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Level up

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For our project this week we continued with our app Tiny Farm. We focused on creating each level for the game. I created and designed level 6 which consists of counting the baby animals in each family. We decided to take the increasing difficulty aspect of each level out of the game as we felt it would work better by presenting the kids with a selection of animals and allowing them to click each animal for a different activity. All levels include either addition or subtraction considering the age of our target audience.

This is the level I created, I made sure to include the chosen colour scheme in order to appeal to a young audience. After our meeting we thought it would be best to have 3 levels on each scene so there's a variety of mini games to complete. We now have a working prototype so this week we'll be finalizing our game and adding the finishing touches.

MD2 Final GDD

Animated cow
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This week my group and I banded together to finalize and complete our game design document. We put a lot of work in by distributing jobs and continuing the production of our game. This week in the GDD I wrote about the games architecture and background design.

I spent this week designing structures, buildings, characters and game elements. I began researching kids games and examining their animations. I designed everything with a cartoon look and feel by creating the background for the main screen with rounded structures and buildings. Round characters and shapes have been shown to draw kids towards a game rather than sharply designed features as I've discovered in my research.

From here on the plan is to finish the animation and design aspects of the game and begin the actual game code. Im optimistic about our game as we've been putting a lot of work in since our recent meeting.

Game Design Document

Animated farm
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Tiny Farm

The game we're creating is a math based game aimed towards young kids. The game is called Tiny Farm and the goal is to help them improve their math skills in a fun way. The game is farm themed as we decided it would appeal more to younger kids. The visuals will be colourful and include shapes, farm animals, objects and the main character will be the farmer. Each farm activity will involve math for example "how many horses are in the stable?". I think this game will really benefit young kids and help them learn. 

We spent time and research on creating our game design document carefully and took a section each. For my part I focused on design aspects of the game such as the characters and the levels. 
The main character in our game will be the farmer (name yet to be confirmed). The player will help the farmer with a variety of tasks such as counting how many pigs are in the pen etc. The farmer will have the stereotypical look including a straw hat, blue overalls, messy brown hair, black boots, plaid shirt and hay in his mouth.​ Sub-characters for this game will be farm animals such as sheep, horses, cows and pigs. Each animal will be involved with a different task.

We plan to include shapes in this game too in order to appeal to young kids at a basic level of maths. ​The colour scheme will consist of bright colours mainly of primary tones.​The background design for this game will obviously be in a farm setting therefore the kids will be able to see and interact with objects and animals. In the background there will be elements such as animal pens, grass, hay bales, a barn, a windmill and a tractor.​The menu on the main page will be designed as wooden planks like a fence and will have different options. A large block font will be used to ensure clarity and easy viewing. ​

Multimedia Project Research

Kids educational game
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This year for our Multimedia development 2 project I've joined a group of like-minded people in my course to collaborate and create an educational game targeted at young kids between junior infants and first class or kids aged 4-6.

My team consists of myself Robyn Mulhall, Nhu Thai, Emma Byrne, Marcin Grabiki, Esmee MacPherson, Nicole Goodman and Eva Garrett. Together we hope to create an interactive learning game/app.

Our aim is to create a fun game that invites kids to play, learn and have fun at the same time. While we are referring to this as a game for the moment it's basically a form of interactive learning. As a team we discussed how we could possibly create this, we'll use either e-learning or zebra apps.

This idea is similar to that of Duolingo however our game is targeted at young kids who are eager to learn in a fun way. Therefore the game itself will be easy to use and simple as we aim to create it with our target audience in mind. In the game kids will learn about subjects such as English, science, Irish, maths, art etc. To use our time efficiently we hope to pair up on a different subject creations as well as audio, sounds and design.

Links for inspiration:
PBS Kids
Arcademics.com
Reading Eggs