Glow 21 – Demos
DEMO #01 – Space adventure: Defend the planet!
Fernando Soares (CICANT / Universidade Lusófona)
Conceição Costa (CICANT / Universidade Lusófona)
José Neves (CICANT / Universidade Lusófona)
Lídia Marcelino (CICANT / Universidade Lusófona)
Space adventure: Defend the planet! is an adventure and puzzle game, you control a commander who must rebuild a space base attacked by pirates. You have to use your cunning, intelligence, and mathematical skills to solve challenges and collect resources. Evolve your base and spaceships to defeat the evil pirates.
Space adventure: Defend the planet! Is one of the outputs of the project GBL4DEAF, it’s a research-based game aimed at supporting a more inclusive education in primary maths for deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students, as well as to their hearing peers.
GBL4deaf research design included the design of engagement and immersion in a human-centered process, where students have been involved in game user research since the conceptual phase, in order Space adventure: Defend the planet! could match the children’s expectations in terms of aesthetics and playability. Therefore, intrinsic integration of mathematical content in playability was a major concern.
Work in progress results shows an increase in mathematics achievement between 8% and 20% for 6 participants, while no improvement for 4 participants. Space adventure: Defend the planet! contributes to the following SDGs: “Quality Education”, “Good Health and Well-being”, “Reduced Inequalities” and “No poverty”.
DEMO #02 – Would you denounce your neighbour?”
Representing 1980’s Hungarian society through walking simulator.
Ágnes Karolina Bakk (HU)
Bendegúz Szatmári (HU)
The purpose of the game titled 1986 was to offer a visceral experience about the systemic changes of the era and to point out how the unfolding of historical events were a result of complex political and civilian factors.
An important aspect of the game design was to create certain reference points for young players: the narrative is set in 1986, a time some players might already be familiar with, due to the recent hit TV series about Chernobyl. The game is a 3D first-person, story-based, walking simulator-style game where the players embody two characters throughout 6 chapters that take place in three different locations. The characters represent two different viewpoints: Judit, the young sociology student writes articles for the samizdat periodical ’Beszélő’ (‘Speaker’) about a violent police incident that happened on the 15th of March, 1986. Her neighbour, György – who also happens to be her uncle – works for a state newspaper and is a career party man. He is motivated to pursue a career in journalism in order to raise his quality of life. The player can compare and understand the conflicting motivations of these two characters, and feel empathy towards both Judit and György. The player faces several situations where they have to make moral choices in order to unfold the story. With the help of environmental storytelling elements, the player receives bits of information about the characters’ backstory, which enables them to be engaged with both perspectives. All locations include several items, players can pick up and inspect, our goals with these was to enhance immersion and to showcase some bits of history. In the final chapter, the player has to make the ultimate choice and decide the fate of both protagonists.
