Our first idea was to make a game which utilises maths or other core school subjects, but we quickly decided that they were already too mainstream so we ended up coming on to the idea of coding after discovering it has recently been introduced into schools in these past few years.

Ryan pitched our idea in front of class today as a lightning pitch. The feedback from the pitch was very positive and the tutors recommended a few websites for us to further research. It was said that the idea has a lot of potential and was very creative.

Our idea in a nut shell is basically to add the fun into coding by combining the fun aspect of games and putting it with the education of coding, the game will be a platformer game with a simple up, down, left, right controls and the player will get past the level and come up to the question where they can’t pass until  they have answered the question correctly. Once they have the question correct then the player can move forward with the levels and continue answering different questions, alongside the game there will be an partner website so if the player is struggling they can go onto the website to help them.