Monday 3 March 2014

research (edu-tainment project)

introduction: for this project i will be creating a 2d educational game in a software called construct 2, for the beginning like any other project, i have to perform research, for my research i will be looking at educational games and talking about them so i can get an insite of these games and see whether or not i can grab some information for each game/ each game i hear of, to create my game so that it educational but for for all. i think my game will be created for young kids, this will give me an advantage as i know the type of things young kids learn, and especially because i don't have to put any extra thought into thinking of A level questions.

eduxational games can usually teach kids/ people of the basic needs for life but also teaching them further in many subjects, such as math, english, science, R.E, history, geography, citizenship etc, these are all the basic topics, i won't go further into talking about business and graphics etc, as they are much more advanced. creating a game for young children can be difficult, because it all depends on their age to be able to know exactly what type of game to create, if it was for kids ages 1-4 it be something with learning to count or the letters of the alphabet, if it was for 5-9 it be more, learning how to spell certain words, and some mathmatical equations, but they still will not be difficult, they will probably be very easy additional problems, or even subtractions and possibly the 2x tables.
9-12 would be more for constructing sentences, 3-9x tables, and also studying science, in all 3 departments, biology, physics and chemistry.

colour: alot of educational games for young children intend to have bright ccolours, and alot of them, these games usually consist of the main primary colours (red, blue and yellow) and rarely the secondary colours, but they are still used. games for young kids need to be coloutful as it draw their attention to it because its bright and full of imagenation and fun, kids are drawn to this type of thing so this is what most educational games have these days

sound: educational games can sometimes have people talking in
the back ground, either giving information, talking through steps, or simply singing a song to make education more fun in the game. not only this but you can have music without vocals, so just some back ground music to go along with the game to make kids think of it as less boring and see it more in the entertaining side rather than the educational side, however seeing as it is an educational game they are still learning something while having fun and they probably wont notice due to the fact they are being distracted by the sound (maybe)

game types: there are different types of educational games, they can be used in different areas of media, educational games can be presented through board games, card games and also video games, people tend to say video games teach us violence, wrong, theyactually teach us many things even if you don't know it, and so thats why people decide to create educational games just to give that extra push into learning information.

extra: these types of educational games can be played by everyone: girls, boys, any race ( alot of educational games come with different languages for those who cannot speak or understand english, some educational games are used to learn english) sexuality doesn't even matter, however there is a problem when it comes to a sight or hearing disability, as some games are made so those who have certain disabilities cant play them, however there are special types of educational games which are made (these can even include the normal type) which can be used by those who have a disability, so really all educational games can be used by anyone, but of course, certain games have certain audiences, such as A levels, or gcse level, Btech, KS3, KS2, KS1, etc, you pick the one which is best suited to your needs.

(in order to get more knowledge upon educational games, i will be willing to test a few, maybe for different ages, so i can grasp the concept of them, what makes them perfect for certain ages, what it teaches people, how it teaches people, i also woulod like to see if i can use any ideas which i can obtain from playing educational games, and even i can probably give feedback on to how they could possibly improve on their game)

this is the first game i'll be reviewing, the point of this game is to shoot the rocket which holds the answer, to one of the UFO's above it, the UFO,s hold mathematical questions which relates to the answer on the rocket, you have to shoot the rocket to the ufo to the correct question which matches the answer, so in tbe picture, the rocket should be shout at the ufo which holds the "8+2" question, this looks like a good game for those who are atleast 3-8, as it holds very simple questions and gives very simple answers, there are very bold colours which i know, children love, the images look fun, the whole idea of space, rockets and UFO in cartoon form, relate to kids as the images are easy to comprehend, there is nothing too complicated about these images, they are colourful and big, so there is nothing which will make kids lose interest in this game, excet maybe the fact the answer for the questions seem too obvious, way too obvious, adding a small challenge to an education game, makes the learning all more worth while.

this is the second game i will be reviewing, this seems to be a game for those in the age range of 1-6, learning the basic knowledge of shapes and their side count, for this game, you have to sort the shapes into the correct pots which have been labelled (e.g. you'd put the square in the "4 sides" pot) its mainly the basic shapes and bright colours is what would attract the attention of young children, it is suited to their age as there is nothing complicated about this game at all, it is a basic sorting game, with bold simple images, and words which are learnt at a very early age,  this game is well suited for it's audience as it is simple yet help those learn to not only about shapes, but also to count in a way, if i where to give advice on how to improve this, it would be to add different colours rather than just one gradient scale of yellow to orange and then red,.

these two ganes have given me some information which i can use to create my educational game for young children, i have learnt about what type of colours to use, i also learnt that cartoon like/ digital drawings are best for these types of games are best, as they stand out more and are bold and bright which attracts the attention of children.