The Design, Prototype, and Evaluation of Games Played by Children - Essay Example

DESIGN AND PROTOTYPING al Affiliation) Key words: Prototyping, Game The paper discusses the design, prototype,and evaluation of games played by children. The game involves high pace tasks and embodied interactions. Specifically, it argues that the testing of the user with lower fidelity prototypes, which is favored in theoretical methodology in game design and human computer interaction field, is not appropriate in the design of this kind of game. The team members instead in the designing process experimented with technology and exposed working samples to play and test with the children. The paper designs a game and tests the game in different iterations. The game was designed and tested with an interactive technology and a prototype mobile. Finally, the paper confirms the hypothesis dealing with technology rich modeling because the children’s feedback dealt with the realized interaction, and aspects of social and play interactions were put in real context. Introduction Methodological studies in children and interaction fields have concentrated on how children are involved in the processes of design and ways that children can offer input on interaction designs. Prominent illustrations include the participatory mechanisms to design, early design methodologies, Mission from Mars, or mechanisms that involve children during evaluation of interactive products. Previous research studies have put less attention to the tools and methods of prototyping. This paper also considers the position in the children’s game design that supports interactions that are embodied, mostly those played by children outdoors together. The papers also summarize methodological techniques in the wider Human Computer Interaction field, explain the literature of game designs approaches the topic and specifies some challenges of the present design approaches when the game is designed. Design and Prototyping in Game Design and Human Computer Interaction A crucial theme in Human Computer Interaction methodology is concerned with prototype fidelity. The term prototype is ambiguous at its best; ranging from paper prototype, functioning, sketches, and interactive products. Prototype is used in many phases in the process of design and in various roles; for designers to look into the design space as one of the communication instrument to convey information to other stakeholders and as an analysis tool in testing the concept with users. Paper prototyping is one way to explore the space of designs without incurring design costs and to come up with early user feedback on certain aspects of action design (Lewis & Bedson, 2009). Those who support paper prototyping have argued that the software prototypes are not good for iterative design. For instance the prototype takes much longer to be developed and some of the developmental may refuse to change during their testing. Additionally, the working prototype’ feedbacks tend to incorporate details’ feedback, for instance the colors and fonts that are not pertinent during the starting stages of design. Consequently, technical glitches can operate a testing session to a stop. Especially the point that various feedback can be found during testing depending on the prototype fidelity prompted various experimental works. The fidelity concept has been nuanced over the years, and methods tend to differentiate between the various aspects where the prototype can be faithful as the intended design representation. McCurdy introduced the visual fidelity concept, functional breadth and depth, interactivity richness, and data model richness, which are the dimensions of orthogonal for featuring a prototype. It is evident, that based on system type and the designer concerns at any given section in the process of design, various prototype types will be required and therefore various kinds of prototyping benchmarks. Theories on game design are advised in adopting the process of iterative design and to play testing in the early stages. The process of iterative design is regarded as the most appropriate because it is difficult in predicting the emerging game play. The proposed design process is to prototype a playable game version beginning with low-fi prototype and rise fidelity in consequent iterations. Game design theory concerns the conventional computer games that lean towards the software instruments, development techniques, and methods are common in engineering. It is concluded that that the game design prototypes are used to externalize specific sections. The game presented in the research theory is played by groups of children and normally involve embodied and physical interaction (Noorani, 2006). Iteration We created a game which took 21 days to design and develop. The game was implemented and piloted with grownups before being evaluated with children to flag out early usability issues. We defined the basic rules, and some of the rules were carried out on the machines. This was done because we saw technology as an element that is supportive and like in many conventional games, their regulations are defined implicitly. For instance, in the tag games the children agree on their play setting, but there is no argument on how the operation of the tagging is done; they already know from earlier games. Additionally, when the rules are defined, it is expected that some of the situations that are not covered properly by regulation sets. When this occurs, the strategy will be to ask the played how they consider to add or remove the rules. Their response provided us with important insights on how to improve the game. Games Below follows the criteria of how the game was developed. First, the fundamental of the game is laid, then it follows the description of how and what was implemented by technology. Trial At the beginning of the game the children will line up on a single side of the field. The aim of the game is to be the first person to reach the other end of the field. At the beginning of every turn, a numerical value, color, or an animal will be announced. If the specified color is presented in the childrens clothes, the player is allowed to take certain steps forward, the steps count corresponded to the announced value. The step size should be proportionate to the size of the animal that was announced. For instance, if a rat is announced, the player will take small steps. When the correct number and the step size are taken, the players make a turn and he starts a next turn. The devices pronounce the animal, step count, and color; the LED will indicate the color, step count, and is shown by LED counts that switch on and the selected animal is announced by a given sound. The researcher will be located at the end of the field, holding the machine. She begins every turn by holding high a device, which then announces the step count and color information to the devices, consequently, the children must turn the wheel that rotates, and depending on the wheel’s final orientation, the device will calculate the selected animal and the audio will begin playing. The child that reaches the researcher at the end of the field will win (Payne & Hammond, 2006). Expectations Before conducting a first evaluation we had expectations based on the game play and the related process. First, it was expected that the players will be able to comprehend the set of rules of the game. It was expected that the game would experience some minor issues and situations that would arise leading to the discussion. Specifically, it was expected a discussion based on the step sizes regarding the animals. Based on the process, we had some experience working with children. We expected that while designing the games, the players would have ideas of their favorite games, and they would be discussing games and various parameters in them. We also expected the players to have fun while designing the collages and would provide us with insights on why they would like certain games. Procedure Fourteen players were available during the scout meeting. We had only 8 devices, therefore, we had to divide the groups of two. After playing the games, the children filled the filled the ranking form. They were divided into three groups and every group was assigned to come up with a collage of the game. Every group was led by a facilitator who prompted them while designing the collage and give reasons why the game feature was fun. The process of creating the collages was captured on videos (Sternlicht & Hurwitz, 2001). Results The children seemed not enthusiastic about the game; they mentioned aloud that the game was not enjoyable. As it was expected, there were various discussions on how the steps would be. Due to lack of time everyone played the game. This led the game to be played with three players, because the number of children got bigger, every team had a large variety of clothes; and almost every team was allowed to carry on steps on each turn. The game’s pace was very low and there was massive boredom among the children. Matching Game Second iteration After realizing that the children were not impressed by the previous game we developed a new game altogether. We designed a transportation picture matching game to replace the previous one. The idea resulted from the discussion with the researchers. In this game, the children were divided into two teams. The idea behind the game is to correct and match the transportation pictures and get the points. We acquired reacTIVision software that was used in creating the transportation printable; bus, plane, and ship using the software. The researchers were to try the memory the two teams. We made the matching memory games using the designs we issued stack of printable cards, they went through every picture and named them. The two teams had problems naming some of the pictures like the submarine, helicopter, zeppelin, and also a bus. This was a great vocabulary building task. The two teams were expected to lay out their cards and place them to their corresponding matches of our designs without any direction from the scout leaders. For instance, if it shows the plane picture, the team lays out the plane picture on the card, they will get points. The same applies to other designs like ship and bus. Expectations We were not sure if the children would name all the pictures on the card correctly, and comprehend how to match the weapons with the pictures shown correctly. Our worry was if they would experience some issues while doing so or if they would match them. Procedure After the children finished playing the game, they were asked if they enjoyed the game. The group split into two groups and the scout leader interviewed each group. Thereafter, the children were released and the game was then reviewed by the researchers. Results Some of the children in the two teams found it difficult to match the cards and the picture shown. Although when the game ended they were able to match appropriately with the help of their team mates. The children that had difficulties matching the pictures saw their team mates play matching games. This was made simple by using only 4 pairs of cards. They knew they were required to flip the cards and match them in their places corresponding to the shown pictures. They names all the pictures as they flipped, we decided that they will use similar pattern for the entire game. (Hodgson, 2009). Implications for the process and design If someone has never played this type of game with the children, one might be astonished at the level of children’s memory. Sometimes the kids even shouted and wailed when they won. The team collected matches but at times they held back; this made the game more enjoyable. They were so excited when they found pairs. After finishing the game we were not bothered to see who won, instead they set out the card to replay the game. The researchers added card until they ended up having sixteen cards. There was limited confusion after playing for sometimes because they had grasped the pattern well. After finishing the game, the children were asked to rate the game. We later thanked them for participating in the evaluation and awarded them with game designer’s diploma. We later discussed the outcomes with the fellow team members after the children were released (Gebhardt, 2003). Results and Game Design implications The games got positive feedback from the children. The devices responded well and the children were able to use the cards with ease. The main feature of the game was collect the cards and match with the pictures shown which really appealed the children (Cooper, 2001). Discussion The experience in designing, developing, and evaluating game generated insight on various levels. This includes design, rapid, iterative process, children evaluation on the set up, and the interaction technology and mechanism are best for interactive games for children. The design alteration was implemented based on direct observation of the comments and game play of the children. It majorly concerned the interaction and play functionality. Duration details of the interactions influences the rising game experience for instance, when play testing with the wizard interventions of oz. Therefore, it is argued that rather than testing the paper prototypes, it is advisable to focus on the working, actual interactions. Regarding the time, it is costly to come up with a working prototype. Therefore, it was concluded that with the platform of RaPIDO the time was brought down. Over the six weeks we were able to develop, test, and improve the game (Chua, Leong, & Lim, 2003). Additionally, since it was easy and fast to creating an operating prototype, the benchmark enabled us to tinker with technologies and explore design space. The benefit of iterating small changes enabled the team to see the effects of small alterations. It was argued that this made the design process to be self- steering. Early testing of the design process enabled us to love the game. Conclusion The team evaluated, designed, and implemented the game. The game used various technologies and interaction styles, but a single process that was widely used was visual building and critical thinking. We used the device to communicate events of the game and present point when matching takes place. The paper has presented a detailed account of the evaluation and design process to enable the user to follow the argumentation and design decisions in a logical sequence. We kept in mind that when another designer follows a similar process, he will end up with another game. It is believed that the presentation traceability and the process granted in reaching the conclusion can uphold the conclusion reliability. Based on the experiences it is concluded that the followed process was the best for this game; games that need experiment can only be tested with higher fidelity prototypes (Chapman, 2001). Reference Chapman, A. H. 2001. The games children play, New York: Putnam. Chua, C. K., Leong, K. F., & Lim, C. S. 2003. Rapid prototyping principles and applications 2nd ed. Singapore: World Scientific. Cooper, K. G. 2001. Rapid prototyping technology: selection and application. New York: Marcel Dekker. Gebhardt, A. 2003. Rapid prototyping. Munich: Hanser Publishers ;. Hamblen, J. O., & Furman, M. D. 2002. Rapid prototyping of digital systems. Boston: Kluwer Academic. Hodgson, D. S. 2009. Prototype: Prima official game guide. Roseville, CA: Prima Games. Lewis, G., & Bedson, G. 2009. Games for children. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Noorani, R. 2006. Rapid prototyping: principles and applications. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley. Payne, K. J., & Hammond, K. 2006. Games children play: how games and sport help children develop. Stroud: Hawthorn Press. Sternlicht, M., & Hurwitz, A. B. 2001. Games children play: instructive and creative play activities for the mentally retarded and developmentally disabled child. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co.. Read More