PepperPotProductions

In our last session we made a lot of progress. We began storyboarding our game ideas.

We were considering the problems and tasks, our character has to solve and fulfill. Thus our learning topic is art, Dorian's first task will be to find out the artist of a picture he found. He has to inform himself about other pictures in the British Museum. Through style, colour and composition he has to identify the picture in the gallery which is from the same artist. (If the player is interested he can get extra information, by clicking on words like "composition" or "style".)
If he finishes one task he will get a part of the puzzle/map he needs to solve the family mystery. When all missions are done, Dorian will have all jigsaw pieces to assemble the puzzle.

Our target group: 14+

We decided to pick this target group, because we thought they might identify best with the 10-year-old boy in conntection with the "grow up"-feature. Another point we considered was, that younger people are possibly not interested in fine arts yet.

First we supposed that girls will be our main target group, generally because of the aesthetics and the problem solving features of "Dorians Quest". But then we thought about how to make this game appealing for both sexes. Thus we agreed to include features for boys and for girls as well as gender neutral one's.

Here are the features which are...

..gender neutral: fantasy elements (jump into the pictures), character developing (the boy grows up), adventure, puzzle (solving the family mystery)

...for boys: graphics, challenges (chase, skateboarding, ...), speed (sometimes he has to solve problems within a given time), shooting (with a slingshot)

...for girls: the art theme, aesthetics, problem solving, forgiven for failure (if you fail you lose an item, but you can regain it by solving problems or completing tasks)

When we told one member of another group our game idea, he suggested to have 14 years+ as a target group, because then we would't except any older players who are e.g. astonished by the aestetics. Furthermore he thought that children under 14 are usually not interested in arts yet.
To sum up: he gave us good advice. Thanks Chris!