Our core list of games

Here is my stab at our game list:

The Habitat game.
This should involve at least 4 screens (4 habitats!) but I'd looooooove to do more. I think kids games with limited screens are lame-o, but we are talking about or minimum set here, so 4 habitats minimum, and four critters per habitat. How about... the outback, the desert, the barrier reef, Kakadu? (and the beach, and the rainforest... ok I'll stop)

P is for Platypus, (and S is for Stella)
This will need 26 illustrations. If we build in a way for us to show a few illustrations under 'crowded letters' such as K (Koala, Kangaroo, etc) we might have another say 10 illustrations. But the logic shouldn't be too hard - at least it repeats.

The sounds of the bush game
Still a bit vague about what this will look like exactly. But that's ok.

The Animal Quiz game
We show six animals in a grid on the right and on the left we see a... termite nest (for example). The question at the top says "I eat termites. Which animal am I?" The user drags the correct animal onto the termite mound, and we see something say "Correct! I am an Echidna!". To extend this a little, we could then tap on an arrow underneath the Echidna and see a pop-up screen with a photo of a real Echidna - maybe a little more info. Close the pop-up and we get a new game. This time, the question is "I eat honey blossoms" ... etc...


For consideration:

Join the dots.
You see a sprinkling of dots all over the page, with numbers next to them. A child merely touches the next number, from one to ten, and we see a line appear between this number and the last number. When they have touched all the numbers sequentially, we can see an outline of an animal, and it 'appears'. Then they can play the next game.

Spot the difference
Spot the differences between two really detailed drawings. There is a mechanism by which you can see how many differences you are still to find.

Touch colouring in
Detailed drawings that you touch, and that section magically colours in. Perhaps the logic is that the user selects a colour first then when they click on an area of the drawing, it goes that colour. I imagine we could have many images to colour in. It's that whole thing of once you do it once... (?) maybe?

Animal flip cards
Pretty easy stuff - a bunch of cards face down, then you flip them to try and find two of the same. Only two cards can be 'up' at any time.

The Maze game
we present a pretty complex maze - it's a platypus burrow. The user draws a line with their finger and tries to make it through the maze to the nest. When they get to the nest, we start a new maze. This time it's a wombat burrow. I'm not sure what happens if they get to a deadend... I think the line on screen stays there... work that out in the drawings/prototype

Flying sugar gliders
It's twilight and we can see alot of creatures in silhouette jumping from the hills hoist to the nearby gum trees and back. Your goal is to click on as many sugar gliders as possible within a given timeframe, and avoid the cats, possums, tawny frog mouths and owls.

Meeting Outcomes

Last meeting was a bit overdue (we skipped a week) and so we had a lot to go through to get on the same page. Having done that we identified that we should aim for 6 games for the first release. Deliverable: a short list of 8 games, with the 6 'key' games marked out. We'll also need a list of 'other screens' - non game screens like the intergame navigation screen, etc.

A fireflies game

The user click ons a wandering, flickering light blob and drags it to the jar. Then the number changes to 3, and maybe a voice says 'Three!". The tail of the firebug in the circle flickers with a golden glow.

Prototyping

This article compares online prototyping kits:

http://kirkdesigns.co.uk/comparison-online-wireframing-prototyping-tools

An article that says you can build a prototype with keynote and then test it using gestures etc on an Ipad. A prototype would be really handy to get right!

http://blog.amirkhella.com/2010/06/16/how-to-prototype-interactive-ipad-applications-in-30-minutes-or-less-using-apple-keynote/

Some ideas about the centralising game choice area

ok this first one is a waterhole with various animals around it. Click on an animal to go to a game. They probably animate slighty. Click on the sun in the corner, and it changes to a moon. We see different animals at the waterhole. Click again and we get the sunrise - and different animals again.

This one is a rotating world - you slide the finger to the left or right, and the world rotates. On the world we see collections of animals, and some grasses. Each one is a new game - perhaps some type appears when you click it...

Shadow Index

One of the features of old reference books that I really liked growing up were the shadow/image indexes that were at the back of the book describing what animal was what. Obviously the touch screen makes this redundant because you can touch items on the "page" to find out more but I wondered whether this old world feature could be given a new life for nostalgic/style/design reasons?

Personalising an App

One of the concepts that I have always thought would be interesting is the personalisation ability of books/games on ipad/iphone. Where you could enter the name, age and sex of your child and it would present information tailored to that information.

Hello Stella

perhaps you would like our fairy/dinosaur game..

For example a Book could start with a word book where each screen introduces a word, then as they reach an age it has a story, then as they are older again you introduce interactive features etc... Essentially you would design the book for the oldest child and then "hide" features for the younger versions.

The versions would be available in a slider for parents to choose the version.