The Games for Change Challenge is influential towards students who have participated to create a game based on a real-world issue. The games that students created are inspired by a topic to impact others, the players. Us, Alessandra and Dara have created a game with the topic of āHow the human-animal bond benefits people and petsā. We feel as if the topic is clearly expressed through our game and we are extremely proud of what we have accomplished in four months.
Our game named āThe Bond Between Humans and Animalsā is about how interacting with your pet can affect you and the pet in a positive way. Also, we created our game on the platform of Scratch. First, when you begin the game, the opening page allows you to choose to start, press help to know the instructions of the game or press about to learn about why we created the game. Secondly, the start page appears, you are at home with your pet and you have the options to feed your pet, give water to your pet, pet your pet, take it to the park, or give the pet a shower. If you do any of these activities, then it will increase your Stats (the Stats are the petās happiness, petās health, and the humanās happiness, humanās confidence, and human health). If you press to take your pet to the park, then a tennis ball will appear to play catch with the ball. But, if you press to go give a bath to the pet, then a water drop will appear to fill up the bathtub. In addition, we created a code for if the player feeds or gives water to the pet too much to increase their Stats, then it will stop/restart the game and inform the player that they have overfed the pet. There is also a code where the Stats will start to decrease if you do not take care of the pet. To conclude, we feel that this game will show how the bond is important and that some things can make you feel better if you interact with a pet.
Our topic āHow the human-animal bond benefits people and petsā connects to our game because we express how taking care of your pet can make you feel more happiness, confidence to do different things, and increase your health as well as your petās. This shows that the bond between you and the pet can influence behavior in a good way. Additionally, we chose this topic because we have both interacted with a pet before, therefore we felt that we understood the topic more and would be able to create a game about this. We believe that this game will impact others to realize the bond and feel inspired to hopefully also create a game or raise awareness.
We, Alessandra and Dara feel that this game connects to our topic by showing how the bond helps you and the pet emotionally and physically. Our game allows you to take care of the pet and create a bond between yourself and the pet. The link is https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/357959799/ which leads you to our game of āThe Bond Between Humans and Animalsā. Overall, we hope that the people who play our game realize the importance of our topic and are influenced.
We have included several images from our project to show how we illustrated how humans help animals and receive unconditional love in return from their pet. We included a slide presentation to explain how our topic relates to the research we did and hope you enjoy it.
Emoti-Con 2020 has ended and leaving new reactions is now off.
Alessandra and Dara, I absolutely love what you have all created here. I grew up in the 90's and back during that time, there were these little pocket games called Tomagatchi's -- your game reminds me so much of that game and it is designed so well. Believe it or not, I used my tomagatchi to show my mom that I was responsible enough in keeping a pet and it worked! Granted I didn't get a puppy, but by keeping my pet alive, I was able to demonstrate responsibility. I loved that you had bars that measured the different emotions and states of your dog which helped me know how well I was doing. My one piece of feedback is if you ever get more time to develop this deeper, definitely try and be a little more specific around how much each action is worth because I just couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get my Human Health points up! I think You both did a great job in adding so many different factors and elements involved in caring for another living being and the animations were so on point. I can tell you both put a lot of effort and work in to this project.
Wow! I am very impressed with your project. The graphics and design are beautiful! This game is easy to learn how to play and very entertaining. I can tell that you put a lot of work into this. One recommendation I have is to be able to click on the stats button, since most other game actions are done using mouse clicks. I can't wait to see other projects you work on in the future. Great job!
I really enjoyed the taking care aspect of the game as it reminded me of the Tamagotchi's, Gigapets, and DigiMon pocket electronic devices where you had to take care of a digital pet. I'd love to see the game expanded with more things to do and to have the overall scene be a little more interactive. As one of the other judges said, I don't see the correlation of the human wellness stat in the game. Overall an amazing project!
Great design! My daughter couldn't stop playing it. She loved the changes of scenery, which shows different ways of caring for your pet. Your presentation was very clear in explaining your process from concept to final piece. On the game design, the text is difficult to read; I would suggest a cleaner font. Check out this typeface, https://www.lexend.com/, which is an open-source (free) typeface designed for better legibility and readability. Also, exploring typographic contrast: https://3.7designs.co/blog/2008/11/improve-your-typography-with-typographic-contrast/#:~:text=What%20is%20%E2%80%9CTypographical%20Contrast%E2%80%9D%3F,secondary%20element%20command%20less%20attention. One thing that wasn't clear to me was how human wellness is factored in; how are stats collected?
Hi, Alessandra and Dara! Iām so impressed with what you were able to accomplish in four monthsāwhat a cute dog! This game reminds me of the Tomagatchi games I had when I was a kid and that cool app that reminds you to drink water by taking care of a virtual plant. Itās so motivating to see daily progress and to track positive behaviors, so I love seeing you incorporate those elements into your game. The visuals and music you chose are such a great vibe. I love the look and feel of your game, itās fun to play, and I like that thereās no limit to how long the game goes on. I had a hard time getting the human health stat up, but other than that it was really intuitive. Oh, and I couldnāt find the tennis ball at first because I was expecting it to be on the right! Absolutely love the graphic elements of your slide deckāsuch good color choices. Would you consider applying these colors to the game interface? Either way, itād be cool if the colors coordinated. Iād also consider cutting down the number of fonts youāre using for your game and your presentation and making them consistent. Itās hard because you have so many great fonts to choose from! I also like that your presentation includes elements from the game and some background information. Itās always nice to include visuals with text to accommodate different types of learners and listeners; youāll also get better feedback when people can see the big picture, so itās great that itās laid out that way already. Iām excited to see future iterations of your game!
Wow- this is a great game and an inspiring topic. I've never had pets myself but I am learning how important that relationship is for many people, especially those living with certain disabilities. Thank you for making this game and sharing your creativity and compassion for others!
