The Brief
The game was created in collaboration with Pearson Education (owner of Mondly VR), who have set up the initial prototype brief.
Pearson have encountered the following problem in mobile-based language learning:
Language learners give up learning with mobile apps because they are boring, basic, and deliver no sense of tangible progress
During the original briefing the workshop, the core brief question was set as follows:
How might we create a language learning game in VR that keeps learners engaged for months of daily practice?
The Prototype
I pitched an original one-week long prototype as a VR language game, aimed at vocabulary expansion, where a player is followed by a friendly monster buddy who feeds on word synonyms. The player has to prevent his buddy from exploding by keeping his hunger at bay (see demo video below).
The core features included:
- Character with Agent controller following the player (but stopping at a viewable distance), together with key animations and sounds
- Word inventory (in English only for simplicity), with categories assigned to words
- Grabbable words snacks to give to the monster / language buddy in timely fashion before he explodes
- XR rig with continuous movement around and grabbing abilities
The prototype received positive feedback from Pearson and was selected as a preferred option for a subsequent MVP (Minimum Viable Product) development. The feedback provided at this stage was:
"This game nailed many aspects that we consider important. First, the visuals, sounds, and the game concept are creative and satisfying. The gameplay is fun and involves physical movement through space and gestures, taking advantage of VR. Finally, the icons with words instead of 3D objects make this game very scalable to cover a wide range of words (potentially thousands of words) and a multitude of languages."
The MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
I was joined by two other bootcamp students to work on the two week long MVP. This stage also included weekly workshops with Pearson Education, which informed the design direction for the project. The MVP application process built on top of the existing prototype, with the following features added:
- rainbow gun (loaded with words) interaction added + enemy characters
- 3 different levels with developed environments
- two choices of language (English & Spanish)
- different game modes (matching category times + translation)
- main menu scene with customised UI added
- full audio voiceover added for characters
Agreeing an overarching simple narrative (a space explorer visiting a world of snack-words) and taking the best from the existing prototype allowed the team to create a visually coherent experience. Carefully managing our scope meant that there was enough time left for testing and integration which took more time than anticipated as the game pacing had to be tweaked iteratively a number of times for different game conditions.
The Result
The bootcamp timeline allowed us to spend circa 150 hours on the app spread over two weeks. The full list of app features is included below:
- extended Unity XRIT SDK
- use of Navmesh terrain for NPC character navigation
- 2 different language options for language learning (English and Spanish)
- different game mechanics, including 'feeding words' to monsters and shooting words
- 3-level gameplay design, including an animated main menu scene
- integrated UI design, including score board, main and in-game menus
- integrated audio game narration, using VoxBox text-to-speech.
- audio and tactile feedback
- accessibility considerations, including use of teleportation areas alongside continuous movement
- code refactored to fully incorporate principles of OOP and allow future extendibility
- Unity Profiler used to optimise the FPS rate during gameplay
Reflecting on the Project
Overall, the team was very happy with the outcome of the 2 week long MVP effort - we have delivered everything agreed during our workshops with Pearson, who proceeded to take the game away for testing.
We have established the below items as lessons learnt from the project:
- Better Github management - more use of prefabs and different branches for features
- The management of different language / other options could have been handled better within separate script components
- A fully developed Audio Manager would have helped to avoid having overlapping sound effects
Below are some of the items we would have liked to continue to work on to expand on the app experience
- More interesting level design - going up a mountain / platforms instead of linear progression along the path.
- Further game mechanics / more levels
- A persistent game inventory for collectables picked up at each level
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