Hey. We're starting to plan out a game in conjunction with a museum for their decorative arts collection (yes, furniture and plates). Basically, our target audience is middle school and higher (maybe even with a younger age, as well). The game is relatively simple: numerous pieces of art will get together and talk every night about their past, but one of them ends up running away (he realizes that he's not really from China, he just looks Chinese...) and everyone goes to find him. Or at least, something like that. I can write just fine (despite the fact that it just took me four tries to write 'write' right... wait...), but I've never had to do anything with a younger target audience in mind. Anybody have any suggestions? I mean, besides the obvious (I won't stuff, you know, 'sagacious' or 'forsooth' in there.) I don't know if there are any books that bridge the gap between writing for kids and games for kids, but any suggestions would be appreciated.

I think the main thing is to not let them know they are learning. If they think they are just trying to figure out the twist of where the chinese artifact came from or similar, it should maintain thier interest.

Also, middle and school and higher arnt really kids (im guessing thats around 15yrs old). Pretty much anything that 20 year olds would like in a game, they would like to.

If you like, I will get my sister (who is in middle school) to read this post and write what she thinks.

Wow, that would be great, boolean!

And I agree, we don't plan to make the learning obvious, even though that is our goal (our primary goal, actually, as mandated by the museum). We're attempting to combine the fun and the learning completely so that they flow well enough that any mini-games ("Help Mr. Woo get out of the puzzle!" or whatever) work themselves into an interesting and educational experience.

Hmm. Completely lost my train of though. Standing at the staion, yup, it's gone straight by me.

*Ends post*

No probs. I am going to see her tommorow night, so I will get her to read your post then.

Also, I suggest you check out a game called 'the castle of Dr. Brain', or the sequal 'The island of Dr. Brain'. These games combined excelent puzzles with learning, and sucked me in for a long time. You can download The castle of Dr. Brain from Home of the underdogs. Dont worry, its totally leagal :)

Another fantastic game to check out would be Pepper's Adventures in Time.

I think children are in general responsive to vibrant attitudes, vibrant colors, vibrant everything. I wouldn't be afraid to have your characters overact a little bit.

Hi AvatarGod. As asked by Boolean, ive replied to your post below.

If you have played the curse of monkey island... that game KICKS ass! Why? Because it is funny! But the thing is, its still problem solving. If you want to put out a game that is still educational that kids would still play, DONT TELL THEM ITS EDUCATIONAL!!! Make it more of a problem solving adventure where they have to solve puzzles (which dont have to be right upfront eg. you open a door... but first u must unlock the "SECRET CODE"!). Have it like the chinese art piece runs away, and the others hafta find clues about him by roaming round where he last was. If you dont understand what i mean i am basing my ideas around the curse of monkey island, like i said before.

If you were looking for plot ideas, you could always make it a two part game, where one part you are the chinese kid who is running away and he has to find his way out of some place, and then the other part when the others try and find him. (if u get what i mean) Also, you could make each of the art pieces looking for him in the museum are unique character and have them all running around looking for the chinese dude (like in toy story where all the toys go to look for buzz lightyear) and have them all with very different, very funny characters. (eg. Character 1- I think we should look over
here. Character 2- i dont think thats a good idea. None of us do! Character 1- Well mona lisa likes it. Looks she is smiling! character 2- OF Course she is smiling! Shes the mona lisa! shes always smiling! )

.... yes that was very very lame but i was just trying to get a point across! That way, maybe it would seem like the characters are the ones learning. The person would think they were just helping the character to learn, not themselves, therefore leaving them to believe that what they are doing ISNT educational!!!

hmm sorry if that made no sense but they were just a few ideas of mine! Sorry if they werent any help!!

Quote: Original post by gorgeous_girl
Hi AvatarGod. As asked by Boolean, ive replied to your post below.

If you have played the curse of monkey island... that game KICKS ass! Why? Because it is funny! But the thing is, its still problem solving. If you want to put out a game that is still educational that kids would still play, DONT TELL THEM ITS EDUCATIONAL!!! Make it more of a problem solving adventure where they have to solve puzzles (which dont have to be right upfront eg. you open a door... but first u must unlock the "SECRET CODE"!). Have it like the chinese art piece runs away, and the others hafta find clues about him by roaming round where he last was. If you dont understand what i mean i am basing my ideas around the curse of monkey island, like i said before.

If you were looking for plot ideas, you could always make it a two part game, where one part you are the chinese kid who is running away and he has to find his way out of some place, and then the other part when the others try and find him. (if u get what i mean) Also, you could make each of the art pieces looking for him in the museum are unique character and have them all running around looking for the chinese dude (like in toy story where all the toys go to look for buzz lightyear) and have them all with very different, very funny characters. (eg. Character 1- I think we should look over
here. Character 2- i dont think thats a good idea. None of us do! Character 1- Well mona lisa likes it. Looks she is smiling! character 2- OF Course she is smiling! Shes the mona lisa! shes always smiling! )

.... yes that was very very lame but i was just trying to get a point across! That way, maybe it would seem like the characters are the ones learning. The person would think they were just helping the character to learn, not themselves, therefore leaving them to believe that what they are doing ISNT educational!!!

hmm sorry if that made no sense but they were just a few ideas of mine! Sorry if they werent any help!!

Wow. That was probably one of the most helpful things I've ever seen posted on these forums.

Man, I need to find all my Monkey Island CDs now and force XP Pro to run them. Yeah, those really *were* fun and it certainly wouldn't be hard to add a little of the educational aspect!

We're definitely going to make different characters have cool and different personalities - the 'marshmallow sofa' (a new-age sofa thing that looks likes its made up of marshmallows) would be bubbly, 'Mr. Woo' (our escaped Chinese guy) would be, well, Oriental, etc. Beauty and the Beast, you know :)

But I REALLY like the ideas about actually playing the different characters - even as the escaped one and trying to run. We could explore a lot of different histories of the pieces (some of them are actually interesting, in fact!) and have some fun with it!

And you're right about not saying telling everyone that its educational. It's FUN, that's what it is! :)

Thank you so much for that! That ought to make a dent in our next planning meeting... it bridges the gap between some of the different ideas we've been having, too. So, thank you, uh, gorgeous_girl! And boolean for forcing you to write that (and them PMing me so I remembered to check the thread).

Quote: I think children are in general responsive to vibrant attitudes, vibrant colors, vibrant everything. I wouldn't be afraid to have your characters overact a little bit.

Yeah, having characters that will annoy me by overacting would be okay in this case; I just won't listen to the voice recordings...

All right, so I asked my sister, who is in your target audience a few questions and typed up her paraphrased responses.

Me: What kinds of games do you like?

K: Adventure games. I liked Monkey Island.

Me: Why did you like Monkey Island?

K: Because it was funny and goofy. Because it wasn't targeted at kids our age, it was more fun to get the jokes, because it was like, "Oh yeah, I got a joke written for older people."

Me: What else did you like about it?

K: It developed the characters a lot. They came up with different characters, not stereotypes. For example, what's his name, Guybrush isn't really the stereotype of a pirate, because he's kind of ... girly.

Me: You didn't like Nancy Drew, a game that was intended for people your age. Why not?

K: It was ... cheesy. There were bad graphics. You never really got to know any of the characters. The puzzle that it did have was impossible, and it didn't really make any sense. You were putting together this ... floor, and it really didn't have anything to do with the mystery.

(The puzzle was a knockoff of Tangrams, putting together pieces of wood for an inlaid wood floor.)

Me: So, what would you recommend that the OP do for his game?

K: Make a game that doesn't look like its targeted at kids our age, but make it look like it is targeted at older kids.

Me: What did you think of the OP's story idea?

K: Truthfully, I think its good, but if you did it ... exactly like you described, it could turn out cheesy.

Me: What would you suggest to make it better?

K: Well, you could do kind of funny things like instead of having the artwork just meeting, you could have them meeting in a bar, like after a long day of work at the museum, they were hanging out at the bar.

Me: What did you think about the suggestion of using vibrant colors and having the characters "overact"

K: (Laughs) Its ... awful. I think it seems, kind of, like its aimed at someone a lot younger. I think you could have younger kids enjoy a game for older kids, but you can't really have older kids enjoy a game meant for younger kids.

Me: Thanks very much for talking to me.

K: You're welcome.

Mainly, I'd recommend that you avoid condescending to your audience at all costs. They enjoy things a little more sophisticated, even if they don't get it all the time. Don't dumb things down for them.

If you want to put in "forsooth" do it! Maybe subtly explain the meaning through context. That way, you end up making the game seem more sophisticated to your audience, while teaching them at the same time.

Hope that is useful.

Andy

Quote: Original post by aleclair
All right, so I asked my sister, who is in your target audience a few questions and typed up her paraphrased responses.

Me: What kinds of games do you like?

K: Adventure games. I liked Monkey Island.

Me: Why did you like Monkey Island?

K: Because it was funny and goofy. Because it wasn't targeted at kids our age, it was more fun to get the jokes, because it was like, "Oh yeah, I got a joke written for older people."

Me: What else did you like about it?

K: It developed the characters a lot. They came up with different characters, not stereotypes. For example, what's his name, Guybrush isn't really the stereotype of a pirate, because he's kind of ... girly.

Me: You didn't like Nancy Drew, a game that was intended for people your age. Why not?

K: It was ... cheesy. There were bad graphics. You never really got to know any of the characters. The puzzle that it did have was impossible, and it didn't really make any sense. You were putting together this ... floor, and it really didn't have anything to do with the mystery.

(The puzzle was a knockoff of Tangrams, putting together pieces of wood for an inlaid wood floor.)

Me: So, what would you recommend that the OP do for his game?

K: Make a game that doesn't look like its targeted at kids our age, but make it look like it is targeted at older kids.

Me: What did you think of the OP's story idea?

K: Truthfully, I think its good, but if you did it ... exactly like you described, it could turn out cheesy.

Me: What would you suggest to make it better?

K: Well, you could do kind of funny things like instead of having the artwork just meeting, you could have them meeting in a bar, like after a long day of work at the museum, they were hanging out at the bar.

Me: What did you think about the suggestion of using vibrant colors and having the characters "overact"

K: (Laughs) Its ... awful. I think it seems, kind of, like its aimed at someone a lot younger. I think you could have younger kids enjoy a game for older kids, but you can't really have older kids enjoy a game meant for younger kids.

Me: Thanks very much for talking to me.

K: You're welcome.

Mainly, I'd recommend that you avoid condescending to your audience at all costs. They enjoy things a little more sophisticated, even if they don't get it all the time. Don't dumb things down for them.

If you want to put in "forsooth" do it! Maybe subtly explain the meaning through context. That way, you end up making the game seem more sophisticated to your audience, while teaching them at the same time.

Hope that is useful.

Andy

lol. Well, everything in moderation.

Starting from the back end of that: I just finished (re) playing Zelda, Ocarina of Time, and there's some pretty impressive language for the people the game was targeted for. So... we will be limited by the museum's head curator, but I think we can present things that would be interesting (believe me, there are parts of furniture making and history that are NOT interesting) in a, well, interesting way.

Regarding overacting... If I see anything in this game as - or more - annoying than anything in Disney's Haunted Mansion (movie), I'll kill something, probably the person next to me. And if there's anything as incredible stupid as Navi (Link's fairy in Zelda - "HEY!" "LISTEN!"), I'll do the same, but to the voice actor. So... overacting in a way that brings out the objects' personalities but not to the point of extremism.

At least, hopefully we can find that balance, anyways. A lot of that will be more based in the voice actor than the script, but for parts that are solely written, we'd better concentrate hard on it. And, like I said, the curator has to like it.

Quote: you could have them meeting in a bar

:) Well, we were going to have them meeting on another piece - a massive, and extremely cool bed. It's not just a normal bed, but a canopied, gilded, opulent bed. With a history, too. We thought that might be a good way to introduce some more stories that we couldn't otherwise. But they can drink, if you like :)

Cheesy story idea? Thanks. I can't do much about that, though. But surprisingly, our chinese escapee only looks Chinese. He was actually made in America. Perhaps he finds this out, and he's a very sensitive character, and decides to travel on a quest to find his past. But he gets lost/in trouble/etc, and the other pieces go to find him, all while teaching art and playing 'fun' games (Actually fun, that wasn't sarcasm. Or I'm enjoying them, anyways).

And I certainly agree with all the references to Monkey Island. I just got my computer back up and running (Dell shipped me a computer with a jacked processer, OS, power supply, and heat sink :() so I'm about to try to install Monkey Island (well, all of them, anyways). Should be fun to play again :)

Thank you so much for asking your sister those questions for me! I really appreciate it. We're slowly creating some more interesting ideas, I think, and I don't think we'll overdo the characters (due to possible conflicts with the curator and artists, our choice of pieces will also be limited) out of respect for them, in a way.

So thank you, and tell your sister thank you, as well! She certainly gave some good input!

And thanks again, boolean!

For a game to introduce pieces in a museum in an interesting fashion, the identification of fakes would seem to be an obvious mini-game. Simply read the description of the piece on the wall, then examine the piece to find errors.

Let's say it's a murder mystery. A member of staff sells off pieces and replaces them with fakes, then murders someone who discovers the theft. You can combine the identification with fingerprint taking like in Gabriel Knight III. The real pieces will have fingerprints from most of the staff, the fake ones only a few because they are recent additions, and one set of prints will be found on all the fakes: That of the murderers.