escapelabgame - Tumblr blog

[escapelabgame]

Updated Questionnaires for August 13th

Pre-Game Questionnaire (without the demographics)

Post-Game Questionnaire

[escapelabgame]

Feedback

Jim Hewitt

- Liked the idea of the game.

- Found the boxes which explain that the equation is incorrect very helpful. 

- Liked the idea of creating fake molecules.

- Suggested we should incorporate the learning technique of repetition more.

Leanne Ma

- Suggested we should emphasize the names of the products

- Highly encouraged us to emphasize on the fact that this game is an escape room game, and give more instructions and tutorials

- Suggested that the fake molecules idea should be implemented.

Paul Alexander - Curriculum, Teaching and Learning PhD, OISE

-  Suggested that we should turn it into a story of a chemist and make the cursor a gadget.

- Suggested we should add more animations make the background related to the game

- Felt like our game would benefit from more tutorials and a timer.

Rachael Lee - High school science teacher, Crestwood Prep

- Pointed out that this game wasn’t teaching the process of balancing chemical equations from the basics.

- Suggested that it could instead be used as a means of exam review and practice rather than a tool to learn the concepts of balancing chemical equations for the first time.

[escapelabgame]

Overall Reports on the Game

Positive aspects of the game

- The idea of synchronizing an escape room game with balancing chemical equations was widely liked by our playtesters.

- The additional feature where participants have to navigate through the fake molecules to find the real ones received positive feedback.

- The design of the molecule sprites was well liked.

Things that can be improved upon

- There were comments on how the graphics of the scene could be made similar to the intuitive properties of the chemicals involved in the balancing of the chemical equation.

- There could be more emphasis on the names of the chemical equations involved in each level.

- The fact that it’s an escape room game could be made more clear.

[escapelabgame]

To-do

Tutorials: 

level 1 about balancing eqn, 

level 3 about more molecules

Typos for sprites*

Make all tutorial boxes black and white

Make level 5 puzzle-based

2 options for reactants and one product

Update blog: feedbacks from last 3 weeks*

Change the molecule numbers*

Change into Linux format.

Sound

Change plus sign*

[escapelabgame]

To-do

Make the equation box prominent - bigger *

Edit script to make the glowy door appear only after they solve the equation *

Change the molecule’s colour when clicked (Add Button script) *

Change cursor from a pointer to a hand when hovered over clickable objects*

Change plus sign

Find 3 more rooms and edit them

Repeat eqn for all levels in diff order

Add 3 more levels *

Work on more molecules option? (12 for now)

More tutorials *

Add script to the loading scene *

Starting scene

Add sound (if time permits)

Edit script to make other glowy stuff disappear when sth is clicked

[escapelabgame]

Completed tasks

Solved NullRefrenceExceptionError

Tutorial bug fixed

[escapelabgame]

Plan for this week

To-do list

[escapelabgame]

Changes to be made before playtesting

Change animated stars to glowy stuff

Edit background to add a door

Change mechanism for completing the equation (i.e. players have to click both molecule and the slot to move molecule into the slot)

Add 2 more levels

Change background for pop up text

[escapelabgame]

Playtesting reports!

We asked 6 playtesters of various backgrounds to test our game.

The result of the post-game questionnaire is given in the google docs linked below

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-eb2KJDCHfkr4PY6SqmpzZGdAL0iMAaOuYHkw5pGAXk/edit?usp=sharing

In essence, the results suggested that:

- A lot of people loved the idea of this game and loved the aesthetics.

- The objective of this game is more clear now than it was in the previous playtesting sessions. However, it’s still not very clear to some.

- The majority of people wanted this game to be a little bit more complicated, with more variety and more types of chemical reactions.

- The majority loved this game-based approach to teaching and would prefer this to traditional classroom methods. 100% of our playtesters reported that they would love to be notified after it’s completed. 

- Although the majority of playtesters postulated that this game is about chemical reactions, only 30% of them correctly pointed out that it is about balancing chemical equations.

[escapelabgame]

Game Design Plan

Primary to-do list (Coding aspect) 

Work on how to make a clicky backpack thingy where the player can find the things that they have collected over the levels.

(not urgent) -work on how to make things glow once you hover your pointer over them

Improve on the combining aspects of molecules

Primary to - do list (Visual aspect)

Find a transparent golden bird cage

(don’t worry about background for now)

Find a nice key

Find a nice glowy gif to indicate where things are (for now)

Find boxes

Primary to-do list (Educational aspect)

Test different strategies to learn which one works the best (try and make it more intuitive and maths based, instead of memorization based)

Make sure the first two levels work perfectly, and that the player is guided through it seamlessly so that later on they will be more focused on the educational aspects rather than the game dynamics 

[escapelabgame]

Pre-game Questionnaire

[escapelabgame]

Recurring peer critiques

This game will benefit from having clear instructions on where to click

The graphics need some improvement

A more intuitive idea on where to click would be beneficial 

The stars should be consistent, and maybe more vibrant

[escapelabgame]

Changes made to the game

Removed wall2 and wall3

Now we only have one room

Removed right and left arrow and return arrow

Removed inventory system

Added pop-up text

Made welcome text shorter

[escapelabgame]

Playtesters!

We asked some of our upper year Computer Science friends to playtest our first level, and here are some of the constructive criticism which we collected, which we think will help us improve our game. 

- Some insight on where to click on the picture would definitely help, for example a mouse pointer which changes its appearance when you hover over a certain object which contains clues, or making an object glow when you hover your cursor over it (Daniel C) 

- The graphics need some work, and the objective of this game is not clear (Daniel C)

- This game would benefit from having a tutorial (Sayan F)

- This level did not reach its goal of teaching how to balance a chemical equation, because the mechanics of this game were a bit too confusing (Thomas L)

[escapelabgame]

Learning Objectives

What do you want the player to learn?

- To understand the process of balancing chemical equations

What should the player be able to do, after learning take place?

- Know that there are different types of chemical reactions, namely decomposition, displacement, and combination reactions.

- Know that the reactants and the products should have the same number of molecules

How can you measure that ability?

- Giving them many unbalanced equations, from easiest to hardest

- Filling in one gap, for example _Mg + _ O2 -> _MgO

How would that look in your game?

- Making fun puzzles to balance chemical equations

- Synthesizing end products by reacting certain molecules

[escapelabgame]

Peer Feedback

Here is some feedback which was given to us by our peers:

- Make the graphics more relevant to the theme of the game

- Design it so that you have to arrange the molecules in a certain order in order to unlock the door, as opposed to just clicking on the product (Thomas)

- In order to find the key, it would be better if you would have to find the compounds which made the product up first (Stewart)

- The instructions were not clear, and it would be better if we had pointers on where to click. Also, the aesthetics didn’t create an escape-room vibe (Charmaine)

- It would be better if we had more of an indication of which spots can be clicked, like a hover sprite (Charmaine)

[escapelabgame]

To-Do

Level 1 + Menu 

Change molecules background for level 1(add VSEPR shapes/pictures ?)

Change starting text

Add text in level 1 to make it a tutorial

Change background for menu scene

Level 2 

Find + change sprites

Add a puzzle

Change welcome text

Level 3 

Same as Level2 

new puzzle