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Weekly Blog

Week 5: New week, new prototype

Work Done This Week

In week 5 the team finished up our first mini game, the “Room Escape” experience and promptly started production on the next mini game that is internally code named “Cookie Monster”. With this new mini game, the team aims to introduce two fundemental programming ideas: the command line interface & hashing. In general, the team is making steady progress in delivering the mini collectioon as promised.

Here are some in-engine screenshots of the “Room Escape” experience:
The team added more audio elements to make the game more immersive
The map of different areas/mini games the player can go to
A sneak peek at some work-in-progress stuff of the “Cookie Monster” experience:
Rough sketch of the experience
Mockup for the game interface

Client Meeting

Some key take-aways:

  1. Since the team is including a “Teachers’ Longue” functionality that explains in detail the programming concepts introduced in each mini game, our client asked us the question: Do we want to go through the full game first then guide the students to the detailed explanations in the longue vs. jumping back and forth between mini games and the explanations?
  1. Another question: in terms of needing a strong goal, which one is better: Completing all the questions, or getting a high score for the house?
  2. People hate reading in general, don’t force them to read first, play second.
  3. Having some kind of “resource” that is consistent throughout the mini games and the real competition will be quite helpful through the experience.
  4. Make sure the game appeals to a broad audience. The goal is to get players to attempt picoCTF questions

Our half-sheet is done!

Plan for Next Week

The team will push hard to deliver the “Cookie Monster” experience, ideally, by the end of next week, as well as clear up any design hiccups that might pop up along the way. Design/UIUX will output a new design document detailing the next mini game that introduces “assignment” (“=”) and “comparator” (“==”), as well as encapsulation. Stay Tuned.