EOH analysis

This post will explain in-depth few quest / event that user can explore during the game play as well as it will compare it to initial design document.

According to initial design document of the Explorers of the Horizon game should cover seven main aspects from Geography KS3.

1. Plate tectonics

• Volcanic Eruptions

2. Geomorphologic processes

• Rock types

• Coastlines

• River landforms

• Flooding

• Preventing from Flooding and natural disasters.

3. Weather and climate Rainfalls

4. Ecosystem

5. Environmental issues

6. Resources

7. Using geographical skills

• Maps

• Graphs

• Compass

• Barometer

Mainly due to the time limitation, certain design decisions had to be made, mainly restricting, or rather narrow some of above listed aspects. As the game is created in a certain way that by just simply adding new island and one new item to array whole game play should be immediately affected and it will include new object in game. Regarding that at this time just five main aspects has been adapted for a game play with plan to update and expand covered aspects. In Build 6 of EOH user can learn about Tectonic Plates, Rock types / minerals, the hydrological cycles, Weather & Climate (British Isle focus), Map skills: use of compass. At this point worth of highlighting is fact that each and every aspect is represented in form of the island. Another important feature is to allow user to choose from three different characters, that will affects game play entirely.

In next section of this post I would like to present original ideas for the mini-events and compare them with final tasks in game to show how the ideas evolved and were adapted to the game play.

Main limitation to the final game was to "cut off" the painters activity as some of the Cartographer events cover creative thinking and use of colours.

1. Rock Types

This event was originally planned to be located at the cave background scenario. To ensure that the knowledge and terminology, used in this event, will be 100% acquired, reading of subject in Geography: Classbook KS3 by Adam Arnell, was essential. Quite inspiring was section of activities encouraging kids to visit cave and learn more about the minerals. In my personal opinion this was successfully adapted to the game play creating both challenging and interesting events.

Writer activity: Offering very little functionality event, appears to be cope with expectations. After deep and comprehensive introduction to minerals and rocks type, in this event user would be asked to complete A-B-C-D quiz.

Result: After speculation this Writer event was replaced by insert word tasks, where from words listed below, user is asked to insert correct word in the provided field and correct the sentence. (Above)

Painter: Draw outlines of the provided minerals or rocks. Result: Removed from the game

Cartographer: Connect pictures with correct description. This event more and less remained in same shape and logic.

Result: As planned, task included in the game play. (Above)

Ratboy: As my personal favorite I was going through many ideas how to make game as much exciting for kids as not to drawn attention kids away from fact that it should be a task from which one they should learn about three main types of rocks.(BALANCE) From many ideas, like DIG-DUG style of game where user would dig through the ground with Ratboy character and search for certain type of minerals. Another idea was to make it more dexterity focus game, user would avoid falling rocks and attempt to grab / collect correct one that would be currently missing from inventory. Each and every of these "sub" ideas has been accommodated in Ratboy Rocks Collector design.

Dig Dug, Publisher(s) Atari, Inc, Release date 1982

Result: Initially the game was chosen to be a side scrolling title similar in interaction to Super Mario Bros. This game was one of the largest and the most time consuming. Application count about 1500 lines of code nevertheless that was my first ever attempt to code an artificial intelligence and must say it is a big success. Aim of the game is to collect three stones that after volcanic eruption have been thrown in different place on the map. After user collects items, they must be placed in certain order on the special barrels. This game also has a special stage where user faces a final in coconut battle but not to spoiled I will advice everyone to play it and face the King Crab in final battle for lava artifact.

2. Tectonic Plates

Tectonic Plates event is only one that everything went exactly according to plan. All events written five months ago have been transferred to digital form without any significant limitation.

Writer: On the simplified word map user is asked to input names of cities in to text fields. There is no time limit to this event therefore there is a small apprehension / hesitation as the user cannot switch off or terminate this event. If user will not be able to complete this event application has to be manually restarted in order to restart the game.

Cartographer: Relatively easy task to complete puzzle. By dragging and dropping objects on the stage, user will understand location and size of the tectonic plates.

Ratboy: In this event user is asked to "surf" on the tectonic plates map to the "safe plate" before the earthquake begins. Look and feel of this mini-game, which is young boy surfing above sandy surface with drawn shapes of tectonic plates, was inspired by Robin Esrock that together with few friends started a new trend called SANDBOARDING. (Picture below)

As mention above there is fifteen different events that for obvious reason will not be described in this section. I would like to encourage again everyone to test this game and discover personal favorite event. From poll vote that I have conduct among EOH beta testers, Crab Racer (Ratboy) and Rock Collector (Ratboy) seems to be vote out best events by boys, where girls prefer spinning Crabs(Cartographer) and Hydrological Crossword(Writer) that rely more on logic and current knowledge. Files are still available at http://eoh.exofire.net/swf/userExplorerBeta6.zip or http://rapidshare.de/files/39552587/userExplorerBeta6.zip.html (when page is displayed you must press free on the bottom of the page and it will initiate download) as well as at http://eoh.exofire.net/ (please excuse lack of frame or some flashy css that should surround game as it is still in beta test not a official release :) ) Thank you... In next post proposal of EOH online manual