AVishek+Game+DEsign


 * IDEAS FOR SERIOUS GAMES**toc

Middle school students enjoy games but teachers don't appreciate that. Teachers feel that students should read and write to gain greater understanding about world issues. The problem to be solved is to make a serious game that is about a world issue.

**Requirements:**

 * 1) Game must be accessible to the intended players
 * 2) Game must be well-paced to be enjoyable
 * 3) Game must be challenging to the intended players.
 * 4) Game must have a clear goal
 * 5) Game must be winable.

** Constraints: **

 * 1) It must be possible to create this game with the tools available to middle school students (computers, wikis, blogs, cardboard, poster board, glue, colored pencils, markers, scissors, rulers, paper cutter, exacto knives, glue guns, found objects, dice, spinners, and other common items found in the home and school)

1. A Serious Game Using Gamestar Mechanic that follows the design brief. __Core Mechanics__ Well to make it using game star mechanic, the core mechanics would basically have to be Characters, and a goal that you have to have in order to beat the game.You can also have a story line even though the Engine will make that a bit harder to implement. 2. A Serious Game Mod for an Existing Boardgames that follows the design brief.
 * To do this you can put instructions before you start playing, so everyone will know how to do this.
 * You can have Medium paced, with fast NPC's and safespots, to make a medium paced game.
 * To do this you can put more NPC's and then you can only have ONE way to beat the game rather than more.
 * To do this you can have a key or a block to get into or maybe a certain NPC to overcome, and state that in the instruction.
 * To do this you can play the game yourself if you can play the game and win then anyone else can as well.

__Core Mechanics__ In a board game such as this the core mechanics would have to be a storyline to explain what happens, why it happened and why they are playing. It also needs either a spinner or die to know how may spaces to move. These would be the basics of what you would need for this.
 * Have the instructions carefully explained in the instruction sheet that comes with it.
 * Since it is a board game you can have it paced using some sort of timer that say's how long you have for a turn..
 * To make it challenging it will be a bit harder because for a board game all you have to do is roll a die and move your pieces, though to make it a bit more challenging you can just make a card for every step you take with a lot of cards that do something bad or something that can help you lose, and less of the good cards, because they are like miracles and miracles don't happen often.
 * The clear goal in a board game would have been to get to the Finish line or square.
 * IF you play over the game with a friend or two and one of you win then it is possible to win, before a game maker releases a game, they need to get testers or test it themselves so they can know what to fix and what to add.

3. A Serious Game -- Free Choice that follows the design brief. __Core Mechanics__ In a game such as this you can have Enemy's, Character,s NPC's, Storyline and a changeable plot to do this because you are not limited to certain things with this design part. This way the core mechanics could be whatever you cant because there are no restrictions such as having to use a board or using limited resources.
 * When you start playing the game, depending on the engine you use you can have the instructions, when you start playing, or when you log in there would be a well noticeably tutorial.
 * To make it well paced you can make it medium paced, to do so it depends on the engine you are using, for example my favorite engine: Xtremeworlds, to make it medium paced, it would be a bit harder, but you can just disable run via scripting, and then after that you cant really make the NPC's faster but yu can have it that they drop an item that lets you out, or there is only one path out and the NPC is blocking it.
 * To make it challenging all you really need to do is have a goal like in a lot of generic games: Save the Princess and then when your done, you do something else, to make i a bit more interesting just make it difficult to do that, but that won't really be interesting, because it is not really that unique, so you can have something like this: The princess was kidnapped, and you need to go save her. the witch trapped her within the tower which is only accessible after you break the doors open with a battering ram that you have to make from the enchanted wood in Endor.
 * The clear goal would be the story line that you can finish and then you can choose to play on if you want but if you don't you can play as something else or go to a new class and try again...
 * To make it win-able make sure the NPC's are defeat-able and the Quests are doable and this way, you can have the game winnable.