Monsters in My Toybox- DEMO LINK

[Kate]

GAME DEMO: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2o3na9vlatp4s ... l.zip?dl=0
All computer systems.
Working Demo, the final game should be done next week- May1st, 2015 hopefully
*this is the updated demo 4-28 after issues were reported with the first demo!

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I have to put my pet project Blackout on hold for two months or until I can develop a short, 3-4 round/lesson learning game for my Grammar Class Final Project. I know how I want to structure the game, and I know roughly how long I want each "story" bit to be. The thing is, I'm aiming it at fourth graders and I'm having a hard time thinking of a game plot (story progression too) that will work with this structure idea:


START-
Lesson:
-2-5 min setup of story/plot
-4-6 min lesson (grammar essentials)
-5-10 min exercises (extra set if the student struggles)
-1-2 min quiz to earn points (or clues, etc.) toward whatever story progression
-3-5 min reward/wrap-up for that round, lead into next plot/lesson.

So far, the fourth graders I polled said that minecraft, sports, cheerleading, monsters, space, princesses, etc. interest them. I want to make a game accessible to both genders. I was thinking that mini mysteries with a kid detective would be fun, but I'll have to rearrange my structure a little and still make it logical for them to learn. Otherwise, I have a hide-n-seek in the mall suggestion (not sure if teachers would condone that!! lol) and baseball game suggestion, as well as a monster hiding randomly in your room and your teddy bear must help you find it and feed it something to turn it back into a stuffed animal.
Those are my ideas so far....

Any ideas, hints, suggestions, functions/code tips, etc. would be helpful. My deadline for a proposal is in the next two weeks, and my final deadline is the last week of April. So I would really appreciate any tips or help. Programming isn't my major, by the way- I'm studying English Education (with the intent of working in a library someday

[Mad Harlequin]

I have an idea! What do you think of a detective, who is also a princess, looking for grammar-related clues in order to solve a series of cases?

[Kate]

See, that's awesome- but art is my limitation. My artist-friends are both tapped out for the semester with their workloads, and Callie is still working on my game art for my other game. I was hoping someone would volunteer simple artwork OR that I can pick a game with simple enough doodle/cartoon art that I can draw it. (My people-drawing skills are terribly lacking... I was serious in 8th grade, and wanted to be a future comic book creator, but my life plans have definitely changed, lol... no practice in years.) Like little monsters or the sports games. But I like that idea a lot. (could have it be a prince for the boys.)

I'm leaning towards the teddy bear and stuffed animals-turned-monsters idea, though- the more I think about it, the more I think having a fuzzy bunny turn into a sock-eating monster would be fun for the kids. And maybe the game needs only a few simple backgrounds- under the bed, closeup of the closet, closeup of clothes hamper (there's that sock-eating stuffed rabbit!) and the bedroom itself. Then the only characters are 1 little child, 1 teddy bear, and about 4 little monsters/stuffed animals. That's not too bad for a game, right? Fourth graders would play a silly game like that, right?

*A final boss could be The Homework Monster

Has anyone played The Sleep? That game inspired me a little on this- I like the idea of using a teddy bear as a guide/narrator a lot.

[firecat]

why not just add normal people, since you know kids have been always been told that animals talks but in real life they don't. On the topic of time in games its almost impossible for any kid to like them, they feel like pressure into doing stuff in fact not many of them even play games that have time limits on them. If you were a kid do you want it to be hard or fun because having fun is part of learning, they want to learn but not in your control ways.

[Juno]

This sounds like it could be a lot of fun to make and play!

The structure really lends itself to a lot of opportunities. Here are some of my ideas, take them or leave them.

Each lesson could be like a chapter in a book, and you could even make it look and feel very storybook like. You could make the MC's gender as a choice at the beginning of the game as well as the name (kids seem to love those sorts of choices). If you have the time and ability, you could make the character's appearance somewhat customizable as well (get stock of one shirt, one shorts, one skirt, etc. and just change the colours or add word art or bows, etc.). I'm not the best artist and I have like no free time, but if you really really wanted to go this route, I could probably try to help but I can't make any promises.

I don't think a time limit is a problem at all, as a kid, I loved playing timed games and thought they were fun.

I like the detective game idea because you could incorporate it into just about any character setup. A space hero/heroine who needs to save the space kingdom from a specific space dragon/monster but each lesson is a clue to where the dragon/monster is living. You have to travel from place to place trying to find the dragon/monster who is leaving clues everywhere he goes. Maybe he leaves grammar "puzzles" or something and you have to solve his quizzes to get a clue to where he is waiting. The lessons portion could be holo-letters sent from the queen to help aid in your quest.

This kind of idea could work for just about any type of story. You and the teddy bear have to work together to try to turn the monster in the room back into a stuffed animal--the teddy bear could be your wise mentor who teaches you lessons and the monster will try to trick you will puzzle quizzes. Each lesson could be a different room in the house or something.

Good luck! I'd love to see what you come up with.

[Laniessa]

Depending on the art load, I’d love to help out by the way! If it’s a couple of simple characters or something. Once March is over though, of course, since I’m taking part in Nanoreno.

[Kate]

Depending on the art load, I’d love to help out by the way! If it’s a couple of simple characters or something. Once March is over though, of course, since I’m taking part in Nanoreno.

That would be wonderful! The project isn't due til the end of April, and I can probably post some iffy-quality sketches of what I'm looking for. Super basic backgrounds, and a few cartoon-y monsters that sort of look like their toy selves. And a teddy bear with a few expressions. The child will only have one sprite (1 boy, 1 girl version,) and 1 cg over the simple background. I'll post some really really basic sketches soon.

I would totally appreciate art help That would make my life so much easier, for real.

[Kate]

Here is a sample of a doodle (iffy quality)- I was thinking of having a toy cat as one of the creatures, its toy form and monster form are kinda similar. The other thing is like a toy train, that turns into a beetle-centipede thing...that doodle needs a lot of work. Art is definitely not my specialty! But this weekend I'm writing the script, separating the lessons, and programming the basic functions to score and guide progress. It's going to be a long weekend. But a fun one, beats writing a paper!!!

If anyone is kind enough to color that monster and add expressions and make it look fuzzy, I would be so happy I really wish I had the money, time, and resources/skills to do everything myself, but I am not a superhero. Though I wish I was....

[Kate]

Here are two other toy ideas, no monster forms yet (Google images RTW!) A dino, which will turn into a sharp-clawed thing with little eyes eating socks in the corner. The stuffed rabbit will turn into a little fuzzball that rolls around in silly circles on the floor and drools.

[Kate]

I'm completing the first lesson and testing it. I think it took way longer to think of questions than coding and testing took altogether! Moving on to coding the second lesson (of four) tomorrow. Still would love art help! We almost had a friend help us, but she did not feel confident in her art abilities and we were not able to convince her

[Kate]

Game Update:

Storyline: 40% written solidly, 100% brainstormed/ programmed: 10%
Dialogue: 25%; Programmed: 5%
Practice Questions: 40/~320(ish)
Artwork: 50% or better, thanks laniessa!!!!!!!
Character voices: 10%
Narration/Teddy voice: 0% yet (Includes reading all of the questions and answer choices for the game so that students with reading problems can focus on the grammar aspect, not just reading)

I'll update again in a few hours. This is my big work day to do a ton of editing and programming! Also, the kids' voices I used for this game are SO CUTE!!!!!!

[Kate]

Game Update:

Storyline: 100% written solidly
Dialogue: 100%; Programmed: 35%
Practice Questions: 40/~320(ish)
Artwork: 50% or better, thanks Laniessa!!!!!!!
Character voices: 40%
Narration/Teddy voice: 0% yet (Includes reading all of the questions and answer choices for the game so that students with reading problems can focus on the grammar aspect, not just reading)- this should be 100% wednesday night!

I've made a lot of progress over the past few days! I'm so excited for testing this with the fourth graders when this is finished.

I'll also post what I have up when I finish adding in the voices I have...and after I figure out how to package it and upload to dropbox!! Or something...

[Kate]

Game Update:

Storyline: 100% written solidly
Dialogue: 100%; Programmed: 88% - Everything will be done in next half hour!
Practice Questions: 40/~320(ish)
Artwork: 50% or better, thanks Laniessa!!!!!!!
Character voices: 100%
Narration/Teddy voice: 100% yet - I decided to cut out the reading of every single question. WAY TOO MUCH WORK, and they're fourth graders, they can read. But the character dialogue has all the voices I had planned.


GOOD LORD....
......It is so annoying to program in individual lines of kids when I made the dumb mistake of trying the "Anna 1, Anna 2..." and so on naming system. Taking four seconds to name the file a few words of the line made it go way faster, since occasionally I had multiple takes and I was tripped up less often by the overwhelming amount of voice files. Creative naming skills...

I'll figure out how to post my first demo sometime tomorrow. I would love feedback when I finally manage to get it uploaded!

[Kate]

Here is the demo!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2wy413jcjot80 ... l.zip?dl=0
It has all of the plot and the voice acting included, some of the sprite-work up (still working on changing the expressions from line to line, getting other monster art, resizing images...yes I know the cat is huge!) and it has the first whole lesson.

Yes, it's a grammar game for fourth graders, so it will involve some skipping if you are just interested in the plot.
It's cute, a little campy, but it was fun to make and I'm proud of it.

Let me know what you think!

[philip]

@Kate-

Downloaded the game and started through it and partway through, got an exception. The story would not continue past that point. Here's the traceback:

I'm sorry, but an uncaught exception occurred.

While running game code:
File "game/lesson_1.rpy", line 1599, in script
ScriptError: could not find label 'Lesson1CFactOpinionQUIZ'.

-- Full Traceback ------------------------------------------------------------

Full traceback:
File "/Users/don/Downloads/Monsters in My Toybox-1.0-all/renpy/execution.py", line 288, in run
node.execute()
File "/Users/don/Downloads/Monsters in My Toybox-1.0-all/renpy/ast.py", line 1374, in execute
rv = renpy.game.script.lookup(target)
File "/Users/don/Downloads/Monsters in My Toybox-1.0-all/renpy/script.py", line 537, in lookup
raise ScriptError("could not find label '%s'." % str(label))
ScriptError: could not find label 'Lesson1CFactOpinionQUIZ'.

Darwin-11.4.2-x86_64-i386-64bit
Ren'Py 6.15.7.374
Monsters in my Toybox- Grammar Learning Game 0.0


philip