Week 12

Sorry it's late, I was in a car accident and had to take the weekend off. 

Here is my final project: Balanced Equation Hero
My file was WAY to big so I deleted the music and compressed the project.  The artwork is not as much fun anymore but due to space constraints I didn't have a choice. 

1. What: What is your project? How does it work? How did you come up with the idea?

My project is based on the task of balancing equations in chemistry.  Balancing equations involves making sure there is the same number of each atom on both sides of the equation.  When playing my game you are greeted by a mad scientist who has to choose between levels 1 and 2.  The game is played by selecting the letter (A or B) that indicates the correctly balanced equations.  I am not sure how exactly I arrived at this idea.  I looked at a lot of other Scratch projects and games when I was looking for ideas.  I decided balancing equations is very important and may students could use extra support.  I guess this lead me to my game. 

2. So What: What was your process for developing the project? What was interesting, surprising, or challenging? Why? What did you learn?

I would have to say that developing my project was interesting and challenging.  It was challenging because this is the first major project I have made in Scratch.  The major challenge was developing level 1 because level 2 was a copy with minor edits/changes.  Getting my letters to show-up on every question was one of my biggest challenges.  It would work when I played on my computer but when I uploaded the game to Scratch it no longer worked.  I also had difficulty because my file size was way too big.  I did research to learn how to compress the file which caused my pictures to be less vibrant.  The project was interesting because I had fun with the challenge and learning how to Scratch.  I still have lots of improvements for my Scratching skills, but I feel I am on the way.  While Scratching I faced the challenges of learning how to change backgrounds, having my players show and hide when they should, displaying correct and incorrect, and in general making the game flow smoothly. 

3. Now What: What are you the most proud of about your project? What would your change? What do you want to create next? Why?

 

I can’t pick one thing of my project that I am most proud of.  I am proud of the entire thing.  I have shown my students and my family.  I never thought I could create my own game so the entire experience makes me proud. 

The only thing I would change would be the file size limit.  Because I had to compress my file the art work and backgrounds aren’t as vibrant.  I also deleted my music to help shrink the file size. 

I am not sure what I want to do next.  I plan to play with Scratch more in the future but not until I graduate because I am out of “playtime.” 

4. Principles of Good Games and Good Learning: Provide explicit examples of the principles of good games and learning you applied in your game design. Then provide explicit examples of the principles of good games and good learning you could apply if you had more time and better Scratching skills. 

I have tried to incorporate as many principles of good games as possible with my limited time and Scratching skills.  The first principle is identity.  When the player starts the game they have to become the scientist and balance the equations.  The next principle is interaction.  The student interacts with the game by choosing the correct letter associated with the balanced equation.  They also interact with the game because the teacher (the scientist in the game) asks the players name causing them to “own” the identity.  Customization is also part of my game.  The player decides what level they will play allowing them to customize the game.  The game is also customized when the player enters their name.  The principles of “Just in Time” and “On Demand” are also incorporated in the game.  These are fulfilled by the short and sweet directions.  There is not a lot of detail in the beginning but if the player clicks the wrong answer they are given a brief reminder of how to balance equations.  My game loosely includes well-ordered problems.  When creating the game I tried to start with easy equations and work toward harder ones.  Level 2 contains more complex problems than level 1 which also demonstrates well-ordered problems. 

Creating the game incorporated the principle of pleasantly frustrating.  The final product isn’t frustrating, at least not to me, but it could be for struggling students. 

If given more time and better Scratching skills I would try to incorporate more principles.  One of which would be risk taking.  It would be fun to make the game change depending on the number of correct or incorrect answers.  For example if the player answered so many questions wrong I could create a scene with and explosion to demonstrate the player failing at saving the classroom and/or school.  A fun way to incorporate production would be to have the player choose which door to enter and behind each door could be a different type of chemistry problem.  This would allow the player to write their game as they go because what problems they are faced with depends on the door they choose.  This freedom would lead to the principle of agency.  System thinking could be incorporated by having each level build toward the final level which could contain problems where the player must use all the skills from the previous levels to succeed.