Final Game Reflection

1. What: What is your project? How does it work? How did you come up with the idea?

Farmers Market Math is a game to teach students the concept of percentages I came up with the idea because a lot of my students struggle with fractions, percentages & decimals, and I use money as a way to introduce them to the concepts. My students are adults, so I teach percentages, fractions & decimals via money in order to emphasize to them that fractions are part of our world.

The basic set-up is that the player is a farmer who takes his vegetables to the market. In order to remain competitive with the other farmers, s/he offers his products at 10% off.  As the day progresses (and the learner moves up in levels), the percentage discount rises. In the game, this is to rid the farmer of all his/hers items before the end of the day, but in the learners progress, this is to continually challenge them to find percentages that are harder to figure... and to showcase the relationship between the numbers in Math.

2. So What: What was your process for developing the project? What was interesting, surprising, or challenging? Why? What did you learn?

I had a hard time figuring out how to make the levels progress, while also teaching the concept. I was very aware of the "just in time" feature, and wanted to teach how to find 10%, 20%, 30% and 60% progressively, but never quite got there because I kept following the path if someone got a wrong answer.  What was interesting (and challenging) to me was that a game designed in Scratch has to be created linearly. I have a lot of experience in non-linear editing, and I when I approach a project, I tend to work in "chapters" before putting the chapters together in sequential order. I started doing that with Scratch in my 2nd draft - creating sections of the game and then merging them together into a final project. However, that created a lot of bugs and I spent a lot of time ironing out those bugs... which meant new sections weren't being created.

3. Now What: What are you the most proud of about your project? What would your change? What do you want to create next? Why?

I think my project is a good concept, and I'm proud of my ambition and ability to troubleshoot Scratch to try and get it to do what I want it to do, however I'm disappointed that I wasn't able to get the game to where I wanted it to be. I hated having to post it last week at the place it was because I knew it had a lot of bugs in it but I also wanted to show that I had been working on it. I'm also proud that I have tinkered with the game and kept trying to improve it based on the principles of good game design. At every step of the creation, I have referred back to that list and asked myself "does it do this?"  There are many things that I would change - but mostly they relate to what I wanted to do with it - to go forward with it. I will try to be brief about my thoughts:

For each level, I wanted to add sections that if the player missed the answer they would go into deeper and different ways of solving for the answer, for students with differing learning styles.

In the higher levels - I wanted to show how if you figured 10%, you could also figure out any percentage - and show the relationship between the numbers. 

I would add a "freeplay" mode, where the player could buy whatever they wanted and then be asked the percentage from that. Actually, that was intended from the get-go, and each of the items are set-up for that purpose.

If I had all the time in the world, I would create 2 characters and settings to choose from - I would give the player the choice to play as a farmer or as an auto parts store owner. The major changes for that would be the sprites, the backgrounds and the character vernacular, but most of the code would remain the same. I was just thinking of my students, and how that would appeal to some of my students more. I choose the Farmers Market concept because initially I went with a restaurant theme, but just couldn't get inspired or motivated by it. I switched to a Farmers Market setting because it appealed to me and I knew it was something I'd have to live with for the next few weeks.

I am writing this before returning to finish my final draft, but the first thing I intend to change is the prompts for figuring out subtotals and grand totals. I intend to refocus the lesson just on finding the percentage. I think I got lost in the rest of it, and lost my focus.

4. Principles of Good Games and Good Learning: Provide explicit examples of the principles of good games and learning you applied in your game design. Then provide explicit examples of the  principles of good games and good learning you could apply if you had more time and better Scratching skills. 

• Identity
• In two ways - The player creates the Farm name & gets to inhabit a farmer character. After my initial draft, it was suggested I add a farmer to help explain the concept - which I thought was a great idea. I think the addition of my lady farmer sprite added to the identity of the player, because they start to feel like they are part of the community of farmers at the Farmers Market.

• Interaction.
• James Paul Gee describes Interaction "In a good game, words and deeds are all placed in the context of an interactive relationship between the player and the world." I tried to create this interaction by re-teaching the concept in a different way... for example, if the player gets the first 20% question wrong, the game responds by showing what 20% means. Interaction is also present in the player getting to bag the items.  (Gee)
• Production
• Although this principle is not part of this version of the game, I think the addition of a "free play" mode could be the production. In a "free play" mode, I envision the player to be more of a buyer.... they could choose their own vegetables, bag them, and then be asked to calculate a percentage based on that total. However, I have been mentally blocked by this approach because of the idea of "identity" - maybe in that mode, the intro screens that create the identity of the player as a farmer would be passed over, and another Identity would be built.
• Risk Taking.
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• Customization
• The ability to name your farm is my way of attempting Customization. Also, the idea of allowing players to choose between a Farmer or an Auto Parts Worker (or, furthermore, any kind of occupation), would address this principle. Gee also says "many good games allow players to solve problems in different ways." In my game concept - this would be addressed by showing students different ways of solving the concept after they got the answer wrong the first time. A challenge I would have for myself would be to bring this customization into the front end of a problem.... maybe giving them the choice between solving it in their head or using a percentage calculator at the beginning of a problem would address this.  In the later levels - like 60%, I could give them options and prompts to solve the problem by figuring 50% & 10% then adding them together, or figuring 10% and then multiply that number by 6. (Gee)
• Agency
• As the game stands right now, Agency is limited. However, given more time, and incorporating the ideas I've already written about above, agency would be more a part of this game.
• Well-Order Problems.
• I address this by starting at a reasonably easy 10% level. Once the player has mastered that they can move onto 20%, 30% and 60% - all of which rely on the foundation of 10% to solve. My challenge, however, is to do this in a way that is clear to the player (and not more confusing).
• Challenge and Consolidation
• This is not addressed in my game. One way I could do this would be to add more problems in each level (% increase) to reinforce and make sure they master the concept before moving on to the next % increase. I think one mistake I have made is to make the player add the totals up and figure it out and not just focus strictly on finding %.  I would change this in later drafts, if I had time.
•  “Just in Time” and “On Demand”
•  I tried to address this by showing how to find 10% before asking the player what 10% is. I also allowed the player to figure 20%, but if they couldn't figure it out on their own - I give them a primer on how to find 20% using the same method as 10%. I would have liked to make this more streamlined and not take as long - which I think disengaged the player. Maybe to improve the game, I could have had them choose the 10% or 20% by clicking on the money. However, this would require some troubleshooting with Scratch.
• Situated meanings.
• Gee says "Games always situate the meanings of words in terms of the actions, images, and dialogues they relate to, and show how they vary across different actions, images and dialogues" (Gee). I tried to do this in two ways - First off, by teaching percentages via a real world situation and using money, which for adult learners is a primary way they use percentages. Also tried to do this by showing what 10% of $10. is via dollar images - and I plan to do this the same way in subsequent levels. 
• Pleasantly Frustrating.
• This is the principle I quote the most when telling others about this class, however, I also find this the hardest principle to design for. I'm not sure this game is pleasantly frustrating, and I'm not sure how to incorporate this principle into my game design.
• System Thinking.
• I have really tried to emphasize this point - especially as it relates to mathematics. I think I have built this into my game design (even though it is not in what I was able to finish) by showing how finding 10% of something can help you discover 20%, 30%, 60% etc. That breaking down percentages of a whole into parts you can easily figure out, can add up to the whole. I have also encouraged system thinking about using money to illustrate the relationship between percentages as a whole because money is a system adults already have a familiarity and understanding of.
• Explore, Think Laterally, Rethink Goals.
• I wish there was more of this. Maybe a "free play" mode would help address this as well. 
• Smart Tools and Distributed Knowledge.
• Gee writes "The virtual characters have skills and knowledge of their own which they lend to the player" (Gee). I think this got lost in my initial (and 2nd) draft because I was asking the player to do too much. I was asking them to multiply items & cost to find subtotals, then find percentages & subtract that from the subtotal to find the grand total. I am writing this before I have a chance to finish my final draft - but one thing I plan to change is to have the virtual farmer automatically do all the addition etc. & the player to just find the percentage totals. I initially asked to much of the player and, as a result, compromised the lesson I was trying to teach.
• Cross-Functional Teams.
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• Performance Before Competence.
• Hmm... Gee describes this prinicple as "Players can perform before they are competent, suppor ted by the design of the game, the “smart tools” the game offers, and often, too, the support of other, more advanced players" (Gee). I think this would be hard to achieve in short game that is based on Math concepts. I am having a hard time figuring out how to reconcile this principle with the "Just in time/On demand" principle and how I use it in my game. I think this a principle that applies to a more sprawling game than what we are able to create in this class (or in Scratch)? Maybe if my simple Farmers Market Math game was expanded to include many different booths, each teaching a different money/math concept (like one booth could teach how to figure adding & subtracting via the subtotal/grand total part; another booth could sell fudge and teach fractions; another booth could focus on the multiplication by multiplying the total # of items by the cost of each item; etc. etc.), and players had the ability to choose which booth to go to - to explore the different concepts, and try them, before they have completed the earlier booths.... and the farmer/helper lady could help the player along the way as necessary. As competence grows, the farmer would be less needed.

Resources:

Gee, J. P. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.academiccolab.org/resources/documents/Good_Learning.pdf