Designing Digital Games For Rural Children

1. Designing Digital Games For Rural Children AnkitAgrawal Harshvardhan

2. Outline • Introduction and Target Users • Games(Digital and Traditional) • Observations • Our Observations and Approach • Our Target Users and Our Digital Games

3. Introduction Objective : Designing meaningful digital games for rural children . Action : • Facilitate rural children to play their digital games . • Observe their traditional games. • Observed & collected the experiences of the children. • Comparative study and key points.

4. Target Users The games were tested in the following three communities : • Public School in a remote village of Mysore. • Private school in lucknow where the children enjoy high parental income . • Public school in Lucknow near the above mentioned where the parents income were not that much .

5. Digital Games Some of the digital games employed were : • Crocodile rescue . • Dancer • Train Tracks • Frogger There were total of 10 games that were used for testing for a period of 17 weeks .

7. Traditional GamesA total of 28 traditional games were used , some of which are • HallaGuliMaane • SiyaSatkana • Cops and Robbers • Trump Cards • Pen-Pick • Hide and Seek • GucchiGaram • Kabaddi • GitiPhod • Kite Flying

9. Observations The following observations were made : • Character or team development has no central role in traditional games , as required in video games unlike video games . • Traditional games do not have skill enhancing objects , as they are mainly meant to be acquired or moved around only . • No pre-programmed logic so games advance only when players act . • Simple social interaction and engagement in traditional games as compared to digital .

10. Improvements After interpreting playable issues with the digital games and the results from newly designed game(Tree - Tree) , the following modifications to existing games are suggested : • Game has to be challenging , enjoyable without being too difficult . • Adavanced levels should have more subgoals • Using same game mechanics that are there in traditional games guarantees the success of digital games.

11. SHORTCOMINGS • The target users that they chose are not the true representation of rural Indian children. • Even their digital games are not much meaningful skills enhancing. • Number of schools are very less

12. STRENGTHS • Their observation is true that Indian traditional games are not much skill enhancing. • Most of the games require more physical stamina rather than mind exercise . • The suggestions to make digital games more engrossing are really magnificent . • Tree-Tree game is entertaining and at the same time it is educative and easy to implement on mobiles as well

13. TARGET USERS • Our target users will be children between the age of 5-15 residing in villages closer to semi-developed city

14. OUR GAMES • Business(to teach the business skills ) • Driving In real world. • Finding the cattle (To enhance logical and mathematical reasoning) . • Defenders(For enhancing team skills) Our games have a wide range based on the age and living environment of the children

15. Thank you Questions??