Prototype 2 – Iteration & Technical Challenges

Game Idea 2 – Book Prototype:

Goal:

I wanted to investigate whether a digitised textbook with more condensed information on a specific case study with the addition of a mini game at the end of the page would be better for retaining engagement than an ordinary textbook which just has passive reading. 

What I built:

• Basic UI layout where it has two buttons (next page, previous page) that update the TextMeshPro on either side of the book which could display information about each of the disasters (Katrina, Tohoku). I didn’t add any polish like animations, just the text swap for demonstration purposes. I also added a “start Minigame” section that would automatically unhide a pre-built UI panel that covers the entire page.
• I built this simply by creating a single canvas with two TextMeshPro sections with two buttons with a script that changes the text string array. I added a button that could be pressed called start minigame and once pressed a UI canvas would take over the screen.

 Critical evaluation:

• Scope: developing upon this foundation prototype has made me realize the scope of this project. To have 4 mini games each with useful and engaging text and gameplay would take far longer than the time allocated in this final major project.
• To develop this game we would need a larger group to work on each mini game and put them together in the last sprint.

Takeaways:

• This prototype served as proof that this could be an engaging alternative to physical textbooks and I’ve proved that the development of the games is possible, but due to the time constraint I wouldn’t be able to validate this educational effectiveness to GCSE students.