Taro-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.

A game where the player is in a box representing a country with enemies representing as citizens. As time passes the enemies spawn making it harder for the player to defeat the enemies. The player will have unlimited ammunition but will have limited time to defeat the enemies. In the introduction there will be a explanation for the goal of the game. As the enemies overpopulate, the player will be overpowered by the number of enemies. This will tell the player the hardships of an overpopulating country. The goal will be to defeat all the enemies to destroy the issue of overpopulation.

__Core Mechanics__ Narrative-What the situation is and how it must be solved. Goal- In the Narrative there will be a goal and how to solve it(Reach the goal, Defeat all enemies, or Gather all points). Character-This will show the player and the player hardships. The player will be able to go in the character's shoes.

2. A Serious Game Mod for an Exisiting Boardgame that follows the design brief.

A Monopoly game where the one or more players have to control their population instead of the money. The bigger it is the harder it is to manage the smaller the easier, in the end the player with the population that is in the middle of the most population and least population wins. Even though this looks easy, many events will happen over time to make things more interesting and hard. The population must be healthy which will be judged by health points earned in the game. Again the spots the players moves into will purposely make the players hard to manage big populations to show the problems of overpopulating.

__Core Mechanics__ Points-Population Points, Health Points. Pawns-Shapes of different countries. Problem-Manage an over populating country. Dice-How much the countries technology moves forward.

3. A Serious Game -- Free Choice that follows the design brief. A digital game where the player makes tools and gadgets to make sure the population is fed and make sure the population is not overflowing. Also the player needs to make tools by imagination. The player is set so that the player's imagination saves that countries population. This will make it exciting and will make able to stretch a players imagination. The social issue is overpopulating which can lead to other problems like famine and loss of money, poverty.

__Core Mechanics__ Points-Achivements the player makes, gives access to different material to make gadgets with. Goal-Save the poor people. Obstacles-Gadgets must not harm anyone.