stephane zerbib g4c anz presentation

An RPG for the Classroom

Stephane Zerbibstephane@wasabidigital.com.au

Who is WASABI?

Video intro

What is Master of the Mall?

•Online RPG game• played in the classroom• And as homework•12 month in production

Context

•Commissioned by Office of Fair Trading•Players: 12-15 y.o. Students•Teach young people : • their rights and responsibilities• as shoppers• and workers

•Best manage the transition from school to work•Empowering young consumers and workers

Learnings for Studentsrefunds Phone coverage gift certificate

warranties Ringtones hairdresser

credit notes applying for Credit card Minimum hours

comparison buying online Sick leave and penalty rates for WE hours

dual pricing online scam Breaks at work

Bait and switch bogus work from home scheme holiday pay for casual

Lay-bys credit contract unpaid trial work

Misleading advertising computerised scanning employee responsibility

Phone Contracts bag search till shortages

Our Concepts

•4 months in concept development iterations•“Hunt’m Down”• Catch rogue vampires• Play pirates• Hunt Aliens•Trivial Pursuit•Online board game•Virtual theme park

RPG for the classroom!

•Settled on game mechanics first•Isometric virtual mall world•Quest based•Avatar based•Narrative based•Quiz/brain training mechanics•Micro-games relevant to learnings

Narrative

•Game starts like a late night TVC•Spruiker, our shifty Master of the Mall invites players join a competition to promote his new venture. •The prize? Anything and everything in the mall is there for the winner’s taking!

Narrative

•Our Biggest challenge: achieve simplicity•So much content, had to create flexible narrative structure that made sense•Overarching narrative guides the player through:• Minigames• Transactions• Mission mechanics and Q rewards

Process•after 4 months in concept dev worried about looming delivery dates•Agreed on the core game mechanics•started dev while ironing details • That were more than details•the RPG format being extremely well defined this helped•while the bulk of the creative work then became scripts development and mini-games

Art

•important but not 1st priority•build the whole game with temp art•when mechanics working then move toe acual design•created early design to satisfy the client curiosity•educated client in not getting attached to art and focus on outcome

Microgames

A Balancing Act

•A balance of learning and fun for young people through:• mission-based story telling, • quizzes • And mini-games. •Injects fun and humour into the learning experience.

Where to from here?

•Deployed in NSW, licensed to other state agencies•Localised for other states needs•Information-heavy concepts can be successfully blended with a fun game format •Detached the content from the gameplay •Ready to apply the game model and our learning to future game projects

http://preview.wasabidigital.com.au/games/MotM/deploy/user: wasaprev

password: w4s4prev