Creating a Computer Game with My Granddaughter
As one of the software engineers building Popfly Game Creator (GC), I had the chance to sit down with my 4 year old granddaughter and create a computer game together. It was part of testing GC, but the results were a revelation to me. My granddaughters are 4 and 6 years old, and they both like playing on the computer but mouse operations are tricky for the younger one. I thought it might be possible to create a game that would appeal to her and be fairly easy to master. Little did I know that this would lead to two 1 ½ hour sessions with her on my lap while we designed the game together. I had to work quickly to keep her interest and to be inventive in response to her very specific design ideas. It was very engaging for both of us as we created the Rainbow Duckies game together. I realized that designing games with a child could be far more engaging for both of us than just playing them, and that together we could make games that were suitable for her skill level – something not true of most of the games available on the market.
I started the ball rolling with an idea for a game. This idea was inspired by the lovely rainbow background and the cute duckies that are built in to GC.
Intro Scene
I built this opening screen myself, showed it to my granddaughter, and read the question to her, "Big Duck and Little Duck are lost! Will you help them find their way back to their home at the end of the rainbow?" She responded with a firm committed “Yes.” I clicked the screen for her (operating the mouse is too difficult) and we moved on to the first scene.
Scene 1
At this point the 6 year old jumped in and played the scene several times. She immediately mastered it and asked, “Where is level 2?”
The younger girl took over the keyboard and carefully manipulated the arrow buttons to keep the ducks safe. She played the game 10 times, winning every time, and then got a bit distracted, let the ducks hit the mushroom, and lost the game. After that point she refused to play the game herself any more. Instead she insisted that I play several times while she watched. Then she went and got her toy ducks and started to play with them.
I learned a lot about motivation from this episode. She bought in to the premise of the game, was committed to keeping the ducks safe, enjoyed working on how to use the arrow keys, and enjoyed the game, until she lost. She didn’t like losing at all. I decided that there was no reason for this game to have winning or losing as the end of the game. There could simply be different consequences for different actions as shown in Scene 2. This proved to be a good choice for making the game motivational.
Scene 2
Instead of losing the game, the consequence of letting the duck eat the mushroom is that the duck is now sick. It becomes a challenge to help the duck get well instead of a feeling of having failed by losing the game. Again she bought into this premise and was eager to help the duck get well. Now she started to get her own ideas of what should happen next in the game, as shown in Scene 3.
Scene 3
We browsed through the backgrounds available for the next scene and the 4 year old was attracted by the beautiful sunset scene. When looking for characters for the scene to go with the duck, she gravitated to the butterfly. She said that Little Duck is afraid of the butterfly, and that the butterfly just wanted to get something to eat. The fruits and vegetables available in GC didn’t appeal, but cupcake frosting did. After laying out the scene together, I used GC to enable the butterfly to move, eat the frosting, and attract another butterfly. If Little Duck bumped into the butterfly then the scene just starts over, and if not then Little Duck moves along to the next scene.
My granddaughter’s idea for Scene 4 was night time.
Scene 4
She loved the Starry Sky in GC, but she insisted that the stars have to be pink not blue. It took a little ingenuity for me to figure out how to replace the colors in Starry Sky, but fortunately GC made it easy once I figured out a little trick. Little Duck also had to be pink instead of purple in this scene, and there should be a monster, but a nice monster. The monster should bring a bag of presents to Little Duck, but the best we could find was a garbage pail to carry the presents in. We just called it a pail. For presents, a big red heart and heart candy sprinkles seemed perfect. Finally I hooked up all of the movements and gift giving. My granddaughter worked quite a while on playing the scene before she eventually mastered how to have Monster Girl push the pail of presents to Little Duck.
Now it was time for Scene 5. The duckies are almost home!
Scene 5
At this point the 6 year old jumped in and said that when they get home, the house should back up and the whole family should appear. I won’t spoil the ending by showing Scene 5, but suffice it to say that when she played the game later, her contented happy sigh was priceless. The girls now vie for playing the game and giving demos. And the 4 year old and I are working on our next game, “I Know the Butterfly.” Stay tuned.
As one of the software engineers building Popfly Game Creator (GC), I had the chance to sit down with my 4 year old granddaughter and create a computer game together. It was part of testing GC, but the results were a revelation to me. My granddaughters are 4 and 6 years old, and they both like playing on the computer but mouse operations are tricky for the younger one. I thought it might be possible to create a game that would appeal to her and be fairly easy to master. Little did I know that this would lead to two 1 ½ hour sessions with her on my lap while we designed the game together. I had to work quickly to keep her interest and to be inventive in response to her very specific design ideas. It was very engaging for both of us as we created the Rainbow Duckies game together. I realized that designing games with a child could be far more engaging for both of us than just playing them, and that together we could make games that were suitable for her skill level – something not true of most of the games available on the market.
I started the ball rolling with an idea for a game. This idea was inspired by the lovely rainbow background and the cute duckies that are built in to GC.
Intro Scene
I built this opening screen myself, showed it to my granddaughter, and read the question to her, "Big Duck and Little Duck are lost! Will you help them find their way back to their home at the end of the rainbow?" She responded with a firm committed “Yes.” I clicked the screen for her (operating the mouse is too difficult) and we moved on to the first scene.
Scene 1
At this point the 6 year old jumped in and played the scene several times. She immediately mastered it and asked, “Where is level 2?”
The younger girl took over the keyboard and carefully manipulated the arrow buttons to keep the ducks safe. She played the game 10 times, winning every time, and then got a bit distracted, let the ducks hit the mushroom, and lost the game. After that point she refused to play the game herself any more. Instead she insisted that I play several times while she watched. Then she went and got her toy ducks and started to play with them.
I learned a lot about motivation from this episode. She bought in to the premise of the game, was committed to keeping the ducks safe, enjoyed working on how to use the arrow keys, and enjoyed the game, until she lost. She didn’t like losing at all. I decided that there was no reason for this game to have winning or losing as the end of the game. There could simply be different consequences for different actions as shown in Scene 2. This proved to be a good choice for making the game motivational.
Scene 2
Instead of losing the game, the consequence of letting the duck eat the mushroom is that the duck is now sick. It becomes a challenge to help the duck get well instead of a feeling of having failed by losing the game. Again she bought into this premise and was eager to help the duck get well. Now she started to get her own ideas of what should happen next in the game, as shown in Scene 3.
Scene 3
We browsed through the backgrounds available for the next scene and the 4 year old was attracted by the beautiful sunset scene. When looking for characters for the scene to go with the duck, she gravitated to the butterfly. She said that Little Duck is afraid of the butterfly, and that the butterfly just wanted to get something to eat. The fruits and vegetables available in GC didn’t appeal, but cupcake frosting did. After laying out the scene together, I used GC to enable the butterfly to move, eat the frosting, and attract another butterfly. If Little Duck bumped into the butterfly then the scene just starts over, and if not then Little Duck moves along to the next scene.
My granddaughter’s idea for Scene 4 was night time.
Scene 4
She loved the Starry Sky in GC, but she insisted that the stars have to be pink not blue. It took a little ingenuity for me to figure out how to replace the colors in Starry Sky, but fortunately GC made it easy once I figured out a little trick. Little Duck also had to be pink instead of purple in this scene, and there should be a monster, but a nice monster. The monster should bring a bag of presents to Little Duck, but the best we could find was a garbage pail to carry the presents in. We just called it a pail. For presents, a big red heart and heart candy sprinkles seemed perfect. Finally I hooked up all of the movements and gift giving. My granddaughter worked quite a while on playing the scene before she eventually mastered how to have Monster Girl push the pail of presents to Little Duck.
Now it was time for Scene 5. The duckies are almost home!
Scene 5
At this point the 6 year old jumped in and said that when they get home, the house should back up and the whole family should appear. I won’t spoil the ending by showing Scene 5, but suffice it to say that when she played the game later, her contented happy sigh was priceless. The girls now vie for playing the game and giving demos. And the 4 year old and I are working on our next game, “I Know the Butterfly.” Stay tuned.
posted by Michael Leonard at 5:08 PM
2 Comments:
This write-up is as engaging as the experience you had with the grandkids. I will try the GC and get my kids to use it, as well.
Great idea - rather than letting your kids play games on computer by themselves, design one with them. You get to spend time with your kids and they get to learn as well. That's a win-win!
Post a Comment
<< Home