Game design is HARD, but it’s even harder if done from scratch. There is this idea that we do not have to reinvent the wheel of something that is already proven true. The same is true in game design. If you want to design a game, look at something that already exists and use that to help you get started. This was our task this week, using an established game to redesign a new game with similar game mechanics to help us as new designers become familiar with the ins and outs of instructional game design.

Mentor Game Details 

I was assigned Ludwig for this assignment. The game focuses on exploration and physics to help students understand the elements of science through discovery and quests. The goal is to complete main and side quests and move to the next world. In level one the player learns about combustion through a series of tasks, such as fixing mother boards by connecting fuses in the right order (this is about critical thinking more than anything) or figuring out how to fix elements that are broken by finding their matching components. As the player successfully completes quests other elements become “findable” within the game. For example, in level there was a cd that was in a rusty car that was not clickable (outlined in blue) until a task was completed.  

Re-envisioned Game Details 

The newly re-envisioned game is titled, Ludwig’s Creations. The subject area and learning domain would remain the same; however, the types of questions or quests would be more difficult requiring the player to create items to answer questions instead of fixing broken items throughout the game or answering multiple choice questions (where the correct answer is obvious). These are all lower-level Blooms tasks. The core mechanics (Sharon Boller, 2017) of exploration, race to the finish, collecting, alignment, construct or build, solutions will remain the same. But the way they are orchestrated will change.  

Description of My Idea 

Ideally, I would like to have this game take on a boardgame of sorts. But I imagine that it would be quite difficult to “create” new mechanisms in this format. I envisioned a boardgame with moveable parts so that players can answer questions along their quests. And as each question on a card is answered correctly, the player moves closer to the next theme world.  There will also be a 90 second timer. The topics will focus on renewable energy within South Africa and use QR codes to help bring the learning to life with the introduction of the periodic table. I will also repurpose my old boardgame, The Next Stop.

Why not introduce the periodic table officially?

South Africa is abundant in natural resources. This includes everything from diamonds to gold and even titanium. And most inhabitants know we are a mining country, but they do not always know what the individual elements can be used for or what their chemical symbol is. As with the rest of the world, we are moving from a coal dependent economy to one of cleaner energy.

Do you know the chemical difference between diamonds and coal?? Neither do I…but essentially it has to do with one being an allotrope and the other an element. Let’s see if we can bring this knowledge to life!

Here are a link and instructions on how to play my re-envisioned mentor game titled, Keep the Lights On!

3D Art with Blender and the Importance of Observations

My second class of the semester started, 3D Game Modeling. We have been learning how to maneuver through the Blender software. I think it’s pretty cool, I just wish I had more experience with it.

To date we’ve looked at how important observational skills are in real time to be able to recreate something in Blender. This past week, we (myself and my students put our observation skills to the test) and visited a local fishing pond at a local park. We initially struggled to get close enough to capture the things we really wanted to because they kept moving. So, we stuck with something stationary.

I focused on a blade of grass close to the pond’s edge. I was also able to capture the weather and the overall sound of the area.

What did it sound like? How did it feel?

What was the weather like?

Take different pictures from various depths and distances…