Garden Design Heroes -- Game Refinement

Refinement: 

After feedback from Danielle and attending the Twine workshop on Wednesday, I’ve refined my story. General idea of students being heroes is still there but instead of designing a playground, they will redesign a pollinator garden. The content will be less complex with more concrete options. Though gardening is nuanced, for elementary kids it is generally straight forward. The goal would be to teach about pollinator gardening and use the engineering design process to scaffold the game. My original idea was more focused on teaching the design thinking process, and in reflection, that is a tall order for a game, along with the content of designing a playground! 

Learning Objectives: 

• Given the real—world design challenge of redesigning a failed pollinator garden, students apply garden ecosystem knowledge to create a thriving pollinator garden, demonstrating decisions that result in a thriving garden.
• Given gardening challenges, students analyze and apply solutions to the challenges, demonstrating decisions that result in a thriving garden.
• Upon completing the game, students will be able to design and upkeep a thriving pollinator garden and explain why certain choices are made for the garden. 

Types of Information in the story for learning:

• Importance of pollinators in maintaining a healthy garden ecosystem (the why)
• What types of plants pollinator gardens need to attract pollinators (native vs. other) 
• What pollinators might need to survive (water source, bee house, bird house). 
• What challenges gardens face and how to overcome them (drought, weeds, lack of commitment) 
• What is needed to maintain a pollinator garden (watering, weeding, scheduling, perseverance) 

Short Story Plot: 

The story begins by introducing the player to the abandoned community pollinator garden. This garden, once vibrant and full of life, is now overgrown with weeds and there are no signs of pollinators. The player, as a garden design hero, is tasked by the Builders of Tomorrow, a secret society committed to saving this community from environmental meltdown, to revamp the pollinator garden in order for the community to flourish. The main conflict centers around restoring the garden in a way that supports pollinators, such as birds, bees, and butterflies. By creating a thriving pollinator garden, the community also thrives. The antagonist of the game is Barren Beast, a character that embodies garden challenges such as pests, invasive weeds, and general upkeep of a garden. He caused the garden to be barren in the first place and wants to keep it that way. The garden design hero faces both trade/off and risk/reward challenges throughout the journey to revive the garden. Throughout the story, the Barren Beast presents challenges such as invasive weeds, drought, or lack of commitment to the garden that the garden design hero must face. Depending on what the garden design hero chooses impacts the outcome of how thriving the garden will be. The climax is the Barren Beast’s biggest challenge: drought. The story ends with (based on choices throughout the game) either a thriving garden or a struggling garden. 

Endings and Decisions: 

The story will have three (or four - still deciding) endings, all based on decisions throughout the game:

• The player successfully designs a flourishing garden (chooses all the best decisions) 
• The player designs a garden yet it is struggling due to decisions made early in the design process (chooses some best decisions -- picturing a couple different endings here depending on choices)
• The player designs a garden that barely flourishes (chooses short cut decisions) 

Decisions currently include (still writing the story): 

• Choosing the best plants for pollinators (native vs other) and meeting needs of pollinators (water source) 
• Deciding on how to solve Barren Beast challenges (weeds, drought) 
• Deciding to take the time to work through all the garden design steps vs. skipping steps and dealing with consequences later. 

 

Note: When applying the engineering/garden design process to Christopher Vogel's Hero's Journey, here is what I envision for the hero:

Beginning  - Exposition, Conflict, Rising Action

• Ordinary world, Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call, Meeting with the Mentor, Crossing the first threshold
• Ask and Research and Imagine (Learning Content with Choice) 

Middle: Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action 

• Tests, allies, and enemies, Approach to the inmost cave, The Ordeal, Reward
• Plan and Create (Implement Choices)
• Experiment and Evaluate 

End: Resolution

• The Road Back, The Resurrection, Return with the Elixir 
• Improve and/or Thrive