Happy Monday! Let’s talk a bit about week three, shall we? 

 

This week, Ephan and I had our mentor sessions with Andrew, Harvey, and Daryl as well as a project management session with Kara and our first Tribe Advisors session with (~twenty!!) advisors who gave us helpful and insightful feedback. We pitched our ideas in regards to our game mechanics to our mentors and advisors, and with each feedback, Ephan and I continued to iterate. Here’s what we learned this week:

 

We’re doing too much. 

 

Ephan and I spent the majority of this week racking our heads trying to come up with an idea that married the elements of co-op, language learning, and connection together in a balanced way. We came up with tons of ideas but nothing was sticking. Spoiler alert: our problem was that we had thought too much about the language learning component in a way that was sacrificing the co-op elements, and really, the initial idea. 

 

I thought about how I had initially pitched this project, and our game was never supposed to be a stand-alone language learning game (like Duolingo)–it was supposed to be more of a supplement to support language learning. And more than that, it was supposed to be a game that connected you and somebody you loved or cared for. It was supposed to be a game that me and my mom would enjoy playing together. It’s a bilingual game where you each possess the skills the other doesn’t have (player A knowing one language, and player B knowing the other), and work together with your unique skills to solve puzzles together.

 

Ephan and I had been focusing so much on the language learning element that we were going down the road of what seemed like a Duolingo 2.0. So who’s Don Don? Don Don is a co-op, and that gives you the opportunity to collaborate–and connect. You’ll work together to solve and decipher puzzles where the clues are written in both Cantonese and English. Since the clues are bilingual, you’ll have to explain/teach each other (and therefore, learn). Hopefully that makes sense, but we found it interesting that this is essentially what we had in mind in the beginning and also includes the ideas our mentor Andrew suggested to us back in week one. I guess we got too in our heads about the language learning elements, so this is a nice little learning moment. Please bear with us, haha.  

 

We’ve started prototyping in Unity the mechanics, and in Figma the UI. The game will be like those escape rooms, where you examine objects in the room for clues to solve puzzles. Now that we’ve figured out who Don Don is, and who she isn’t, we’re really excited to move forward.

 

This week we’ll continue prototyping, mapping the user flow/journey map, building the story/narrative, and level design. We’re looking forward to week 4. Let’s go Don Don!

 

Yours truly,

Gina and Ephan