Observations

We did our observations in the East Palo Alto school. We observed Kindergarden children during story time and “exploration” a free-time session where the kids get to play with different games and objects around the classroom.

 

We noticed that children liked using the building blocks because of their heft and physical interactivity. They didn’t just use them for stacking, but also for weighing things down, for tossing from side to side, and for bringing down structures like a recking-ball.

 

Along with the tangible objects, came the notions of creation and destruction. Kids liked making things and showing them off. They liked putting things together that they could show off to others. The children liked pushing their creations to their limits, building towers that were just a little too tall, houses that were just a little too big to be stable. After the kids were done building, they would tear down their creations. The creation was just as important as the destruction step.

 

During one of our observation sessions, we got to see the children bring all the chairs together, set up a boarder of yellow cardboard blocks that were laying around the class, and pretend that they were on a school bus, and one of them was the bus driver. From talking to the children, we learned that being a bus driver was fun, and being part of the make-believe process was also fun. The kids liked to take on roles that they had some previous knowledge of, but that was unknown and exciting to them. Some of the other kids on the bus pretended to be mothers, fathers and school-children.

 

Around the classroom, we saw that when one child was having fun, or at least looked like he or she was having fun, more kids would join in. Multiplayer was an integral part of what gave a game lasting appeal. Games that had more than two children playing, kept children entertained for longer. The popular games weren’t always the same games either. On the different days we came to the classroom, we saw children cluster around different objects. However, roleplaying games were always popular, and seemed to be intrinsically social.

 

There was a technology corner in the classroom with four computers loaded up with educational games. We talked to one group of children who were playing a spelling flash game. Games that were animated, and had sounds to follow along with were more fun. Not all the kids in the class were super comfortable with reading, so having voice-over instructions for the games and game menus was a big help.

 

There is something to be said about chrome or eye-candy. Games that looked pretty, and had lots of colors, would draw larger crowds. We noticed that the classroom was very colorful and there was a big emphasis on artistic expression through the use of color. We knew we needed a colorful toy to match the colorful self expression of the children.

Brainstorming

After we observed the children in the classroom, we got together for some brainstorming. We kicked off the evening with some “How might we’s” on post-it notes, and started scribbling our ideas on other notes. We tried to place ideas with common themes closer together, and linking common concepts in an idea web.

User Tests

Round 1 Rules:

For our first round of user tests, we decided to go with the rapid prototype approach, and test our game idea as a board game.

The game world consists of three kinds of terrain, the forest, the river and the grasslands. The forest provides wood to build houses and fences. The river provides water for your crops, and the grasslands provide food for your free-range livestock and areas to make into fields. There are a finite set of resources on the map (wood and water), and if you use up, or pollute your resources, the game world could be affected permanently.

To build a farm, you first need a farmer, to get a farmer, you need a house. You drag your builder item to the forest and he will pick up a tree. You can then set down the wood anywhere on the grasslands and the builder will make a house. Once you have a farmhouse, a farmer will come out of the house and tend to any fields in the 4x4 square around his house. To plant a field, you set down the food item you want to plant, and a field of that item will pop up on the map.

Food items and farm animals will grow over time. Every now and then there will be “action events” that require the farmer to do something in order to save his farm. This could be anything from setting up a scarecrow to protect his fields from birds, or save his cows from a fire or flood. Something that became painfully apparent just from writing the rules down, is that the game is fairly complicated. We will test with an 8 year old boy: Tom.

Round 1 Results:

When first brought to the game board, Tom was unsure what he had to do. “What do I do now?” This was after we explained the rules to him. He notices the trees diminishing, but continues to build more and more houses all over the map until the forest is gone. When he tries to build again, and we inform him his wood is all gone, he plants and apple tree, and then buts it down for timber. We had not thought of this possibility, so we let it happen.

After filling up the field with crops, Tom bulldozes all his trees, and start putting down livestock. He is fills up the riverbank with sheep, and we inform him that the river is getting polluted. “My cows are [pooping] in the river?” We then attempt to explain to him how nitrogen-rich cow patties can cause the river to become nitrogen imbalanced and the fish will die.

After a while of messing with the animals, buildings and crops, placing any and all combinations on top of each other, making us come up with more rules on the spot, he seems to get bored and says “this game is too easy. I want to know my points and maybe sell my food to buy better buildings.”

What we learned this round was that the whole “natural resources” idea made the game a little more complicated that we had hoped, and was cumbersome and boring, more than it was realistic and educational. We have to come up with a way to emphasize the environmental conservation aspect of our game in a way that is more fun. Also, the game moves quickly, but the payer has little interaction with the events on the field. Its more of a do, then wait and see mechanic, that lost the user’s interest far too quickly. We need to get the game digital, so we can see if the cool technology aspect of the game will make it more fun.

Round 2 Rules:

With the feedback we got from the first user test, we decided to change the game mechanics a little bit. We scrapped the resource gathering, and made crops grow slowly, sot that they had some value, and couldn’t be replaced immediately. When fully grown, they had to be “harvested” so Farmer Frank could collect the food. One of the girls we had observed in EPA told us that she enjoyed games where one is rewarded for good actions, but does not loose when she makes mistakes. We didn’t want to punish players too much for making mistakes, but we wanted actions to have consequences. In our new iteration of the game, we had the player dig plots to plant crops, then the crops would ask for fertilizer and water at different intervals. If the player acts on those requests, the plants grow, if they are ignored, they die. The same goes for animals, except they fight and disappear instead of wither.

Round 2 Results:

This time around, we got two girls to play the game together. They are four (Hannah), and six years old (Jamie). By now, we had the game set up on a laptop with the right graphics and gameplay in place. First thing we noticed, was that as soon as the computer came Jamie took the lead, and left Hannah watching as she played. Since one of our goals was getting multiple kids involved at once, we knew we had to find a way to let both users play at once.

Once we had explained how the game worked, Jamie took off and started doing her own thing. The game doesn’t have a goal, we thought that kids would enjoy the freedom along with the role-play, but it seems we were wrong. Once again, our user didn’t know what she was working towards, and got bored after trying out all the toys a few times, and successfully harvesting a few times.

Hannah was a completely different story. Once she saw jamie sheer the sheep the firs time, sh became fixated on growing and sheering sheep. She filled the stage with sheep and would laugh at the “naked sheep” every single time the sheep bleated and lost their hair, Hannah cracked up. She played for a full five minutes before she even tried out the other toys.

The interesting thing about this test was the clear differences in how users of different ages interacted with the product. Younger children like repetition, sound and voices. Older children like innovative ways to play, and need goals to drive their gameplay for extended periods of time. We also had to come up with a way to let players know when crops were ready to be picked up.It seemed clear to us, but the kids never quite knew when things were ready to be picked up.

Round 3 Rules:

We added a little more effort in making things grow. We drew some of our inspiration from games like “Plants vs Zombies” and “FarmVille”, and decided to go with the action, then growth mechanic that these games showcase. It keeps the player involved, and allows for animation. Still the same harvesting mechanic, but now thought bubbles let the player know when plants are ready to be harvested, or need some other action.

This time we had the table all set up, and got to have two boys play with reacTIVision.

Round 3 Results:

We seem to have hit the mark pretty well this time around. No major complaints or trouble points as far as game mechanics, but some bugs to report. The detection technology wasn’t working all that hot most of the time. The thought bubbles were interfering with reacTIVision detection. We might have to change the colors if we want to improve the detection technology.

Round 4 Results:

We got 8 people to test the game. Tom came back, and brought a friend. We ironed out all the bugs, the game works perfectly. Adults and children interacted successfully on the table. Each age group got something different out of the encounter. I think we are ready for showcase.