Game Design ⋅ Competition
Strategy Game App
A mobile strategy game app designed to raise the environmental awareness of the students. We went into the final within 150 teams.
Game Design ⋅ Competition
A mobile strategy game app designed to raise the environmental awareness of the students. We went into the final within 150 teams.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Anthropocene is a strategy mobile app designed to use in lectures.
This app is developed for the Climate Change Creative Competition. Each team proposed a product prototype or plan to solve any aspect of climate change within three months. My team and I wanted to raise awareness of the environment among high school and college students by giving out a new teaching model and app to enhance their willingness to learn.
goal-
by delivering a new teaching model.
USER-
are the main users.
REsult-
and finish prototyping.
DURATION
4 months (Jan 2018-May 2018)
MY ROLE
UI Design Lead - User Research, UI Design, Prototype
process
By following the design thinking process, we aim to put focus on the understand and explore stage.
User research
Climate change is truly an issue nowadays.
My team wants to solve the problem through the fundamental problem, which is education. In our memories, we seldom have course about environmental education, or most of them are not interested enough for the students to pay attention.
Therefore, we want to find the problem of the lecture and give out a potential solution for this issue.T o understand users' needs, we interviewed ten people and collected 27 responses with the survey. We found that:
of people experience watching videos to learn environmental education in school.
of people experience taking lectures from teachers and feel bored with the same content.
of people would like to take hands-on courses in order to learn more.
HMW statement
decision
According to the result of the interview, we brainstormed to find out a solution to fit the three aspects:
After brainstorming for possible solutions, we decided to develop a strategy mobile app, which fits every condition that can be used in lectures to learn through play.
design
To help figure out the information architecture of the game, we draw both the functional map with a tree structure to see whether we miss any page.
Then, we drew the logic flow of every page to make sure the pages are well-linked.
There are three main pages in the app, which are:
Link the application with the lecturer.
Where all the actions are being done.
Users can see the information on different assets that can be used in the game.
live Prototype
Try and play around to see how to interact with the game.
Scroll down to see how we built it 👇👇👇
final design
To create a lively and prosperous atmosphere for the game, I have selected the five most common colors found in nature.
These colors are:
green for plants, brown for earth, blue for the sky and ocean, yellow for the sun, and red for flowers.
I have used these five colors to build the entire interface, giving the app a warm, cheerful, and natural feel.
Additionally, I have designed a series of icons to be used as game elements. Each icon follows the rule of using no more than three colors, ensuring that they do not appear too cluttered or dull on the screen.
Color Palette
Typography
Icon Design
Final design
2022 Update:
All interfaces are designed in Mandarin at first. I optimized some interfaces and translated them into English versions to meet future international students' needs.
The poster is designed to give an overall instruction to the game.
In every terminal, students press on the farmland to decide what should they do now. They have three buttons to choose from: Construct, Destroy or Grow Crops. Once they choose the action, the farmland will be replaced with the capital that they chose.
Once the student clicks on the action they want to do on the main screen, crops and constructions that they could choose will pop out with instructions. In this way, students may know more about the effect that the crops, housing, and animals will bring to the environment.
The probability of climate change occurs as more capital is constructed on the virtual land. Instructions to those climate changes help the students learn how those natural disasters affect human activities and the environment.
challenge
Since this was the first time for all members to design and create an app, we faced some problems.
We have no idea how to design the structure of the game.
Since this is the first time for all of us to develop an app, we have totally no idea about which tools to use at first.
Are there any regulations for educational apps?
To solve the problems, we do a lot of self-learning exercises, such as:
We download various turn-based apps, collect the steps and pages when manipulating them, and list the flaws of these apps to avoid the same mistakes.
By attending free online classes, I collected tips and basic skills for using Unity to create a simple prototype.
Since I have learned Adobe InDesign in the past, I learned another software by watching free videos and books in the library to draw the design and elements of the game for my members to apply in the coding.
Research for regulations and basic rules for designing teaching material.
key takeaways
Participating in the Climate Change Creative Project competition was a momentous event that brought me into UI/UX. After 4 months of working,
We made it into the final round within 150 teams!
Although we did not win an award, our idea has been praised by several judges and give us suggestion to improve in the future.
Thanks to the competition to lead me into the world of UI design. It is our first time to complete an app with cooperation to diverse backgrounds members. I experienced a great time and enjoyed the teamwork with my teammates.
Grouping up by members from different experiences gives us an overall aspect of the app and covers each other's blind points. I realized that people from technical departments provide logical and practical thinking, while forestry members focus more on the theories and models to predict the effects.
Since there are about 30 groups in the final round, the first impression is vital to let the judges remember you at first sight. Find out the advantages that help you stand out from the crowds.
As we designed and started prototyping the app, losing focus on a specific purpose was easy. Always stop and review your work to ensure that we are on the right track.
