Scratch Game Reflection

What is your project? How does it work? How did you come up with the idea?

The idea for my project was inspired by my students.  They are struggling with learning their multiplication facts.  They are bored and uninterested in simply studying flashcards, so I wanted to come up with a game that would motivate them to learn their facts.  The storyline of my game is this: the player is a knight that has come to a town to save it from a dragon who is using fireballs to destroy it.  The knight must answer multiplication facts correctly in order to shoot the sword and stop the fireballs.  I came up with the idea by searching SCRATCH for math games.  I found one I liked and revised it to fit my storyline, which I thought would be appealing to my students.

What was your process for developing the project? What was interesting, surprising, or challenging? Why? What did you learn?

After I found a game I liked I began to revise it to fit my storyline.  The first thing I revised was the graphics.  I changed the background to a city at night.  I changed my sprite character to a knight with a sword, and I added a dragon to shoot the fireballs.  I used to the paint tool to make my own sword and fireballs.  I really liked this part of the revision.  It was pretty simple and I liked drawing my own sprites.  The second revision I made was adding the directions page.  This was a little challenging; it took me a little while to figure out how to add the new screen and get it to come up before the game began.  It worked out well though; I think the page cleared up the confusion that people were having on how to play the game.  The last revision I made was to add another level by making the fireballs come faster.  This was very frustrating and took a long time.  Now, when you are ready to advance to the next level you can hit the “a” key and the fireballs will come faster.  Throughout this project I learned just how difficult even simple game making is.

What are you the most proud of about your project? What would your change? What do you want to create next? Why?

What I am most proud of is the overall visual appeal.  I really think that if students saw this game they would be curious to play it and they would like it.  I think they would have fun moving the knight and firing the sword at the fireballs, and at the same time, they are learning an important math skill.  If I could change anything I would like to make it more complex.  In the next one I create, I would try to add different levels with different scenery in each one.  The knight could move to different parts of the town to defend it.  I would also make the dragon more interactive; maybe have him talk to the player or fly down at him.  I would like to do this because I think it would make the students even more invested in the game and learning their multiplication.

Provide explicit examples of the principles of good games and learning you applied in your game design. Then provide explicit examples of the principles of good games and good learning you could apply if you had more time and better Scratching skills.

In my game I applied identity to my design.  The player is in the game; they are the knight who is fighting to save the town from the dragon.  My game had well-order problems.  In the first level the player has more time to come up with the answer to the problem, but in the second level the fireballs come faster, so the player has to think faster.  It has challenge and consolidation.  If the player is having difficulty with the second level they can always go back to the first and practice until they are ready to try the second again.  My game has production because the player makes the call; they can stay on the first level until they feel they are ready to move on.  The player controls the levels because they hit a key to move on to the next one.  The second level is pleasantly frustrating because the fireballs are coming faster and I even found myself scrambling to move the knight, come up with the answer, and fire the sword before it hit the ground.  This game also has performance before competence.  I think a player would be able to just jump right in and figure out pretty quickly how the game works.

If I had more time and skills I would like to apply interaction.  I would like to make the knight and the dragon talk to the player.  I would also like to apply smart tools and distributed knowledge; where clues could pop up to help the player throughout the game.