A Cross-platform Game for Learning Physics

A Cross-platform Game for Learning Physics Name: Lam Matthew Ho Yan UID: 3035123198

Table of Contents Project Introduction... 2 Project Objective... 3 Project Methodology... 4 Phase 1: Preparation... 4 Phase 2: Implementation... 7 Risks, challenges and Mitigations... 8 Project Schedule and Milestones... 9 References... 10 1

Project Introduction While most of the parents think that gaming is a waste of time, it actually plays an important role in education. From educational video games for kids, to flight simulators for pilots, gamification in e-learning develops over the past two decades. Furthermore, with the quick development of virtual reality in recent years, the application of gaming in education extends to another level. The SimCity franchise [1] published by Electronic Arts is one of the examples of educational game which teaches people about city development and management. Learning through games not only can arouse students interests, but also provides interactivity for practical purpose. More specifically, students do not have to worry about failing in games, and are welcome to practice their knowledge in those education games. Learning from failure is essential for students, and the failure in games does not cause as much frustrations as the failure in tests, which encourage them to learn. And since they are not afraid of fail, they have freedom to play with any means, which encourage them to experiment their knowledge. [2] Application of gamification in e-learning is rather significant in different areas nowadays. For example, Khan Academy is an online learning platform which uses the concept of gamification. [3] It is not an actually game, but it combines elements in gaming with learning, such as answering questions and earning in-game badges as reward. Besides, INNOV8 is an example of simulation game about business management. [4] In addition, A Slower Speed of Light, which is published by MIT Game Lab, is a game about special relativity. [5] Yet, the use of gamification in education in Hong Kong is not popular. Most of the students are still learning from printed materials such as textbooks and supplementary exercises which are relatively boring and dull. When I was in secondary school, I was not good at physics as it is difficult to visualize the physical phenomenon and mathematics. This project aims to create a cross-platform educational video game for junior secondary school students to arouse their interests in it and facilitate their learning process, and most importantly, to have fun. In the remaining part of the paper, it explains the objective of the project in detail and outlines the content of the game. Then, the implementation of the game is introduced, including the storyline, game design, other components like animation and music. Lastly, I close the paper by proposing the schedule and milestones of the project. 2

Project Objective The goal of this project is to create an educational game for secondary students to learn physics, includes topics such as Mechanics, Heat, Wave, and Optics. The genre of the game is going to be a side-scrolling game, where the screen is side-view, and generally the protagonist moves from left to right until she have arrived a destination or meets certain objective. The objective of the game is to allow students to practice and apply their knowledge learnt from physics lessons, and finish the goals of the game. For example, players have to calculate the correct angle for the protagonist to jump across a hole, which is related to Mechanics. Players will have 3 lives, where they can fail for at most 3 times, otherwise the game is over. In addition, there will be a score system in the game, calculate from the remaining lives and the time used to finish the game. Players can compare and compete with each other, which triggers players to play more, eventually improve their physics. Last but not least, the implementation of the game will be based on the course COMP3329 Computer game design and programming. Game design principles and techniques in Unity are learnt in the course which helps doing this project. 3

Project Methodology The project will be divided into two phases: the preparation phase and followed by the implementation phase. The preparation phase will include the project planning, collecting references, writing the narrative, creating the resources such as graphics and music, and collect feedback. Once the preparation is done, the project will move to the implementation phase, where the game will be implemented according to the project plan and using the preparations done in the previous phase. Prototypes of the game will be released first for playtests. After several playtests, the actual game will be released. The detailed methodology is down below: Phase 1: Preparation 1.1 finding references First, reliable and suitable sources are required. As our targets are junior secondary students, we will approach a physics teacher in secondary school for recommendation on any physics textbooks or reference books. 1.2 writing the narrative Then, I will start writing the narrative of the game using the references, such as storyline, flow design, stage design. 1.2.1 Story outline The detailed story has not been fixed yet, below is the outline: The story is about a invincible witch who is living in a world of magic, where everyone rely on it. However, the witch fails in an experiment and is teleported accidentally to the modern society where magic does not exist and science is what people rely on. Apparently, the witch knows nothing about science. In order to find the way back, players will play as the witch, overcome the obstacles by learning physics. The witch does not know anything about physics, which is the same as our target players: junior secondary school students. Players can learn and grow together with our protagonist. Moreover, to ensure the physical knowledge is correct and make sense, we will ask for feedback from secondary school teachers. The story would be revised until it is approved by the teachers. 4

1.2.2 Flow design The general flow of the game will be designed according to the story written in the previous part, including the protagonist and antagonists, outline of the stages, the controls. As the game will be published on different platforms, several control patterns will be designed. Also, the language used in the game will be English. 1.2.3 Stage design After the story is finished, each stage will be designed according to it. For instance, in mechanics, there is a sub-topic called projectile motion. One of the questions can be calculating the correct angle for the witch to jump across a river. As the final deliverable aims to be a 2D side-scrolling game, the game should proceed from left to right linearly. In these types of games, a long background and obstacles is required as a resource. A draft will be drawn for the next procedure (creating resources). 1.3 Assets and Resources 1.3.1 Graphics As I am not a specialist in illustration, I will hire a freelance illustrator to draw the graphic resources. For 2D side-scrolling game, long scrolling backgrounds are needed. In procedure 1.2.2, draft of the backgrounds and stages are drawn. The idea and visual impression of the game will be explained to the illustrator with the aids of the draft. Backgrounds, objects that are going to be interacted with the protagonist will be designed by the illustrator. Besides the backgrounds and objects, the characters will be also designed by the illustrator. Unlike backgrounds and objects, characters have movements thus they will appear as animation in the game. In 2D games, animation can be created by sprites. Animations and videos are actually composed by a sequence of static images known as frame. These frames are shown in a certain speed known as frame rate, such that an illusion of movement is created to the brain. An animated sprite is composed of the all the frames of an motion, such as walking, jumping. The illustrator will be asked to draw the sprites of all motions of the characters and object, while some visual effect like explosion will be obtained from free online resources. 5

Unity (will be used as the game engine and be discussed in the later part of the project plan) supports several image formats [6]:.psd.jpg.png.gif.bmp.tga.tiff.pict Lossless Support animation Support transparency (alpha value) Support layers Fig. 1 - Comparison between image formats PNG will be used as the format of images. First, it is lossless, which means it is not compressed like JPEG. Hence it has better quality in terms of resolution. Second, besides RGB values, PNG also contains alpha value which is responsible for transparency. Moreover, it has relatively small file size, which optimizes the performance by reducing the time of loading the images. Animation and layer support are not taken into consideration, as animation would be done by animated sprites, and layers will not affect in the implementation of the game. However, I will ask the illustrator to provide the PSD as well, as PSD provides flexibility of exporting to other formats. 1.3.2 Music and Sound Effect As I have experience in computer music, I will create the background music and sound effects by myself. MIDI tracks will be produced with my workstation: my personal computer, the audio interface Steinberg UR22 [7] and the MIDI controller Alesis Q61 [8]. In addition, the music recording and editing software Cubase Element 8 [9] will be used as it is also developed by Steinberg and compatible with UR22. http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/audio_interfaces/ur_series/models/ur22.html 6

Phase 2: Implementation After all the preparations are done, the project will move to the implementation phase, where the resources will be integrated using the game engine. The game should be cross-platform, available on mobile devices with ios and Android, as well as our product website as a web browser game. During this stage, prototypes will be released for playtest. After debugging and other possible modifications, the final deliverables: the actual game and the final report will be ready for submission. The details of this phase are specified below: 2.1 Game Engine: Unity To choose a suitable game engine, several popular engines are selected and compared [6, 10, 11]: Unity Unreal Engine Construct Scripting C#, Javascript C++ C++, Javascript Cross-platform Supporting platforms 1. Windows, 2. Mac Os X, 3. Linus/SteamOS 4. ios, 5. Andriod, 6. Wind ows Phone, 7. Tizen, 8. WebGL, 9. PlayStation 4, 10. PlayStation Vita, 11. Xbox One, 12. Xbox 360, 13. Wii U, 14. 3DS 15. VR, 16. Smart TV 1. Windows, 2. PlayStation 4, 3. Xbox One, 4. Mac OS X, 5. ios, 6. Android, 7. VR, 8. Linux, 9. SteamOS, 10. HTML5 1. Windows, 2. Mac OS X, 3. Wii U, 4. HTML5 2D/3D Oriented 2D/3D 2D/3D 2D Price Personal: Free Plus: $35/Month Pro: $125/Month Enterprise: Tailored setup Free unless you have earned certain revenue from it Free 7

Fig. 2 - Comparison between popular game engines Unity is chosen over the other two engines because I have experience in Unity from the course COMP3329 Computer game design and programming but no experience in the other two engines. Thus, I do not need to familiarize the UI and operations of the other two engines. Moreover, since the final game should be cross-platform, Unity is a better choice as it is able to export the product to more platforms. Besides, Unity is one of the most popular game engines in the market, there are tons of online tutorials and documentation for reference. 2.2 Prototypes and Playtest There will be two playtest, and the targets will be physics teachers and students from secondary school, Undergraduate students majoring in physics, and gamers. In the first playtest, a prototype will be provided to the targets. They will be asked to play the game for 1-3 hours, to check if there are any bugs and give feedback to the game. After the first playtest, I will revise the feedback, debug and modify the game if necessary. Then, we will conduct the second playtest which the procedures are same as the first one. After the second playtest, the final game will be finalized and released. 2.3 Final Deliverables The final deliverables of the project are the game and the final report. After all the playtests are finished, the game should be finalized and ready to be released. It will be uploaded to our product website as a web browser game. Moreover, it will be published to Android devices and ios devices through Google Play [12] and App Store [13] respectively. Risks, challenges and Mitigations In the preparation phase, an illustrator is hired to work on the graphical assets such as background images and animated sprites. As the illustrator is not part of the project team, in fact this is an individual project, it may be difficult to supervise his/her process and ensure the assets are available on time. To mitigate the problem, I will contact the illustrator frequently to check the progress and ask for any intermediate products if necessary. 8

Project Schedule and Milestones 2 October 2016 First deliverables: Detailed project plan Project web page 3 October 2016 Phase 1 starts 16 October 2016 Finish the 1st draft of story and send to physics teachers for feedback 23 October 2016 Finish the story 30 October 2016 Finish the flow (include stage design) of the game Start working with illustrator Start producing music and sound effect 20-26 November 2016 Finish and collect all graphics and music 27 November 2016 Phase 2 starts 9-13 January 2017 First presentation on the current progress 22 January 2017 Second deliverables Preliminary game demo Detailed interim report 5 February 2017 Release demo 1 and 1st playtest 5 March 2017 Release demo 2 and 2nd playtest 16 April 2017 Third deliverables Finalized tested Game Final report 18-21 April 2017 Final presentation 2 May 2017 Project exhibition 9

References (1) SimCity[Internet]. USA: Electronic Arts; [Cited 2016 Sep 17]. Available from: http://www.simcity.com/ (2) Klopfer E, Osterweil S, Salen K. Moving Learning Games Forward: Obstacles, Opportunities, Openness. USA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Education Arcade; 2009. Available at: http://education.mit.edu/wpcontent/uploads/2015/01/movinglearninggamesforward_edarcade.pdf (3) Khan Academy[Internet]. USA: Khan Academy; [Cited 2016 Sep 17]. Available from: http://www.simcity.com/ (4) INNOV8[Internet]. USA: IBM; [Cited 2016 Sep 17]. Available from: http://www- 01.ibm.com/software/solutions/soa/innov8/index.html (5) A Slower Speed of Light[Internet]. USA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology; [Cited 2016 Sep 17]. Available from: http://gamelab.mit.edu/games/a-slower-speed-of-light/ (6) Unity[Internet]. USA: Unity Technologies; [Cited 2016 Sep 17]. Available from: https://unity3d.com/unity/editor (7) Steinberg UR22[Internet]. Germany: Steinberg; [Cited 2016 Sep 17]. Available from: http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/audio_interfaces/ur_series/models/ur22.html (8) Alesis Q61[Internet]. USA: Alesis; [Cited 2016 Sep 17]. Available from: http://alesis.com/products/legacy/q61 (9) Cubase Element 8[Internet]. Germany: Steinberg; [Cited 2016 Sep 17]. Available from: http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/cubase/line_up/cubase_elements_8.html (10) Unreal Engine 4[Internet]. USA: Epic Games; [Cited 2016 Sep 17]. Available from: https://www.unrealengine.com/what-is-unreal-engine-4 (11) Construct 2[Internet]. UK: Scirra; [Cited 2016 Sep 17]. Available from: https://www.scirra.com/construct2 (12) Google Play Developer[Internet]. USA: Google; [Cited 2016 Sep 17]. Available from: https://developer.android.com/distribute/googleplay/start.html 10

(13) App Store[Internet]. USA: Apple Inc.; [Cited 2016 Sep 17]. Available from: https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/ides/conceptual/appdistributiongui de/introduction/introduction.html 11