WEBVTT 00:00:14.471 --> 00:00:18.070 GUEST SPEAKER: That says choices for your game project. 00:00:18.070 --> 00:00:22.552 These are the six choices that I want to make available to you. 00:00:22.552 --> 00:00:27.550 The next one is perhaps the most challenging one intellectually. 00:00:27.550 --> 00:00:29.135 It's about new funding mechanisms 00:00:29.135 --> 00:00:31.650 for disaster preparedness. 00:00:31.650 --> 00:00:33.180 I will explain this. 00:00:33.180 --> 00:00:37.076 We call it forecast-based financing, or FBF, 00:00:37.076 --> 00:00:42.364 and it's the one that has the most potential to transform 00:00:42.364 --> 00:00:45.500 the humanitarian world. 00:00:45.500 --> 00:00:48.640 All right, moving to the next one. 00:00:48.640 --> 00:00:52.095 The next one is the most complex. 00:00:56.010 --> 00:01:01.660 Do you see the drawing of the time bomb with the fuse? 00:01:01.660 --> 00:01:03.490 OK. 00:01:03.490 --> 00:01:07.380 So allow me to give a little bit of context. 00:01:07.380 --> 00:01:09.700 We did a little bit of this conversation 00:01:09.700 --> 00:01:11.880 when I showed up a few weeks ago, 00:01:11.880 --> 00:01:14.382 but I imagine you all forgot by now. 00:01:14.382 --> 00:01:20.230 The humanitarian sector has two main funding mechanisms. 00:01:20.230 --> 00:01:23.241 Imagine a pot of money. 00:01:23.241 --> 00:01:27.330 Even if there's almost no money there, if the pot exists, 00:01:27.330 --> 00:01:31.820 money can go in to then be taken out to spend. 00:01:31.820 --> 00:01:33.770 One of the pots of money that exists, 00:01:33.770 --> 00:01:35.640 one of the funding mechanisms that exists, 00:01:35.640 --> 00:01:40.820 is for disaster response, meaning hurricane or flood 00:01:40.820 --> 00:01:41.930 or volcanic eruption. 00:01:41.930 --> 00:01:46.030 Something has already happened, is happening, 00:01:46.030 --> 00:01:48.300 and is killing people. 00:01:48.300 --> 00:01:50.930 People are dying, but if you did something, 00:01:50.930 --> 00:01:53.840 you could save lives, for example, get on a boat 00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:56.990 and rescue people who are stranded on a roof. 00:01:56.990 --> 00:02:00.045 Or people are sick, go give them medicine. 00:02:00.045 --> 00:02:03.230 This is disaster response, and if you spend money, 00:02:03.230 --> 00:02:07.820 you can do very good things when the funding mechanism exists. 00:02:07.820 --> 00:02:10.986 There's another pot of money which is for a normal day. 00:02:10.986 --> 00:02:12.220 The Red Cross has vehicles. 00:02:12.220 --> 00:02:13.720 The vehicles need maintenance. 00:02:13.720 --> 00:02:15.270 They need to change tires. 00:02:15.270 --> 00:02:17.580 You need to buy a new computer. 00:02:17.580 --> 00:02:20.680 You need to pay rent and electricity bills. 00:02:20.680 --> 00:02:22.690 You need to train staff. 00:02:22.690 --> 00:02:26.233 So on a normal day, you have a budget for, you know, 00:02:26.233 --> 00:02:29.060 either maintenance or development of new projects 00:02:29.060 --> 00:02:30.740 or writing proposals and so on. 00:02:30.740 --> 00:02:32.920 And that pot of money exists. 00:02:32.920 --> 00:02:35.600 We call it the annual appeal. 00:02:35.600 --> 00:02:39.750 Every year we appeal for help, and people 00:02:39.750 --> 00:02:43.240 or donors or governments give us some money. 00:02:43.240 --> 00:02:47.530 What does not exist is what the drawing, the cartoon 00:02:47.530 --> 00:02:52.160 depicts, which is when there's a signal from science 00:02:52.160 --> 00:02:57.470 that a disaster-- that something bad is likely to happen soon. 00:02:57.470 --> 00:03:02.125 We don't have money to fund action before the disaster, 00:03:02.125 --> 00:03:04.870 after the forecast. 00:03:04.870 --> 00:03:08.030 So you can click to see the text. 00:03:08.030 --> 00:03:11.010 The context is that there's that missing money pot. 00:03:11.010 --> 00:03:12.737 We have my for after a disaster, we 00:03:12.737 --> 00:03:14.840 have money for the normal day, but we 00:03:14.840 --> 00:03:18.250 don't have money for before the disaster after the forecast. 00:03:18.250 --> 00:03:22.189 The issue is that if you spend money in that time window 00:03:22.189 --> 00:03:24.105 before the disaster and after the science says 00:03:24.105 --> 00:03:27.880 a disaster is likely, you can do very good things 00:03:27.880 --> 00:03:32.170 for very cheap and relatively simply and much more reliably. 00:03:32.170 --> 00:03:34.790 It's not only more expensive, but more difficult, 00:03:34.790 --> 00:03:38.270 to save a life when the storm waters are 00:03:38.270 --> 00:03:41.930 flashing through a city and people are about to drown. 00:03:41.930 --> 00:03:43.820 The boat is unsafe. 00:03:43.820 --> 00:03:46.520 Whereas if you do it the day before, 00:03:46.520 --> 00:03:49.050 when the water has come down from the sky, 00:03:49.050 --> 00:03:52.100 but it's still in the river and not in the city, 00:03:52.100 --> 00:03:54.930 people can take action by just walking away 00:03:54.930 --> 00:03:57.752 on their own means, with their valuables, 00:03:57.752 --> 00:04:01.200 and not just depending on someone to show up with a boat. 00:04:01.200 --> 00:04:03.720 So we came up with a financial mechanism. 00:04:03.720 --> 00:04:05.670 We call it forecast-based financing 00:04:05.670 --> 00:04:09.840 for disaster preparedness, which is [INAUDIBLE] 00:04:09.840 --> 00:04:11.090 in our particular method. 00:04:11.090 --> 00:04:13.610 There's a pot of money, so like a bank account. 00:04:13.610 --> 00:04:17.500 You need to have a threshold of disaster risk 00:04:17.500 --> 00:04:19.190 that needs to be exceeded. 00:04:19.190 --> 00:04:20.949 So it can't be two drops of rain. 00:04:20.949 --> 00:04:22.239 It has to be a lot of rain. 00:04:22.239 --> 00:04:23.280 It cannot be some breeze. 00:04:23.280 --> 00:04:26.100 It has to be a hurricane of Category 1 or more. 00:04:26.100 --> 00:04:28.735 But once the threshold is established and reached 00:04:28.735 --> 00:04:31.580 by the forecast, then there's some standard operating 00:04:31.580 --> 00:04:35.270 procedures, some actions that people have to take, 00:04:35.270 --> 00:04:37.860 spending money to save lives. 00:04:37.860 --> 00:04:40.630 And that is something that if you could come up 00:04:40.630 --> 00:04:46.940 with a game that captures that, this is the one that if we help 00:04:46.940 --> 00:04:49.280 communicate forecast-based financing-- 00:04:49.280 --> 00:04:52.850 I said to the public, because it can work for a broad audience 00:04:52.850 --> 00:04:53.980 digitally. 00:04:53.980 --> 00:04:57.020 Ideally it would reach those who can contribute either money 00:04:57.020 --> 00:05:00.440 or decisions, muscle power. 00:05:00.440 --> 00:05:02.030 The chances of embrace for this one 00:05:02.030 --> 00:05:04.800 are not as high as all the previous ones, 00:05:04.800 --> 00:05:08.570 but if it were to happen, it would have the highest impact. 00:05:08.570 --> 00:05:10.575 Because right now there is billions 00:05:10.575 --> 00:05:13.930 of dollars being spent in the two extremes, 00:05:13.930 --> 00:05:16.480 and if a small fraction were spent-- 00:05:16.480 --> 00:05:18.860 invested in that precious window of opportunity 00:05:18.860 --> 00:05:22.875 when you see the fuse getting close, that time of effort 00:05:22.875 --> 00:05:25.523 can really have a very, very high impact. 00:05:25.523 --> 00:05:27.023 There is a link to a journal article 00:05:27.023 --> 00:05:31.115 that should be very clear for MIT students. 00:05:31.115 --> 00:05:33.967 We also have some simpler readings on general. 00:05:33.967 --> 00:05:35.300 And I have been engaged with it. 00:05:35.300 --> 00:05:36.570 And I'm ready to help. 00:05:36.570 --> 00:05:39.176 This is, I insist, the one that is 00:05:39.176 --> 00:05:41.190 intellectually most challenging. 00:05:41.190 --> 00:05:43.177 But I think if you nail it, it will also 00:05:43.177 --> 00:05:45.295 be the most rewarding. 00:05:45.295 --> 00:05:45.795 Questions? 00:05:51.140 --> 00:05:52.140 PROFESSOR: So one thing. 00:05:52.140 --> 00:05:54.550 When we first started designing this class, 00:05:54.550 --> 00:05:56.735 this was actually the problem that we 00:05:56.735 --> 00:06:00.350 were most interested in, mainly because the other problems we 00:06:00.350 --> 00:06:02.380 just hadn't heard about since. 00:06:02.380 --> 00:06:06.920 The cholera was a recent proposal that was asked for, 00:06:06.920 --> 00:06:10.520 and Ebola, of course, very recent as well. 00:06:10.520 --> 00:06:13.060 So if you really enjoyed some of the challenges 00:06:13.060 --> 00:06:15.120 from projects two and three, and you really 00:06:15.120 --> 00:06:18.050 took on the planning aspects, the trade-offs 00:06:18.050 --> 00:06:20.640 aspects of those two games, if you're 00:06:20.640 --> 00:06:23.990 looking at kind of trying to communicate to another person 00:06:23.990 --> 00:06:25.717 how these kind of probabilities works, 00:06:25.717 --> 00:06:27.300 this is probably a really good project 00:06:27.300 --> 00:06:29.940 you might be interested in. 00:06:29.940 --> 00:06:33.950 And I should say also that working with a few MIT 00:06:33.950 --> 00:06:37.460 teams, including the Humanitarian Response Lab, 00:06:37.460 --> 00:06:40.105 including the Environmental Engineering, 00:06:40.105 --> 00:06:43.922 we have two generations of three students plus on professor 00:06:43.922 --> 00:06:47.820 go to Uganda to work on making this happen for real. 00:06:47.820 --> 00:06:51.230 We got German money to do it in Togo and in Uganda. 00:06:51.230 --> 00:06:52.850 So it's beginning to happen, but it's 00:06:52.850 --> 00:06:55.400 hard to explain because it's dry. 00:06:55.400 --> 00:06:56.710 It's like explaining insurance. 00:06:56.710 --> 00:06:59.370 People get bored before they get it. 00:06:59.370 --> 00:07:02.065 So maybe a game can help motivate. 00:07:08.250 --> 00:07:11.180 STUDENT 1: Our team is working on forecast-based financing. 00:07:11.180 --> 00:07:14.080 So because we're about planning for disasters, 00:07:14.080 --> 00:07:16.430 our game is pretty heavy on chance. 00:07:16.430 --> 00:07:19.990 But we want to teach the players to do is to use planning 00:07:19.990 --> 00:07:22.040 and forecasting in order to reduce 00:07:22.040 --> 00:07:25.510 the effects of that chance and sort of gain valuable skills 00:07:25.510 --> 00:07:26.760 in mitigating that. 00:07:32.040 --> 00:07:36.110 PROFESSOR: So basically if you have-- there's one, 00:07:36.110 --> 00:07:41.050 two, three, four, five testers, plus 00:07:41.050 --> 00:07:45.720 let's say each team send out two people to test other games. 00:07:45.720 --> 00:07:47.050 Remember to rotate. 00:07:47.050 --> 00:07:49.820 We're going to do this for about 20 minutes, 00:07:49.820 --> 00:07:52.570 as long as it takes, and then see where we are and do 00:07:52.570 --> 00:07:54.896 it again to get some just quick testing 00:07:54.896 --> 00:07:56.270 and make sure that the five of us 00:07:56.270 --> 00:07:58.765 get to play a good number of your games 00:07:58.765 --> 00:08:00.930 and give you some feedback on that. 00:08:00.930 --> 00:08:03.220 So remember if you're using digital-- 00:08:03.220 --> 00:08:05.780 if you're not-- If a computer's not being used for testing, 00:08:05.780 --> 00:08:08.780 close it, or make it look like it's not being used 00:08:08.780 --> 00:08:10.220 for testing by typing on it. 00:08:13.080 --> 00:08:13.580 All right. 00:08:13.580 --> 00:08:14.791 Let's get started. 00:08:14.791 --> 00:08:18.158 [INTERPOSING VOICES] 00:08:24.057 --> 00:08:24.640 STUDENT 1: Hi. 00:08:24.640 --> 00:08:26.560 We're forecast-based funding. 00:08:26.560 --> 00:08:29.640 The general idea behind our concept 00:08:29.640 --> 00:08:31.612 is that planning ahead for disasters 00:08:31.612 --> 00:08:33.559 is much better than trying to react to them. 00:08:33.559 --> 00:08:36.530 So if you can have operating procedures or ways of planning 00:08:36.530 --> 00:08:39.049 for them and money allocated for that, 00:08:39.049 --> 00:08:43.830 you can reduce loss of lives in the event of disasters. 00:08:43.830 --> 00:08:45.900 We are actually between two prototypes 00:08:45.900 --> 00:08:49.300 right now that we're testing to try and get at the ideas. 00:08:49.300 --> 00:08:53.810 The first one is a sort of higher-level city-based 00:08:53.810 --> 00:08:57.700 simulation of cities at risk of disaster, 00:08:57.700 --> 00:08:59.450 which you then have to fortify by training 00:08:59.450 --> 00:09:03.530 volunteers or preparing for upcoming disasters in order 00:09:03.530 --> 00:09:06.231 to prevent too much damage from happening to them. 00:09:06.231 --> 00:09:08.355 One of the problems that we're seeing with the game 00:09:08.355 --> 00:09:11.520 is that it's kind of abstract and not as interactive 00:09:11.520 --> 00:09:13.730 for players to connect with, but they 00:09:13.730 --> 00:09:17.427 are getting a good understanding of the idea of planning ahead. 00:09:17.427 --> 00:09:19.510 STUDENT 2: And so to try and address those issues, 00:09:19.510 --> 00:09:21.140 we have a second prototype right now, 00:09:21.140 --> 00:09:23.770 which is about trying to actually, like, 00:09:23.770 --> 00:09:26.550 rescue volunteers in a flooding-- rescue 00:09:26.550 --> 00:09:28.290 people in a flooding city. 00:09:28.290 --> 00:09:31.030 And so that hits the other end of the scale, where 00:09:31.030 --> 00:09:35.815 the player is told ahead of time this disaster was planned for, 00:09:35.815 --> 00:09:38.040 versus this disaster was not planned for, 00:09:38.040 --> 00:09:41.472 and the appropriate effects for each. 00:09:41.472 --> 00:09:42.930 And then they have to rescue people 00:09:42.930 --> 00:09:45.040 under those two different conditions, 00:09:45.040 --> 00:09:47.100 and then they get to directly compare 00:09:47.100 --> 00:09:51.230 what the experience is for, like, 00:09:51.230 --> 00:09:54.319 acting in one circumstance versus the other. 00:09:54.319 --> 00:09:55.860 STUDENT 1: Over the next couple days, 00:09:55.860 --> 00:09:59.136 we'll be looking at what we learned from both of them 00:09:59.136 --> 00:10:01.010 and trying to either combine them or pull out 00:10:01.010 --> 00:10:05.739 the parts that we thought were really useful to make one game. 00:10:05.739 --> 00:10:07.780 PROFESSOR: I can tell you've worked hard on this. 00:10:07.780 --> 00:10:09.250 This one's a hard one. 00:10:09.250 --> 00:10:10.230 STUDENT 1: Yeah. 00:10:10.230 --> 00:10:13.067 PROFESSOR: Did we assign you a target audience for this one? 00:10:13.067 --> 00:10:15.150 STUDENT 1: I think it was stated a couple of times 00:10:15.150 --> 00:10:17.460 that we should be looking at people like policymakers 00:10:17.460 --> 00:10:21.460 or donors in the sense of people who would be allocating funds 00:10:21.460 --> 00:10:25.100 from governments or nonprofits, things like that, 00:10:25.100 --> 00:10:28.196 basically to make it clear that this type of planning 00:10:28.196 --> 00:10:32.057 is a good idea. 00:10:32.057 --> 00:10:32.640 PROFESSOR: Oh. 00:10:32.640 --> 00:10:35.225 And what-- have you decided on a technology yet, 00:10:35.225 --> 00:10:37.215 or are you still pondering it? 00:10:37.215 --> 00:10:38.340 STUDENT 1: We're probably-- 00:10:38.340 --> 00:10:39.624 STUDENT 2: We're using Phaser. 00:10:39.624 --> 00:10:40.207 PROFESSOR: OK. 00:10:40.207 --> 00:10:43.616 [LAUGHTER] 00:10:45.064 --> 00:10:45.564 All right. 00:10:45.564 --> 00:10:46.538 Thank you. 00:10:46.538 --> 00:10:49.947 [APPLAUSE] 00:10:55.320 --> 00:10:57.610 STUDENT 1: Our game is called Hello Waves. 00:10:57.610 --> 00:10:59.270 We don't have the title screen in yet, 00:10:59.270 --> 00:11:04.150 but the idea is still forecast-based financing. 00:11:04.150 --> 00:11:07.710 So it's a little washed out on there, but if you can see, 00:11:07.710 --> 00:11:11.120 there are these five different sand castles, with workers 00:11:11.120 --> 00:11:14.982 associated with each, and up here in the corner, 00:11:14.982 --> 00:11:16.940 we have a forecast of what the water level will 00:11:16.940 --> 00:11:18.792 be like in a couple days. 00:11:18.792 --> 00:11:21.250 This is the water level right here, and throughout the game 00:11:21.250 --> 00:11:23.710 it'll rise and fall, and the idea 00:11:23.710 --> 00:11:28.340 is not to let your workers get drowned by the rising water. 00:11:28.340 --> 00:11:29.985 The other aspect of the game, though, 00:11:29.985 --> 00:11:32.750 is that you have a certain amount of supplies, 00:11:32.750 --> 00:11:36.040 and whenever you move someone from their castle 00:11:36.040 --> 00:11:38.460 in order to prevent them from getting drowned, 00:11:38.460 --> 00:11:40.950 they will consume supplies from that stock, 00:11:40.950 --> 00:11:42.620 and if you don't have enough supplies 00:11:42.620 --> 00:11:44.660 then they'll take damage. 00:11:44.660 --> 00:11:47.367 So as you can see right now, everybody's 00:11:47.367 --> 00:11:48.200 in their own castle. 00:11:48.200 --> 00:11:51.010 If we click Next Turn, the water level will change, 00:11:51.010 --> 00:11:53.330 and we'll see that the forecast will update. 00:11:53.330 --> 00:11:56.800 We have a range of values on this forecast, 00:11:56.800 --> 00:11:58.932 a high prediction and a low prediction, 00:11:58.932 --> 00:12:00.640 and if you mouse over any of the castles, 00:12:00.640 --> 00:12:02.690 you'll see a red line appear on the forecast, 00:12:02.690 --> 00:12:07.430 just to help you orient what heights are on the forecast, 00:12:07.430 --> 00:12:09.080 or if you're looking at the forecast, 00:12:09.080 --> 00:12:11.040 what it is in the real world. 00:12:11.040 --> 00:12:14.530 So you can see the water move over these couple days. 00:12:14.530 --> 00:12:16.112 Right now the forecast is pretty low. 00:12:16.112 --> 00:12:17.820 If we see that it's kind of getting close 00:12:17.820 --> 00:12:20.278 and we're worried about someone, we can click and drag them 00:12:20.278 --> 00:12:25.190 to another castle, and on the next turn they'll move over. 00:12:25.190 --> 00:12:26.810 You can also click people to toggle 00:12:26.810 --> 00:12:28.809 between building and gathering. 00:12:28.809 --> 00:12:30.350 It's very hard to see the status text 00:12:30.350 --> 00:12:31.558 right now because it's small. 00:12:31.558 --> 00:12:33.940 We threw that in quickly for right now. 00:12:33.940 --> 00:12:36.120 But he is set to building and these three 00:12:36.120 --> 00:12:37.350 are set to gathering. 00:12:37.350 --> 00:12:39.370 So we'll see that the each turn these three will 00:12:39.370 --> 00:12:41.680 gather one supply each. 00:12:41.680 --> 00:12:43.620 This teddy bear will consume one. 00:12:43.620 --> 00:12:45.500 So we'll see supplies go up by two 00:12:45.500 --> 00:12:49.450 and victory progress will go up by one. 00:12:49.450 --> 00:12:51.400 What we have planned for the rest of the game 00:12:51.400 --> 00:12:53.310 is we've made a lot of progress in terms 00:12:53.310 --> 00:12:56.620 of the intuitiveness of our game once you understand it. 00:12:56.620 --> 00:12:59.200 But right now, there's a lot in the game that isn't 00:12:59.200 --> 00:13:00.950 explained from the get go. 00:13:00.950 --> 00:13:03.590 And so if I give that spiel to anyone, 00:13:03.590 --> 00:13:07.210 they can play the game fine, and they do pretty well with it, 00:13:07.210 --> 00:13:10.100 but you just open up the game you're lost. 00:13:10.100 --> 00:13:12.470 So a lot of our work is going to be on the UI, 00:13:12.470 --> 00:13:14.460 of making things more self-evident 00:13:14.460 --> 00:13:17.420 and making sure that people can understand what's going on 00:13:17.420 --> 00:13:19.422 and what their actions will do without me having 00:13:19.422 --> 00:13:20.825 to stand there and tell them. 00:13:24.919 --> 00:13:25.960 PROFESSOR: Any questions? 00:13:29.356 --> 00:13:29.856 All right. 00:13:29.856 --> 00:13:32.291 So I'm going to ask you again, Tom, what is your biggest 00:13:32.291 --> 00:13:34.260 risk going forward? 00:13:34.260 --> 00:13:35.460 STUDENT 1: So-- 00:13:35.460 --> 00:13:37.110 STUDENT 2: I mean, I think in terms 00:13:37.110 --> 00:13:39.880 of our technical implementation, we've 00:13:39.880 --> 00:13:42.090 already got good playtests of our work done, 00:13:42.090 --> 00:13:44.610 and we have all of our major graphics in, 00:13:44.610 --> 00:13:45.610 and things like that. 00:13:45.610 --> 00:13:47.830 So I think our major risk going ahead 00:13:47.830 --> 00:13:51.300 is not being able to explain the game properly, 00:13:51.300 --> 00:13:54.000 and so even if we have a finished product, 00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:56.030 it may still not be playable if we 00:13:56.030 --> 00:13:57.989 don't write good instructions. 00:13:57.989 --> 00:13:59.030 GUEST SPEAKER: All right. 00:13:59.030 --> 00:14:05.350 So on that front, think of incremental additional 00:14:05.350 --> 00:14:05.850 features. 00:14:05.850 --> 00:14:08.620 So the game begins with a super-simple, even maybe 00:14:08.620 --> 00:14:11.150 too boring choice, but then a new choice arrives. 00:14:11.150 --> 00:14:15.130 So the learning by playing can be staggered 00:14:15.130 --> 00:14:16.790 in a way that is intuitive. 00:14:16.790 --> 00:14:17.290 Good. 00:14:17.290 --> 00:14:21.192 Good luck to you, and we'll talk more about choices later, 00:14:21.192 --> 00:14:24.815 but-- I should say that this high versus low prediction 00:14:24.815 --> 00:14:27.275 is something that I wish scientists did like you're 00:14:27.275 --> 00:14:29.656 doing, because most people say one value 00:14:29.656 --> 00:14:31.808 and then it's not that value, it's up here, 00:14:31.808 --> 00:14:33.753 and then everyone doesn't believe forecasts. 00:14:33.753 --> 00:14:34.253 Good. 00:14:34.253 --> 00:14:34.753 Thank you. 00:14:34.753 --> 00:14:35.720 STUDENT 1: Thank you. 00:14:35.720 --> 00:14:39.132 [APPLAUSE] 00:14:39.538 --> 00:14:40.121 PROFESSOR: OK. 00:14:40.121 --> 00:14:40.621 One down. 00:14:45.917 --> 00:14:46.500 STUDENT 1: OK. 00:14:46.500 --> 00:14:51.230 So it's a little light on there, but our game is Hello Waves. 00:14:51.230 --> 00:14:53.370 It's a game about forecast-based financing 00:14:53.370 --> 00:14:55.590 that we're developing for the Red Cross. 00:14:55.590 --> 00:14:57.310 The idea of forecast-based financing 00:14:57.310 --> 00:15:00.120 is using the idea of forecasts about the future in order 00:15:00.120 --> 00:15:04.010 to make decisions that are more effective than just reacting 00:15:04.010 --> 00:15:06.940 to disasters when they happen. 00:15:06.940 --> 00:15:12.700 So I'd like to show you a playthrough of our game. 00:15:12.700 --> 00:15:15.590 So, as I said, Hello Waves. 00:15:15.590 --> 00:15:18.060 Here are the instructions. 00:15:18.060 --> 00:15:20.560 We would have done a tutorial if we had enough time, 00:15:20.560 --> 00:15:23.190 but this gets the idea across. 00:15:23.190 --> 00:15:26.950 And designing a good tutorial that actually teaches 00:15:26.950 --> 00:15:30.840 the player well is kind of hard to do in a logical flow, 00:15:30.840 --> 00:15:33.790 so we have these instructions that explain how to play, 00:15:33.790 --> 00:15:37.300 what the point of the game is, and a couple of tips 00:15:37.300 --> 00:15:40.280 about how the game works. 00:15:40.280 --> 00:15:42.290 So if we go into the Play screen, 00:15:42.290 --> 00:15:45.380 you can see something similar to what we showed you 00:15:45.380 --> 00:15:48.870 a couple weeks ago, where you have all these different toys 00:15:48.870 --> 00:15:52.860 at their castles, and as you go through the days 00:15:52.860 --> 00:15:55.070 you'll see a forecast of what the water level is 00:15:55.070 --> 00:15:57.140 going to be at over time. 00:15:57.140 --> 00:15:59.830 And so you can see that right now they're gathering candy. 00:15:59.830 --> 00:16:01.720 The water level will change. 00:16:01.720 --> 00:16:04.470 This character is underwater, and so he takes damage. 00:16:04.470 --> 00:16:06.260 And so what you actually want to do 00:16:06.260 --> 00:16:09.380 is you want to move toys out of the water 00:16:09.380 --> 00:16:11.050 so they don't get damaged. 00:16:11.050 --> 00:16:13.580 However, they can only move one castle over at a time. 00:16:13.580 --> 00:16:15.775 So because we didn't think ahead well enough, 00:16:15.775 --> 00:16:17.400 we'll see that this truck will actually 00:16:17.400 --> 00:16:21.259 take damage on the next turn, because he's underwater. 00:16:21.259 --> 00:16:22.800 Actually, he ended up not underwater. 00:16:22.800 --> 00:16:24.120 We got lucky there. 00:16:24.120 --> 00:16:27.470 But theoretically he would have. 00:16:27.470 --> 00:16:30.020 And so as you go through it, the end goal of the game 00:16:30.020 --> 00:16:33.250 is to build a castle. 00:16:33.250 --> 00:16:34.850 And so every toy when they're home 00:16:34.850 --> 00:16:36.640 can either choose between gathering candy 00:16:36.640 --> 00:16:40.150 to feed evacuated toys or building the castle 00:16:40.150 --> 00:16:42.040 to reach your end goal of the game. 00:16:42.040 --> 00:16:43.716 And then the idea of the forecast 00:16:43.716 --> 00:16:45.730 is that you want to use the forecast in order 00:16:45.730 --> 00:16:47.730 to know how much candy you're going to need over 00:16:47.730 --> 00:16:51.180 the next couple days, and to use it to know when you're going 00:16:51.180 --> 00:16:54.740 to need to evacuate various toys from their variously-heighted 00:16:54.740 --> 00:16:55.240 homes. 00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:01.065 So back to the presentation. 00:17:01.065 --> 00:17:04.079 Full screen. 00:17:04.079 --> 00:17:07.550 So we had a couple of challenges in the design process. 00:17:07.550 --> 00:17:10.170 The first-- and the major one-- is really 00:17:10.170 --> 00:17:13.990 that we were trying to teach about forecast-based financing, 00:17:13.990 --> 00:17:16.869 which was a bit of an abstract topic. 00:17:16.869 --> 00:17:19.520 It's a little different than just thinking long term, 00:17:19.520 --> 00:17:22.220 because you have to use the idea of there's some information we 00:17:22.220 --> 00:17:23.636 know about the future that we want 00:17:23.636 --> 00:17:25.200 to use to make optimal decisions, 00:17:25.200 --> 00:17:29.070 or at least decisions based on some idea of the risk that's 00:17:29.070 --> 00:17:30.490 out there. 00:17:30.490 --> 00:17:32.504 But we also wanted to avoid things 00:17:32.504 --> 00:17:33.920 like just pushing a button to win, 00:17:33.920 --> 00:17:35.460 where you have all the information 00:17:35.460 --> 00:17:37.260 you ever need, and there's just one option 00:17:37.260 --> 00:17:39.360 that you know you're going to pick every time, 00:17:39.360 --> 00:17:41.879 and the game has no thought whatsoever. 00:17:41.879 --> 00:17:43.420 And we also needed to think about how 00:17:43.420 --> 00:17:45.770 we were going to communicate the forecast to the player 00:17:45.770 --> 00:17:49.980 so that they could then use that to make decisions. 00:17:49.980 --> 00:17:53.010 One of the problems that we also ran into related to this 00:17:53.010 --> 00:17:54.670 was that we focused a lot on the idea 00:17:54.670 --> 00:17:57.250 of forecast-based financing as the topic 00:17:57.250 --> 00:18:00.350 and then tried to build a game built on top of that topic 00:18:00.350 --> 00:18:03.210 instead of building a game that used forecast-based financing. 00:18:03.210 --> 00:18:05.590 So that held us back a lot in the beginning 00:18:05.590 --> 00:18:07.950 when we were trying to come up with ideas. 00:18:07.950 --> 00:18:10.220 We also had a really difficult initial target audience 00:18:10.220 --> 00:18:16.430 of policymakers, 50, 60-year-old government officials or people 00:18:16.430 --> 00:18:18.770 at NGOs who were going to be using forecasts 00:18:18.770 --> 00:18:20.390 to make decisions of some sort, and it 00:18:20.390 --> 00:18:22.848 was supposed to teach them about how they can use forecasts 00:18:22.848 --> 00:18:24.237 to make these decisions. 00:18:24.237 --> 00:18:26.070 Except this was a really difficult audience, 00:18:26.070 --> 00:18:28.040 because they don't generally play games 00:18:28.040 --> 00:18:30.404 and they don't have a lot of time 00:18:30.404 --> 00:18:31.820 to learn about this kind of thing, 00:18:31.820 --> 00:18:33.940 and so we couldn't really expect to get 00:18:33.940 --> 00:18:35.690 them to sit down for a long period of time 00:18:35.690 --> 00:18:38.650 and play around with our game. 00:18:38.650 --> 00:18:40.342 In order to deal with these problems, 00:18:40.342 --> 00:18:41.800 we came up with a couple solutions. 00:18:41.800 --> 00:18:44.580 The first thing was that we had no idea what kind of game 00:18:44.580 --> 00:18:47.160 would work or would make sense or anything like that. 00:18:47.160 --> 00:18:49.990 So what we did is we just broke our team up 00:18:49.990 --> 00:18:52.390 into multiple groups and came up with a bunch 00:18:52.390 --> 00:18:54.160 of different prototypes. 00:18:54.160 --> 00:18:55.990 On paper we had two different prototypes, 00:18:55.990 --> 00:18:58.040 one that focused on the idea of managing 00:18:58.040 --> 00:19:00.010 a city and its resources and its response 00:19:00.010 --> 00:19:02.640 to disasters, versus focusing on individual people 00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:04.640 and how you're going to move them around to keep 00:19:04.640 --> 00:19:06.340 them safe from the disasters. 00:19:06.340 --> 00:19:08.300 And then we went into a whole bunch 00:19:08.300 --> 00:19:09.820 of different digital prototypes, one 00:19:09.820 --> 00:19:12.540 that was a text-based game about managing a city. 00:19:12.540 --> 00:19:17.010 We had one that looked like this, where 00:19:17.010 --> 00:19:18.550 you had two different cities and you 00:19:18.550 --> 00:19:20.590 were specifying what workers were going to do 00:19:20.590 --> 00:19:23.880 or when they would leave the city in order to stay safe. 00:19:23.880 --> 00:19:25.630 And then we would take the different ideas 00:19:25.630 --> 00:19:27.260 that we were learning from both of these prototypes, 00:19:27.260 --> 00:19:29.270 combine them together, take things out, 00:19:29.270 --> 00:19:35.150 and our final prototype actually uses ideas from all of these. 00:19:35.150 --> 00:19:38.150 Another solution that we kind of got lucky with 00:19:38.150 --> 00:19:41.029 is when Pablo came to play our game, 00:19:41.029 --> 00:19:42.570 he told us that we actually shouldn't 00:19:42.570 --> 00:19:44.819 focus on the policymakers, because he wasn't confident 00:19:44.819 --> 00:19:47.720 that he could actually get them to play the game. 00:19:47.720 --> 00:19:50.430 And so we switched our target to being grade schoolers, which 00:19:50.430 --> 00:19:53.250 is why you saw the sort of cutesy art 00:19:53.250 --> 00:19:55.310 with the beach and the toys. 00:19:55.310 --> 00:19:57.700 This actually made it a lot easier for us, 00:19:57.700 --> 00:20:00.039 because we could target people who probably 00:20:00.039 --> 00:20:01.830 had some experience with games, or at least 00:20:01.830 --> 00:20:05.790 wanted to do something fun and would be curious to learn 00:20:05.790 --> 00:20:07.475 about our topic. 00:20:10.530 --> 00:20:15.380 STUDENT 2: So another for our development process-- 00:20:15.380 --> 00:20:16.990 Or I can just speak here, right? 00:20:16.990 --> 00:20:17.656 PROFESSOR: Yeah. 00:20:17.656 --> 00:20:19.568 Just speak right there. 00:20:19.568 --> 00:20:22.490 STUDENT 2: So another big issue-- 00:20:22.490 --> 00:20:24.520 another set of challenges that we ran into 00:20:24.520 --> 00:20:26.780 was through our development process. 00:20:26.780 --> 00:20:31.145 And so we had initially issues with communication 00:20:31.145 --> 00:20:32.390 and facilitation. 00:20:32.390 --> 00:20:36.780 Our team had a wide variety of experiences and backgrounds. 00:20:36.780 --> 00:20:40.600 Some were hardcore gamers, some mostly mobile gamers. 00:20:40.600 --> 00:20:42.430 And so there were initially a lot 00:20:42.430 --> 00:20:46.975 of disagreements on what level of game we wanted to create 00:20:46.975 --> 00:20:50.540 and what sort of game, casual versus hardcore, that we wanted 00:20:50.540 --> 00:20:54.000 to create, and so we needed to overcome challenges 00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:57.010 of facilitation and communication within our team. 00:20:57.010 --> 00:20:59.810 Another major challenge in our development process 00:20:59.810 --> 00:21:04.240 that we had to face came from our design issues, 00:21:04.240 --> 00:21:07.820 where for a very long time we had 00:21:07.820 --> 00:21:09.660 a vague vision of what to do. 00:21:09.660 --> 00:21:12.140 We didn't know what kind of game we wanted to make, 00:21:12.140 --> 00:21:15.440 and so we purposely tried to keep our game ideas vague 00:21:15.440 --> 00:21:17.490 as we built prototypes. 00:21:17.490 --> 00:21:21.110 But then we ran into issues where 00:21:21.110 --> 00:21:24.210 we would have solutions but, like, no consensus on which 00:21:24.210 --> 00:21:29.612 solution was best, and where we went for long periods of time 00:21:29.612 --> 00:21:31.320 without having a clear direction of where 00:21:31.320 --> 00:21:34.110 we wanted our final game to be. 00:21:34.110 --> 00:21:40.295 So our solutions for the challenges 00:21:40.295 --> 00:21:44.420 posed by the development were a team structure. 00:21:44.420 --> 00:21:48.640 And so we structured our team loosely 00:21:48.640 --> 00:21:50.950 into three subteams, a production subteam which 00:21:50.950 --> 00:21:56.500 would take care of production, like the deliverables 00:21:56.500 --> 00:21:59.640 and making sure that all the game 00:21:59.640 --> 00:22:02.950 ideas are being communicated properly, 00:22:02.950 --> 00:22:07.540 a technical team which worked primarily with the code 00:22:07.540 --> 00:22:09.250 and making sure the game got done, 00:22:09.250 --> 00:22:11.060 and then a user experience team which 00:22:11.060 --> 00:22:14.800 handled art, UI, and sound. 00:22:14.800 --> 00:22:20.320 And so we kept the responsibilities flexible. 00:22:20.320 --> 00:22:24.710 So as team members got busy over the semester 00:22:24.710 --> 00:22:29.170 or as changing conditions led to different people contributing, 00:22:29.170 --> 00:22:33.910 we kept-- responsibilities were able to easily flow 00:22:33.910 --> 00:22:37.610 between teams and team members. 00:22:37.610 --> 00:22:40.780 Additionally, another idea we started with in the beginning 00:22:40.780 --> 00:22:44.700 was the idea of subteam leaders, which were the two 00:22:44.700 --> 00:22:46.020 people marked with the Ls. 00:22:46.020 --> 00:22:48.360 But that was an idea we later abandoned 00:22:48.360 --> 00:22:51.480 in favor of just having a more flexible team structure 00:22:51.480 --> 00:22:54.760 or flat team structure. 00:22:54.760 --> 00:22:59.330 Another solution for helping our development process was the use 00:22:59.330 --> 00:23:03.360 of good code practices, and I cannot emphasize enough that 00:23:03.360 --> 00:23:05.780 this really helped speed up our development, 00:23:05.780 --> 00:23:09.110 because we didn't run into trouble with code. 00:23:09.110 --> 00:23:10.780 It was mostly with design. 00:23:10.780 --> 00:23:18.020 So we used Yeoman, which is a JavaScript module system, 00:23:18.020 --> 00:23:21.610 and basically it allowed our code to be interoperable. 00:23:21.610 --> 00:23:25.200 We could write one module separately from another module. 00:23:25.200 --> 00:23:31.380 So that solved a lot of issues with dependencies or people 00:23:31.380 --> 00:23:33.690 working in parallel, because it allowed people 00:23:33.690 --> 00:23:38.230 to work in parallel without overwriting each other's code. 00:23:38.230 --> 00:23:42.690 We also used good code practice with state machines and MVC, 00:23:42.690 --> 00:23:45.080 which is model-view-control, and so we 00:23:45.080 --> 00:23:48.720 had a very object-oriented code, very modular. 00:23:48.720 --> 00:23:52.980 And when we did need to change our code, rip it all out 00:23:52.980 --> 00:23:54.980 and put it back in, it actually didn't turn out 00:23:54.980 --> 00:23:57.580 to be too painful, because we just had to switch a couple 00:23:57.580 --> 00:23:58.320 objects around. 00:24:01.590 --> 00:24:08.130 And then one final solution that we used for our development 00:24:08.130 --> 00:24:11.320 processes were Slack and Scrum. 00:24:11.320 --> 00:24:15.460 So Slack is like a modernized IRC chat room, 00:24:15.460 --> 00:24:16.670 and it's very feature rich. 00:24:16.670 --> 00:24:20.320 It has a lot of integrations with GitHub and Google Drive 00:24:20.320 --> 00:24:22.530 and things like that. 00:24:22.530 --> 00:24:25.260 And so that sort of real time communication 00:24:25.260 --> 00:24:27.180 actually made it so that we didn't really 00:24:27.180 --> 00:24:29.979 have to meet outside of class too often. 00:24:29.979 --> 00:24:31.520 If someone was working, we would just 00:24:31.520 --> 00:24:34.770 email out saying I'm on the Slack, 00:24:34.770 --> 00:24:36.790 and then people could meet on the Slack, 00:24:36.790 --> 00:24:38.430 and it was full-featured enough-- 00:24:38.430 --> 00:24:41.490 like we could send attachments and things like that-- 00:24:41.490 --> 00:24:45.670 that most of our in person communication 00:24:45.670 --> 00:24:47.660 could be done in class. 00:24:47.660 --> 00:24:52.960 And in class we adopted a sort of, like, daily Scrum format, 00:24:52.960 --> 00:24:58.430 where we simply said what we had done since the previous class 00:24:58.430 --> 00:25:03.500 and what our goals were until next class. 00:25:03.500 --> 00:25:06.190 So in the end, though, we did have to cut some features. 00:25:09.070 --> 00:25:12.150 These features mainly were the idea 00:25:12.150 --> 00:25:15.890 of multiple-- again, a tutorial or multiple levels, 00:25:15.890 --> 00:25:18.700 simply because there would just be too much content that we 00:25:18.700 --> 00:25:21.010 would need to playtest in order to make sure 00:25:21.010 --> 00:25:23.520 that it was of consistent quality 00:25:23.520 --> 00:25:27.370 and got our message across. 00:25:27.370 --> 00:25:32.010 And also trying to add more individuality to the toys 00:25:32.010 --> 00:25:33.440 that you saw. 00:25:33.440 --> 00:25:36.040 They have different graphics, but that's as much 00:25:36.040 --> 00:25:38.055 as we could do given the time constraints. 00:25:40.830 --> 00:25:45.360 So kind of just bring it back. 00:25:45.360 --> 00:25:51.590 Our three worst decisions were first, 00:25:51.590 --> 00:25:54.280 we did end up spending a lot of time on code 00:25:54.280 --> 00:25:57.120 and assets that never got used. 00:25:57.120 --> 00:26:02.430 We maybe, like, used 10% to 20% of our final work 00:26:02.430 --> 00:26:04.170 in our final project. 00:26:04.170 --> 00:26:07.390 Actually, maybe that is a bit overkill. 00:26:07.390 --> 00:26:08.120 But OK. 00:26:08.120 --> 00:26:14.040 Maybe 30% of our final code and assets in our final project. 00:26:14.040 --> 00:26:17.860 This really was due to this second bad decision, 00:26:17.860 --> 00:26:20.750 that we kept the game and its direction 00:26:20.750 --> 00:26:22.470 too vague for too long. 00:26:22.470 --> 00:26:24.760 We always were holding out for, oh, maybe we'll 00:26:24.760 --> 00:26:26.870 be able to come up with a better game idea, 00:26:26.870 --> 00:26:29.550 or maybe we'll find some magic solution 00:26:29.550 --> 00:26:32.710 to how we can make forecast-based financing 00:26:32.710 --> 00:26:34.170 into a game. 00:26:34.170 --> 00:26:38.230 And because of this mindset, we spent probably 00:26:38.230 --> 00:26:42.390 the first half of the project, like, just staying too vague. 00:26:42.390 --> 00:26:45.410 And that hurt us in the end, because we spent so much time 00:26:45.410 --> 00:26:47.710 going in all these different directions. 00:26:47.710 --> 00:26:53.110 And really the decision that kind of 00:26:53.110 --> 00:26:54.530 captures those first two, though, 00:26:54.530 --> 00:26:59.270 is the fact that we tried to make a game on top 00:26:59.270 --> 00:27:00.710 of forecast-based financing. 00:27:00.710 --> 00:27:03.110 So we had forecast-based financing, and we were like, 00:27:03.110 --> 00:27:05.290 how can we skin this as a game? 00:27:05.290 --> 00:27:08.300 Whereas once we switched that mindset and thought, 00:27:08.300 --> 00:27:11.580 let's have a game, and how can we put forecast-based financing 00:27:11.580 --> 00:27:12.430 into it? 00:27:12.430 --> 00:27:16.640 I think that was the moment that we then came together as a team 00:27:16.640 --> 00:27:22.100 and really started making the final game that we wanted. 00:27:22.100 --> 00:27:23.310 So our best decisions-- 00:27:25.940 --> 00:27:28.300 STUDENT 1: So one of our best decisions 00:27:28.300 --> 00:27:31.016 was that we chose good tools at the beginning, which 00:27:31.016 --> 00:27:32.595 meant that as we went through all 00:27:32.595 --> 00:27:34.400 these different digital prototypes, 00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:37.574 we actually didn't have to completely rewrite our game. 00:27:37.574 --> 00:27:39.990 We could pull out the way that workers worked in one game. 00:27:39.990 --> 00:27:42.084 We could pull out the view that we were using in another game, 00:27:42.084 --> 00:27:44.340 and then we could just combine them together, 00:27:44.340 --> 00:27:46.842 and that allowed us to move quickly whenever we 00:27:46.842 --> 00:27:49.180 were changing our prototype. 00:27:49.180 --> 00:27:51.716 We also weren't afraid to trust each other, 00:27:51.716 --> 00:27:54.439 both in terms of what everyone was working on, 00:27:54.439 --> 00:27:56.730 but also in terms of the decisions that we were making. 00:27:56.730 --> 00:27:59.021 And so when we said that we had to throw something out, 00:27:59.021 --> 00:28:03.240 we all understood that it was for the good of the project. 00:28:03.240 --> 00:28:05.230 And we didn't have a lot of complaining 00:28:05.230 --> 00:28:07.330 or hurt feelings when something didn't get put in 00:28:07.330 --> 00:28:11.472 or when we decided to throw out certain assets or code. 00:28:11.472 --> 00:28:13.930 And when we got to the end, we had 00:28:13.930 --> 00:28:16.650 been through enough of this vagueness 00:28:16.650 --> 00:28:18.710 that we were all kind of frustrated with it, 00:28:18.710 --> 00:28:21.460 and we realized that we had an idea that we all liked 00:28:21.460 --> 00:28:23.710 and we really got on board with it and made it happen. 00:28:23.710 --> 00:28:25.500 Once we started working on our final idea, 00:28:25.500 --> 00:28:29.198 and we saw that it worked, basically every decision 00:28:29.198 --> 00:28:31.811 from that point on was how do we make this game better, 00:28:31.811 --> 00:28:33.560 and we were all on board with that vision. 00:28:37.900 --> 00:28:38.400 Thank you. 00:28:38.400 --> 00:28:39.852 Any questions? 00:28:39.852 --> 00:28:43.240 [APPLAUSE] 00:28:44.692 --> 00:28:47.596 PROFESSOR: Anyone in the audience have feedback for them 00:28:47.596 --> 00:28:49.306 first, before-- 00:28:49.306 --> 00:28:52.549 AUDIENCE: You can't see those sand castles very well. 00:28:52.549 --> 00:28:55.090 STUDENT 1: Yeah, we'll have to make all of our slides darker. 00:28:55.090 --> 00:28:56.596 PROFESSOR: Yellow and white. 00:28:56.596 --> 00:28:57.220 AUDIENCE: Yeah. 00:28:57.220 --> 00:29:00.320 Like, the yellow and white, on your early screens. 00:29:00.320 --> 00:29:02.494 I was doing this on your instruction screen. 00:29:02.494 --> 00:29:03.410 PROFESSOR: It's also-- 00:29:03.410 --> 00:29:07.365 AUDIENCE: I realize that's the game, not the presentation, 00:29:07.365 --> 00:29:08.299 but wow. 00:29:08.299 --> 00:29:10.590 PROFESSOR: It's also a little faded in the game itself. 00:29:10.590 --> 00:29:12.589 It could be the display resolution you're using. 00:29:12.589 --> 00:29:15.186 So we're all done with everything, 00:29:15.186 --> 00:29:16.310 try a different resolution. 00:29:16.310 --> 00:29:17.518 See if it makes a difference. 00:29:20.750 --> 00:29:22.960 AUDIENCE: The music in the game level was too high. 00:29:22.960 --> 00:29:25.370 It was overpowering your voice. 00:29:25.370 --> 00:29:27.880 So I think you were almost hollering just 00:29:27.880 --> 00:29:29.317 to be able to be heard. 00:29:29.317 --> 00:29:30.650 it doesn't need to be that loud. 00:29:30.650 --> 00:29:33.191 So you can just crank down the volume, either on the computer 00:29:33.191 --> 00:29:36.940 or on the controls over there. 00:29:36.940 --> 00:29:39.720 Something that I had a question for, you 00:29:39.720 --> 00:29:41.634 don't have to answer it today, but you 00:29:41.634 --> 00:29:43.550 might want to put it in your presentation was, 00:29:43.550 --> 00:29:48.600 how long was the design of what you eventually 00:29:48.600 --> 00:29:51.110 established on the table before you 00:29:51.110 --> 00:29:53.610 decided that this was the thing that you were going for? 00:29:53.610 --> 00:29:55.950 Because I'm assuming it was one of your vague-- 00:29:55.950 --> 00:29:58.440 it came up during your vague idea phase, 00:29:58.440 --> 00:30:02.200 and you're implied that you were in that mode for too long. 00:30:02.200 --> 00:30:05.220 But I don't know how long it was on the table, 00:30:05.220 --> 00:30:07.300 or was it only something you figured out 00:30:07.300 --> 00:30:09.782 at the end of the vague idea phase? 00:30:09.782 --> 00:30:11.240 Because otherwise you wouldn't have 00:30:11.240 --> 00:30:13.330 been able to switch to this idea if it was not 00:30:13.330 --> 00:30:14.663 on the table in the first place. 00:30:16.830 --> 00:30:21.010 And how did you decide this was it, that the sand castle 00:30:21.010 --> 00:30:22.420 game was going to be it? 00:30:22.420 --> 00:30:26.290 I understand-- I think you very clearly explained the benefits 00:30:26.290 --> 00:30:27.770 of deciding this was it. 00:30:27.770 --> 00:30:30.570 But how did you come to that conclusion? 00:30:30.570 --> 00:30:32.620 So that's stuff I wanted to hear more about. 00:30:32.620 --> 00:30:35.780 But you don't have to answer it now. 00:30:35.780 --> 00:30:36.875 AUDIENCE: Yeah. 00:30:36.875 --> 00:30:38.250 Just a little bit of specificity. 00:30:38.250 --> 00:30:41.036 You mentioned you spent too long on that design phase. 00:30:41.036 --> 00:30:42.160 I wonder how long that was. 00:30:44.989 --> 00:30:47.280 PROFESSOR: You said Pablo switched your target audience 00:30:47.280 --> 00:30:49.170 for you. 00:30:49.170 --> 00:30:52.065 Telling us whether that was because of the game that he saw 00:30:52.065 --> 00:30:55.090 or because of something else-- if you know that information, 00:30:55.090 --> 00:30:55.910 throw it in there. 00:30:55.910 --> 00:30:59.150 If you don't know that information, that's fine. 00:30:59.150 --> 00:31:01.339 Knowing why you dropped the team lead. 00:31:01.339 --> 00:31:03.880 You mentioned you dropped it, but you didn't exactly say why. 00:31:03.880 --> 00:31:05.400 Again, really quick. 00:31:05.400 --> 00:31:08.270 This is what-- we weren't getting blah out of it, 00:31:08.270 --> 00:31:11.080 or the flexibility was more, whatever. 00:31:11.080 --> 00:31:12.270 And then, yeah, to-- 00:31:12.270 --> 00:31:13.050 Oh. 00:31:13.050 --> 00:31:13.990 Defining your terms. 00:31:13.990 --> 00:31:16.550 You were saying things like casual versus hardcore. 00:31:16.550 --> 00:31:19.424 Give a little bit a definition of what you mean by that. 00:31:19.424 --> 00:31:21.090 It means different things for everybody. 00:31:21.090 --> 00:31:22.765 So what is your use of that. 00:31:22.765 --> 00:31:23.390 AUDIENCE: Yeah. 00:31:23.390 --> 00:31:25.970 I think he specifically said hardcore and mobile, 00:31:25.970 --> 00:31:28.140 but there are hardcore mobile players out there, 00:31:28.140 --> 00:31:28.849 so this is like-- 00:31:28.849 --> 00:31:30.473 PROFESSOR: And casual can be considered 00:31:30.473 --> 00:31:32.440 a version of hardcore, just in a different way. 00:31:32.440 --> 00:31:33.880 So just be really-- just be a little more 00:31:33.880 --> 00:31:35.630 clear about-- because I think you were talking 00:31:35.630 --> 00:31:37.671 about the target audience and the kind of players 00:31:37.671 --> 00:31:39.350 and the kind of games they might play. 00:31:39.350 --> 00:31:42.040 So just be a little bit more focused on what exactly 00:31:42.040 --> 00:31:45.507 you mean by that. 00:31:45.507 --> 00:31:46.343 That's it from me. 00:31:46.343 --> 00:31:46.968 AUDIENCE: Yeah. 00:31:46.968 --> 00:31:48.916 So in terms of technical observation, 00:31:48.916 --> 00:31:52.325 Yeoman is not really a module framework. 00:31:52.325 --> 00:31:55.247 It's just a system to generate the project 00:31:55.247 --> 00:31:58.169 and it puts different frameworks. 00:31:58.169 --> 00:32:00.130 Again, just check that. 00:32:00.130 --> 00:32:03.340 AUDIENCE: So that's a terminology issue, then. 00:32:03.340 --> 00:32:05.332 Clearly it worked out for your team. 00:32:05.332 --> 00:32:07.040 So we're not saying don't mention Yeoman. 00:32:07.040 --> 00:32:08.123 It's clearly a good thing. 00:32:08.123 --> 00:32:11.530 But just check your definition of what it is. 00:32:11.530 --> 00:32:13.580 Because it'll be more helpful for other people 00:32:13.580 --> 00:32:15.224 to understand what it is so that they 00:32:15.224 --> 00:32:17.640 can think about whether they want to use it in the future. 00:32:17.640 --> 00:32:19.910 PROFESSOR: Oh, and actually-- So your demo, 00:32:19.910 --> 00:32:22.150 you spent about three minutes doing it. 00:32:22.150 --> 00:32:24.690 We are going to have you have a player from the audience 00:32:24.690 --> 00:32:29.470 play your game live, without getting a lot of help. 00:32:29.470 --> 00:32:31.030 You can talk over it. 00:32:31.030 --> 00:32:33.115 You can, after a while, start helping them. 00:32:33.115 --> 00:32:34.490 We want to see them at least just 00:32:34.490 --> 00:32:36.080 to start playing on their own. 00:32:36.080 --> 00:32:37.980 Decide when you're going to put that demo in. 00:32:37.980 --> 00:32:39.970 You could actually combine them both together 00:32:39.970 --> 00:32:42.470 if you do it at the beginning or end. 00:32:42.470 --> 00:32:45.990 But if you do that, give the player a little bit of time 00:32:45.990 --> 00:32:47.080 before you start talking. 00:32:49.835 --> 00:32:50.960 AUDIENCE: That's all I got. 00:32:50.960 --> 00:32:51.680 PROFESSOR: Great. 00:32:51.680 --> 00:32:52.560 Thanks. 00:32:52.560 --> 00:32:55.850 [APPLAUSE] 00:32:55.850 --> 00:32:57.060 Snap, come on down. 00:33:02.030 --> 00:33:03.020 STUDENT 1: Hello. 00:33:03.020 --> 00:33:04.610 We are Hello Waves. 00:33:04.610 --> 00:33:07.620 We're a game about forecasting, specifically 00:33:07.620 --> 00:33:11.610 this idea called forecast-based financing, of using forecasts 00:33:11.610 --> 00:33:14.760 to make decisions about possible disasters in the future 00:33:14.760 --> 00:33:16.452 and how to prepare for them. 00:33:16.452 --> 00:33:18.910 We'd actually like to start with a playthrough of our game. 00:33:18.910 --> 00:33:23.924 So if anybody would like to be a volunteer to try it out. 00:33:23.924 --> 00:33:25.740 AUDIENCE: The guest from not our class. 00:33:25.740 --> 00:33:28.915 Would you please come down, Andrew? 00:33:28.915 --> 00:33:34.117 [LAUGHTER] 00:33:34.117 --> 00:33:35.700 PROFESSOR: Thank you for volunteering. 00:33:35.700 --> 00:33:39.074 [LAUGHTER] 00:33:39.074 --> 00:33:41.472 ANDREW: Hi, I'm Andrew. 00:33:41.472 --> 00:33:42.930 PROFESSOR: Oh, do you need a chair? 00:33:42.930 --> 00:33:43.930 There's one right there. 00:33:43.930 --> 00:33:44.454 All right. 00:33:44.454 --> 00:33:44.954 [? 00:33:44.954 --> 00:33:47.078 STUDENT 1: I'm not sure how to make it full screen. 00:33:47.078 --> 00:33:50.102 But anyways, this is our game. 00:33:50.102 --> 00:33:51.810 I'd recommend looking at the instructions 00:33:51.810 --> 00:33:53.101 first and reading through them. 00:33:57.640 --> 00:34:00.170 And we'll keep the description minimal 00:34:00.170 --> 00:34:03.770 as you read through, just to show the player's 00:34:03.770 --> 00:34:05.400 initial reaction to it. 00:34:05.400 --> 00:34:07.817 [MUSIC PLAYING] 00:34:07.817 --> 00:34:08.400 ANDREW: Music. 00:34:34.959 --> 00:34:35.750 STUDENT 1: So yeah. 00:34:35.750 --> 00:34:36.375 Start the game. 00:34:38.889 --> 00:34:41.900 So as you can see, our game, as I said before, 00:34:41.900 --> 00:34:46.220 you control some toys on a day at the beach. 00:34:53.000 --> 00:34:56.190 And so by dragging and dropping them between the castles, 00:34:56.190 --> 00:34:58.920 you'll see that their status is changed, and say 00:34:58.920 --> 00:35:01.010 that they want to move on their next turn 00:35:01.010 --> 00:35:02.567 or that they want to be collecting-- 00:35:02.567 --> 00:35:04.150 or that they're going to be collecting 00:35:04.150 --> 00:35:08.430 candy or anything like that. 00:35:08.430 --> 00:35:12.400 And the game is turn-based, so all of the actions 00:35:12.400 --> 00:35:13.915 will resolve on the next turn. 00:35:42.096 --> 00:35:45.398 ANDREW: Am I reading this right? 00:35:45.398 --> 00:35:46.064 STUDENT 1: Yeah. 00:35:46.064 --> 00:35:47.689 STUDENT 2: You can also access the Help 00:35:47.689 --> 00:35:49.536 by clicking in the bottom right corner. 00:36:06.920 --> 00:36:09.330 STUDENT 1: And so when you go to the next turn, 00:36:09.330 --> 00:36:14.580 you'll see all the toys move as specified by the status 00:36:14.580 --> 00:36:16.285 bubble above their heads. 00:36:16.285 --> 00:36:18.326 ANDREW: So go ahead to the next turn? [INAUDIBLE] 00:36:18.326 --> 00:36:19.754 and Next Turn. 00:36:22.002 --> 00:36:23.460 STUDENT 1: But unfortunately you'll 00:36:23.460 --> 00:36:28.070 find that when toys have been evacuated, they're unhappy 00:36:28.070 --> 00:36:30.510 and need candy to survive, so they'll all take damage. 00:36:30.510 --> 00:36:33.480 ANDREW: OK. 00:36:33.480 --> 00:36:36.450 I don't want to be in that [INAUDIBLE]. 00:36:36.450 --> 00:36:39.415 STUDENT 2: So you can try returning them to their homes. 00:36:39.415 --> 00:36:39.915 ANDREW: Ah. 00:36:56.250 --> 00:36:59.710 STUDENT 1: And so you'll see that on this turn instead now 00:36:59.710 --> 00:37:01.710 they have their statuses set to gathering candy, 00:37:01.710 --> 00:37:03.895 except for the dump truck, who's still evacuated. 00:37:12.290 --> 00:37:13.290 ANDREW: Gotcha. 00:37:13.290 --> 00:37:15.290 OK. 00:37:15.290 --> 00:37:16.790 I think he needs to be evacuated. 00:37:24.290 --> 00:37:27.090 STUDENT 1: Exactly. 00:37:27.090 --> 00:37:29.787 And so the idea is that as the player plays through it, 00:37:29.787 --> 00:37:32.120 they get better at understanding how to use the forecast 00:37:32.120 --> 00:37:35.087 to make decisions about the future, 00:37:35.087 --> 00:37:37.670 both in terms of how much candy that they need to have stocked 00:37:37.670 --> 00:37:40.520 up in order to weather out the rising tides, 00:37:40.520 --> 00:37:42.740 and also in terms of when they're 00:37:42.740 --> 00:37:46.967 going to need to move their workers out-- their toys out 00:37:46.967 --> 00:37:48.300 of the areas that are in danger. 00:37:48.300 --> 00:37:50.280 ANDREW: They're gonna be really affected. 00:38:24.419 --> 00:38:26.210 STUDENT 1: I think you have those two guys. 00:38:26.210 --> 00:38:28.400 ANDREW: Oh, right. 00:38:28.400 --> 00:38:30.310 So is there a reminder of where they started? 00:38:30.310 --> 00:38:30.976 STUDENT 1: Yeah. 00:38:30.976 --> 00:38:32.100 It's on the castle. 00:38:32.100 --> 00:38:33.720 It's actually blocked there right now 00:38:33.720 --> 00:38:36.570 by the toy in front of it. 00:38:36.570 --> 00:38:40.035 But there's a little shadow on there, an imprint. 00:38:45.720 --> 00:38:51.220 And because he ran out of candy and then-- Actually, sorry. 00:38:51.220 --> 00:38:53.630 Because he went to a place that was underwater, 00:38:53.630 --> 00:38:57.518 he took too much damage and then was swept away by the waves. 00:38:57.518 --> 00:39:00.920 [LAUGHTER] 00:39:08.054 --> 00:39:09.470 STUDENT 1: And so on the forecast, 00:39:09.470 --> 00:39:13.730 you can see that high water is coming for quite a while, which 00:39:13.730 --> 00:39:15.360 is going to be a danger for the toys, 00:39:15.360 --> 00:39:18.600 both in terms of possibly getting swept away 00:39:18.600 --> 00:39:22.270 and not having enough candy for all the toys that you're going 00:39:22.270 --> 00:39:23.683 to have to move out of the way. 00:39:23.683 --> 00:39:24.474 ANDREW: [INAUDIBLE] 00:39:28.910 --> 00:39:30.670 PROFESSOR: Ooh. 00:39:30.670 --> 00:39:32.494 He may be out of luck. 00:39:32.494 --> 00:39:34.730 ANDREW: Yeah. 00:39:34.730 --> 00:39:40.022 PROFESSOR: And when you've lost two toys, you lose the game. 00:39:40.022 --> 00:39:41.106 ANDREW: Pretty good. 00:39:41.106 --> 00:39:42.480 STUDENT 1: Thank you for playing. 00:39:42.480 --> 00:39:45.588 [APPLAUSE] 00:39:46.125 --> 00:39:47.500 STUDENT 1: So that's Hello Waves. 00:39:53.290 --> 00:40:01.100 So in our game we had a few challenges to overcome. 00:40:01.100 --> 00:40:04.700 The first was that our game was based 00:40:04.700 --> 00:40:10.150 on forecast-based financing, which is a very abstract topic. 00:40:10.150 --> 00:40:11.730 It's a pretty understandable idea 00:40:11.730 --> 00:40:14.510 of using information about the future and ideas of risk 00:40:14.510 --> 00:40:17.180 in order to decide where to allocate resources. 00:40:17.180 --> 00:40:21.160 But it's still a bit abstract and building a game around it 00:40:21.160 --> 00:40:23.300 took a little bit of work. 00:40:23.300 --> 00:40:25.550 It's useful to note that it's different than long term 00:40:25.550 --> 00:40:26.060 planning. 00:40:26.060 --> 00:40:28.790 It's not just thinking about what will happen in the future, 00:40:28.790 --> 00:40:30.410 you know, building a dam to prevent 00:40:30.410 --> 00:40:32.050 water or things like that. 00:40:32.050 --> 00:40:34.630 It's actually about using the information 00:40:34.630 --> 00:40:37.020 you have to make the best decision for events 00:40:37.020 --> 00:40:41.360 that may be upcoming in the semi-near future. 00:40:41.360 --> 00:40:43.370 We also wanted to avoid making a game that 00:40:43.370 --> 00:40:46.980 was overly preachy or simplified, where it was clear 00:40:46.980 --> 00:40:49.610 exactly how you're going to win and you could just basically 00:40:49.610 --> 00:40:51.470 push the forecast-based financing 00:40:51.470 --> 00:40:52.700 button to win the game. 00:40:52.700 --> 00:40:54.783 We wanted players to actually think and understand 00:40:54.783 --> 00:40:57.470 the concept there, instead of just coming up 00:40:57.470 --> 00:41:00.110 with the buzzword of forecast-based financing. 00:41:00.110 --> 00:41:01.642 And finally, we had the challenge 00:41:01.642 --> 00:41:04.100 of actually communicating that forecast to players in a way 00:41:04.100 --> 00:41:05.650 that they would be able to understand 00:41:05.650 --> 00:41:06.980 and then make use of. 00:41:06.980 --> 00:41:09.260 You could see in that game that we had water levels, 00:41:09.260 --> 00:41:11.010 and it would show on the map, and we 00:41:11.010 --> 00:41:13.280 found that players were pretty good at using that 00:41:13.280 --> 00:41:15.590 in order to make decisions about what 00:41:15.590 --> 00:41:17.110 was going to happen in the future 00:41:17.110 --> 00:41:18.934 and how to allocate their resources. 00:41:18.934 --> 00:41:21.100 The other big challenge that we had in the beginning 00:41:21.100 --> 00:41:24.950 was that our initial target audience was policymakers. 00:41:24.950 --> 00:41:28.702 Like for Snap, Pablo had come in and pitched us this game idea, 00:41:28.702 --> 00:41:30.660 and originally he had wanted us to build a game 00:41:30.660 --> 00:41:33.280 for policymakers that would help them understand 00:41:33.280 --> 00:41:35.349 the benefits of forecast-based financing 00:41:35.349 --> 00:41:37.890 and therefore convince them that they should develop policies 00:41:37.890 --> 00:41:40.880 that would give resources to plans based 00:41:40.880 --> 00:41:43.410 on forecast-based financing. 00:41:43.410 --> 00:41:45.279 So I would like to take you through a couple 00:41:45.279 --> 00:41:47.320 of our prototypes, just to show you the evolution 00:41:47.320 --> 00:41:52.210 and comment on our process. 00:41:52.210 --> 00:41:56.930 Actually, to preface that, we had a lot of prototypes, 00:41:56.930 --> 00:41:59.980 because our idea was so abstract and because we weren't sure 00:41:59.980 --> 00:42:01.550 how to address our audience. 00:42:01.550 --> 00:42:04.310 So we built a lot of prototypes to start with. 00:42:04.310 --> 00:42:08.094 We had ideas that ranged across levels of scope 00:42:08.094 --> 00:42:10.510 of what you controlled, where you controlled entire cities 00:42:10.510 --> 00:42:12.259 or where you controlled individual workers 00:42:12.259 --> 00:42:13.676 and moved them around, and then we 00:42:13.676 --> 00:42:16.009 would pull from all these different kinds of ideas, what 00:42:16.009 --> 00:42:18.180 worked, what didn't, what did people understand, 00:42:18.180 --> 00:42:19.400 what confused them. 00:42:19.400 --> 00:42:22.680 And from that we got a really good idea of what concepts 00:42:22.680 --> 00:42:24.300 helped people understand the idea 00:42:24.300 --> 00:42:28.350 and brought them into this final game that we ended up with. 00:42:28.350 --> 00:42:31.170 So the project started on October 15th, 00:42:31.170 --> 00:42:32.750 and this was our first prototype. 00:42:32.750 --> 00:42:34.850 It was a terminal-based game where 00:42:34.850 --> 00:42:37.970 you had some kind of information about a future rainfall, 00:42:37.970 --> 00:42:40.780 and then you had to type in your commands of how you controlled 00:42:40.780 --> 00:42:42.520 different cities. 00:42:42.520 --> 00:42:45.360 This-- Actually, people found it fun, 00:42:45.360 --> 00:42:48.050 but as you might expect the feedback wasn't very good 00:42:48.050 --> 00:42:49.860 and people didn't quite understand 00:42:49.860 --> 00:42:51.470 how to move forward with it. 00:42:51.470 --> 00:42:54.750 It put a lot of cognitive load on people. 00:42:54.750 --> 00:42:56.980 So when we moved forward, we tried 00:42:56.980 --> 00:43:01.300 to give people more easily understandable actions to use. 00:43:01.300 --> 00:43:04.350 But the problem with this game was that it was time-based 00:43:04.350 --> 00:43:05.580 and it updated every second. 00:43:05.580 --> 00:43:06.680 And so there were so many numbers 00:43:06.680 --> 00:43:09.054 flying at people that even MIT students who playtested it 00:43:09.054 --> 00:43:10.320 couldn't understand. 00:43:10.320 --> 00:43:12.550 So we figured that people like policymakers 00:43:12.550 --> 00:43:14.920 who didn't have much experience with games really 00:43:14.920 --> 00:43:17.230 wouldn't be able to understand the game at all. 00:43:17.230 --> 00:43:19.570 So instead we went to turn-based. 00:43:19.570 --> 00:43:22.870 And that helped, but at the same time-- 00:43:22.870 --> 00:43:24.370 it's tough to see on this projector, 00:43:24.370 --> 00:43:26.190 but we have a forecast underneath that says 00:43:26.190 --> 00:43:27.900 how much rainfall is expected. 00:43:27.900 --> 00:43:29.900 And again, that wasn't understandable to people, 00:43:29.900 --> 00:43:32.483 because they couldn't understand what three inches of rainfall 00:43:32.483 --> 00:43:34.520 meant for their city and they couldn't 00:43:34.520 --> 00:43:37.292 understand how that contributed to a possible disaster. 00:43:37.292 --> 00:43:39.250 At this point, Pablo actually came by the class 00:43:39.250 --> 00:43:41.840 and played the game, and then he told us 00:43:41.840 --> 00:43:44.270 that he wasn't even sure that he could get policymakers 00:43:44.270 --> 00:43:46.730 to play the game, because they may not have enough time. 00:43:46.730 --> 00:43:49.429 Instead he wanted us to switch to grade schoolers, 00:43:49.429 --> 00:43:50.970 because we could teach them something 00:43:50.970 --> 00:43:53.300 about forecast-based financing and help them understand 00:43:53.300 --> 00:43:55.687 as they grew up. 00:43:55.687 --> 00:43:57.395 And this was great for us, because making 00:43:57.395 --> 00:43:59.870 a game that was serious, easy for somebody 00:43:59.870 --> 00:44:02.400 who didn't have experience with games to play, and also 00:44:02.400 --> 00:44:06.320 fun and engaging was too difficult for us, actually. 00:44:06.320 --> 00:44:09.560 So moving to grade schoolers was awesome. 00:44:09.560 --> 00:44:13.950 He also suggested that we try to make the idea of rainfall 00:44:13.950 --> 00:44:16.960 or water levels more visceral, and that's 00:44:16.960 --> 00:44:20.080 when we came upon this idea of the rising waters. 00:44:20.080 --> 00:44:22.470 Whenever players looked at this, they instantly 00:44:22.470 --> 00:44:24.120 understood the concept of the game. 00:44:24.120 --> 00:44:25.700 The feedback might not be there. 00:44:25.700 --> 00:44:28.360 The beautiful UI might not be there. 00:44:28.360 --> 00:44:30.660 But the idea of having cities with workers in them 00:44:30.660 --> 00:44:33.377 and a rising water level coming towards them, everybody 00:44:33.377 --> 00:44:35.710 understood that, and it made it a lot easier for players 00:44:35.710 --> 00:44:37.860 to reason about the game. 00:44:37.860 --> 00:44:40.810 From there we added things like nicer art, better feedback, 00:44:40.810 --> 00:44:44.410 which you can't quite see in a static picture, more 00:44:44.410 --> 00:44:46.930 improvements to how the forecast worked, 00:44:46.930 --> 00:44:50.955 and eventually we ended up with our final version today. 00:44:53.574 --> 00:44:54.990 STUDENT 2: So to talk a little bit 00:44:54.990 --> 00:44:57.270 about our actual development process. 00:44:57.270 --> 00:45:00.430 So our team was structured into three main subteams-- 00:45:00.430 --> 00:45:03.300 production, which was in charge of managerial roles, 00:45:03.300 --> 00:45:06.600 deliverables, and playtesting, and so there was a shared 00:45:06.600 --> 00:45:10.950 responsibility there, a technical team, which 00:45:10.950 --> 00:45:13.700 was in charge of the bulk of the coding work, 00:45:13.700 --> 00:45:16.140 and a user experience team, which would be in charge 00:45:16.140 --> 00:45:19.800 of assets and UI design. 00:45:19.800 --> 00:45:23.390 We also initially envisioned subteam leaders, 00:45:23.390 --> 00:45:26.100 where we'd be kind of communicating through them. 00:45:26.100 --> 00:45:28.090 But we found the concept kind of redundant, 00:45:28.090 --> 00:45:31.060 and so we worked pretty much with, like, a flat structure 00:45:31.060 --> 00:45:34.210 between the three teams. 00:45:34.210 --> 00:45:37.770 So from the beginning, we encouraged good coding 00:45:37.770 --> 00:45:42.060 practice, and so we used good tools available to us. 00:45:42.060 --> 00:45:45.110 One of these is Yeoman, which is a JavaScript scaffolding 00:45:45.110 --> 00:45:47.110 framework. 00:45:47.110 --> 00:45:50.530 And this helped us out a lot by basically automating 00:45:50.530 --> 00:45:55.320 a lot of our JavaScript tasks and making our code modular. 00:45:55.320 --> 00:45:58.360 We also used Phaser's state machine, 00:45:58.360 --> 00:46:03.070 which is this kind of badly documented new feature 00:46:03.070 --> 00:46:06.030 in the Phaser game engine, which was the JavaScript game 00:46:06.030 --> 00:46:08.570 engine that we used. 00:46:08.570 --> 00:46:12.319 It's a bit badly documented, but it did save us 00:46:12.319 --> 00:46:14.360 a lot of headaches, and once we figured that out, 00:46:14.360 --> 00:46:16.840 that proved immensely helpful. 00:46:16.840 --> 00:46:22.890 And we also used MVC, which is a software engineering 00:46:22.890 --> 00:46:25.450 term standing for Model-View-Controller. 00:46:25.450 --> 00:46:28.990 And again, by encouraging these good coding practices, 00:46:28.990 --> 00:46:32.590 we reduced dependencies and made sure that our team was 00:46:32.590 --> 00:46:34.760 productive. 00:46:34.760 --> 00:46:37.280 In terms of communication, we-- also 00:46:37.280 --> 00:46:39.504 similar to Snap-- used Slack, which is kind 00:46:39.504 --> 00:46:40.795 of like a modernized chat room. 00:46:40.795 --> 00:46:43.180 It's very feature-rich, and so you 00:46:43.180 --> 00:46:46.110 can share files in channel and things like that. 00:46:46.110 --> 00:46:49.510 And we also used the idea of the daily Scrum. 00:46:49.510 --> 00:46:52.050 We implemented it in class, and we 00:46:52.050 --> 00:46:56.700 would say what we had done that class, what we would be doing, 00:46:56.700 --> 00:47:00.950 and what we wanted to do until next class. 00:47:00.950 --> 00:47:05.280 And so the major challenges that we faced during the development 00:47:05.280 --> 00:47:08.760 process, though, were that our team members 00:47:08.760 --> 00:47:10.610 came from very different backgrounds 00:47:10.610 --> 00:47:12.875 and had very different preferences about games. 00:47:12.875 --> 00:47:15.290 You know, some of our team members 00:47:15.290 --> 00:47:18.795 were very hardcore StarCraft players and very good 00:47:18.795 --> 00:47:21.610 at RTS games, while other members of our team 00:47:21.610 --> 00:47:25.570 preferred like a more laid-back mobile game, Fruit Ninja 00:47:25.570 --> 00:47:26.760 kind of approach. 00:47:26.760 --> 00:47:29.680 And so trying to mediate those two viewpoints 00:47:29.680 --> 00:47:32.300 and trying to create a game that would 00:47:32.300 --> 00:47:37.200 engage both types of gamers was a challenge 00:47:37.200 --> 00:47:40.300 that we had to overcome. 00:47:40.300 --> 00:47:43.640 And so another big challenge that we had in our development 00:47:43.640 --> 00:47:47.735 process, as you saw through our progression 00:47:47.735 --> 00:47:49.110 through our different prototypes, 00:47:49.110 --> 00:47:53.280 was that our direction was not very clear until about halfway 00:47:53.280 --> 00:47:54.570 through the project. 00:47:54.570 --> 00:47:57.950 And so partially because we had different ideas 00:47:57.950 --> 00:47:59.760 on what the game should look like, 00:47:59.760 --> 00:48:02.930 and also partially because we had such an abstract idea 00:48:02.930 --> 00:48:05.780 of forecast-based financing that even 00:48:05.780 --> 00:48:09.530 we didn't have that good of a grasp on initially, 00:48:09.530 --> 00:48:11.860 it took us a while to really get settled 00:48:11.860 --> 00:48:13.530 on what we wanted to build. 00:48:13.530 --> 00:48:18.050 And so this really challenged our development process 00:48:18.050 --> 00:48:23.990 and made us have to build a lot before we got something 00:48:23.990 --> 00:48:26.760 that we liked. 00:48:26.760 --> 00:48:31.720 And so eventually we did end up having to cut some features, 00:48:31.720 --> 00:48:36.320 like multiple levels, or a guided tutorial for the player. 00:48:36.320 --> 00:48:40.140 We thought that this would introduce too much new content 00:48:40.140 --> 00:48:42.220 that would need to be playtested, balanced, 00:48:42.220 --> 00:48:47.030 and tested to ensure consistency with the rest 00:48:47.030 --> 00:48:49.660 of our game, which we viewed as taking up too much time. 00:48:49.660 --> 00:48:52.910 And we also cut the idea of adding more individuality 00:48:52.910 --> 00:48:57.930 to the workers or to the toys that you saw, 00:48:57.930 --> 00:48:59.780 other than different graphics for each. 00:49:02.300 --> 00:49:06.277 STUDENT 1: So some of the worst things that we did on our team 00:49:06.277 --> 00:49:07.860 is that we spent a lot of time on work 00:49:07.860 --> 00:49:09.780 that got thrown out entirely. 00:49:09.780 --> 00:49:13.070 All the prototypes we did, they were actually pretty useful 00:49:13.070 --> 00:49:16.070 because of the things we learned about the concept and about 00:49:16.070 --> 00:49:17.720 how people would play the game. 00:49:17.720 --> 00:49:19.570 But we did spend a lot of time on things 00:49:19.570 --> 00:49:23.050 like art or nitty gritty details that didn't really 00:49:23.050 --> 00:49:25.320 need to be figured out and that we could have put off 00:49:25.320 --> 00:49:27.950 until later in the project. 00:49:27.950 --> 00:49:32.280 We also kept the game direction to vague for too long. 00:49:32.280 --> 00:49:35.280 As Norman said, we spent a lot of time with that, 00:49:35.280 --> 00:49:38.470 and it probably ate up too much of our time. 00:49:38.470 --> 00:49:41.200 Although it helped us learn, we could've 00:49:41.200 --> 00:49:43.720 moved faster in the beginning to get to a solid idea. 00:49:43.720 --> 00:49:47.320 Because once we got to a solid idea of the rising waters, 00:49:47.320 --> 00:49:50.160 our team started to centralize around a lot 00:49:50.160 --> 00:49:53.610 better because we could actually deal with something concrete. 00:49:53.610 --> 00:49:55.680 While we were dealing with the abstract ideas, 00:49:55.680 --> 00:49:58.180 everybody was all over the place and arguing about things 00:49:58.180 --> 00:50:00.680 that didn't quite line up. 00:50:00.680 --> 00:50:04.070 And the worst decision of all that we started with, 00:50:04.070 --> 00:50:06.860 and that sort of made the problem of going too vague 00:50:06.860 --> 00:50:08.472 and all these other things happen, 00:50:08.472 --> 00:50:09.930 is that we were originally thinking 00:50:09.930 --> 00:50:13.670 how do we skin forecast-based financing as a game? 00:50:13.670 --> 00:50:17.490 How do we take this idea of using forecasting decisions 00:50:17.490 --> 00:50:19.880 and then just gamify it? 00:50:19.880 --> 00:50:23.280 Which we eventually realized wasn't fun, 00:50:23.280 --> 00:50:26.156 and didn't help us actually come up with any ideas. 00:50:26.156 --> 00:50:27.780 Instead, when we flipped it and started 00:50:27.780 --> 00:50:30.910 talking about what game could we create and use 00:50:30.910 --> 00:50:34.760 forecast-based financing to improve it and teach players 00:50:34.760 --> 00:50:38.030 how to play the game, and therefore allow them to come 00:50:38.030 --> 00:50:40.860 out of the game having learned about forecast-based financing, 00:50:40.860 --> 00:50:42.180 the world sort of opened up. 00:50:42.180 --> 00:50:43.846 Everything became a lot more interesting 00:50:43.846 --> 00:50:47.532 and we found that we started to move faster. 00:50:47.532 --> 00:50:49.990 Some of the best decisions that we made, on the other hand. 00:50:49.990 --> 00:50:52.120 As Norman said, we had good tools, 00:50:52.120 --> 00:50:55.260 which meant that even when we threw out prototypes, 00:50:55.260 --> 00:50:58.660 although we wasted things like art resources and things 00:50:58.660 --> 00:51:01.990 like that, we actually didn't end up wasting very much code, 00:51:01.990 --> 00:51:04.640 because things like the idea of workers or cities 00:51:04.640 --> 00:51:07.140 could literally be pulled out of the old games we had, 00:51:07.140 --> 00:51:09.510 put into our new game, and then reworked 00:51:09.510 --> 00:51:13.300 to build our new structure. 00:51:13.300 --> 00:51:15.120 We also weren't afraid to trust each other 00:51:15.120 --> 00:51:17.840 and throw out the things that didn't work. 00:51:17.840 --> 00:51:19.530 Once we started moving fast, we had 00:51:19.530 --> 00:51:21.210 a lot of ideas that would come out, 00:51:21.210 --> 00:51:23.320 and we would say, OK, this doesn't work. 00:51:23.320 --> 00:51:24.970 We're actually going to scrap it. 00:51:24.970 --> 00:51:28.840 Or we think that this isn't the direction we need to go in. 00:51:28.840 --> 00:51:32.281 And everybody was willing to go along with it. 00:51:32.281 --> 00:51:34.530 It's not a good feeling to see your things thrown out, 00:51:34.530 --> 00:51:36.950 but everybody understood that was for the best of the game, 00:51:36.950 --> 00:51:38.741 and I really appreciate their understanding 00:51:38.741 --> 00:51:40.340 with everything too. 00:51:40.340 --> 00:51:42.360 And part of that all comes down to the fact 00:51:42.360 --> 00:51:44.550 that we were on board with our final idea. 00:51:44.550 --> 00:51:47.115 We were all excited about the concept that we had. 00:51:47.115 --> 00:51:48.740 Part of that might have been the relief 00:51:48.740 --> 00:51:50.531 of coming to a concrete idea after spending 00:51:50.531 --> 00:51:51.950 so much time being vague. 00:51:51.950 --> 00:51:53.720 But once we had that concrete idea, 00:51:53.720 --> 00:51:57.760 we really moved fast and worked well around it. 00:51:57.760 --> 00:52:00.695 So thank you, and any questions? 00:52:00.695 --> 00:52:04.160 [APPLAUSE] 00:52:07.572 --> 00:52:08.780 AUDIENCE: Who did your sound? 00:52:08.780 --> 00:52:11.090 It's awesome. 00:52:11.090 --> 00:52:13.200 STUDENT 1: That was from our UI team. 00:52:13.200 --> 00:52:14.185 AUDIENCE: Oh. 00:52:14.185 --> 00:52:14.685 OK. 00:52:14.685 --> 00:52:17.015 It's really cool. 00:52:17.015 --> 00:52:18.390 PROFESSOR: Where did you find it? 00:52:18.390 --> 00:52:20.015 STUDENT 2: So it's on our credits page. 00:52:20.015 --> 00:52:22.590 Most of it was online. 00:52:22.590 --> 00:52:23.950 The credits page in our game. 00:52:27.798 --> 00:52:31.165 [LAUGHTER] 00:52:35.747 --> 00:52:37.830 STUDENT 1: It's a little small, I guess, up there. 00:52:37.830 --> 00:52:39.449 PROFESSOR: Oh, OK. 00:52:39.449 --> 00:52:40.490 STUDENT 1: But it looks-- 00:52:40.490 --> 00:52:41.450 PROFESSOR: [INAUDIBLE]. 00:52:41.450 --> 00:52:43.622 STUDENT 2: Yeah. "Hold My Hand," AJP, by-- 00:52:43.622 --> 00:52:45.122 AUDIENCE: Would it be possible maybe 00:52:45.122 --> 00:52:47.569 to create a short URL for this? 00:52:47.569 --> 00:52:48.110 For the game? 00:52:48.110 --> 00:52:49.470 STUDENT 2: Yeah, a bit.ly link? 00:52:49.470 --> 00:52:50.180 STUDENT 1: Yeah, sure. 00:52:50.180 --> 00:52:52.530 We can make a bit.ly link, and we'll send it out to everyone. 00:52:52.530 --> 00:52:54.030 AUDIENCE: Yeah, just so we've go it. 00:52:54.030 --> 00:52:55.314 Yeah. 00:52:55.314 --> 00:52:58.010 STUDENT 1: That's a good call. 00:52:58.010 --> 00:52:59.004 Yes. 00:52:59.004 --> 00:53:01.045 AUDIENCE: Having watched the early crash and burn 00:53:01.045 --> 00:53:04.126 of the playthrough, how often have people-- 00:53:04.126 --> 00:53:06.250 I don't know if you've actually had a lot of people 00:53:06.250 --> 00:53:08.490 to play your current version of your game-- 00:53:08.490 --> 00:53:10.720 do people usually take a playthrough or two 00:53:10.720 --> 00:53:13.720 before they start getting the concept? 00:53:13.720 --> 00:53:14.700 STUDENT 1: Yes. 00:53:14.700 --> 00:53:17.882 That's why something like a tutorial would be really nice. 00:53:17.882 --> 00:53:20.090 Unfortunately, we didn't have the time to put it in-- 00:53:20.090 --> 00:53:21.048 AUDIENCE: Yeah, no, no. 00:53:21.048 --> 00:53:22.510 I was just wondering how that-- 00:53:22.510 --> 00:53:23.176 STUDENT 1: Yeah. 00:53:23.176 --> 00:53:27.302 Usually what happens is even if after maybe a couple turns 00:53:27.302 --> 00:53:29.260 of playing through, they start to get the idea. 00:53:29.260 --> 00:53:32.410 The problem is that as the water starts to rise, 00:53:32.410 --> 00:53:36.880 they haven't prepared enough, and so all their toys will 00:53:36.880 --> 00:53:39.757 starve or get carried away by the waves, which 00:53:39.757 --> 00:53:42.090 is a bit unfortunate and probably makes the players feel 00:53:42.090 --> 00:53:43.006 bad on the first time. 00:53:43.006 --> 00:53:44.632 But then they-- It actually teaches 00:53:44.632 --> 00:53:45.840 them to think ahead about it. 00:53:45.840 --> 00:53:48.204 So the next playthrough, they're much more careful 00:53:48.204 --> 00:53:48.953 and understanding. 00:53:52.817 --> 00:53:55.725 AUDIENCE: So I was wondering if you 00:53:55.725 --> 00:54:00.530 were playing any other games or thinking about other games 00:54:00.530 --> 00:54:03.090 as inspiration or thinking about how 00:54:03.090 --> 00:54:05.592 to deal with some of-- hitting the right level 00:54:05.592 --> 00:54:09.860 of strategic thinking in your game. 00:54:09.860 --> 00:54:13.760 STUDENT 2: Well, so I guess in terms of early on, because we 00:54:13.760 --> 00:54:17.110 had a very different idea of what we wanted to do it 00:54:17.110 --> 00:54:18.340 early on in the process. 00:54:18.340 --> 00:54:21.390 We were thinking about games like Civilization and how 00:54:21.390 --> 00:54:24.680 did they communicate all these complex worker movements 00:54:24.680 --> 00:54:27.050 and managing multiple cities. 00:54:27.050 --> 00:54:31.050 But once we actually came up with this game concept, 00:54:31.050 --> 00:54:35.610 I think we had much, much smaller goals, 00:54:35.610 --> 00:54:40.780 and so did we have any specific game models, do you think, or? 00:54:40.780 --> 00:54:43.660 STUDENT 1: There's none that I specifically think of. 00:54:43.660 --> 00:54:46.800 There were some things that we were sort of inspired by, 00:54:46.800 --> 00:54:49.260 standard tricks like when you hover 00:54:49.260 --> 00:54:51.380 over one of the characters, they got bigger. 00:54:51.380 --> 00:54:54.202 Some idea of showing off that this is clickable, 00:54:54.202 --> 00:54:54.910 things like that. 00:54:54.910 --> 00:54:59.143 But specific games themselves, not really. 00:54:59.143 --> 00:54:59.684 AUDIENCE: OK. 00:54:59.684 --> 00:55:02.660 I was just thinking it ended up being kind of board-game-y. 00:55:02.660 --> 00:55:05.340 And I feel like there's a lot of board games 00:55:05.340 --> 00:55:08.384 where they've been thinking a lot about getting 00:55:08.384 --> 00:55:14.168 that right level of tactics rather than strategy. 00:55:14.168 --> 00:55:15.614 But yeah. 00:55:15.614 --> 00:55:17.060 I guess it worked out too. 00:55:20.450 --> 00:55:22.090 AUDIENCE: So you mentioned that you 00:55:22.090 --> 00:55:24.950 were able to change how your workers looked 00:55:24.950 --> 00:55:26.465 and just keep your models. 00:55:26.465 --> 00:55:29.928 So that's the holy grail of object-oriented programming, 00:55:29.928 --> 00:55:31.792 that you have an object that's reusable 00:55:31.792 --> 00:55:34.220 and you don't have to throw out the code. 00:55:34.220 --> 00:55:36.387 Do you think there's a reason why in particular you 00:55:36.387 --> 00:55:37.470 were able to achieve that? 00:55:37.470 --> 00:55:40.212 Because I think that's not common, necessarily, 00:55:40.212 --> 00:55:41.503 in object-oriented programming. 00:55:45.450 --> 00:55:48.050 STUDENT 2: Partially a little bit of OCD-ness, 00:55:48.050 --> 00:55:50.240 like, very early on, very strictly 00:55:50.240 --> 00:55:53.610 saying we're going to write this object-oriented code, 00:55:53.610 --> 00:55:55.860 and we're not just going to hack things together. 00:55:55.860 --> 00:55:58.660 I think that helped a lot, because we actually 00:55:58.660 --> 00:56:01.680 spent the time in the very beginning to think about, like, 00:56:01.680 --> 00:56:05.780 which objects were responsible for what 00:56:05.780 --> 00:56:07.840 and what their purpose should be. 00:56:07.840 --> 00:56:11.592 So basically, I think because we moved more slowly in the start 00:56:11.592 --> 00:56:13.800 and thought more carefully about how that code should 00:56:13.800 --> 00:56:18.780 be structured, we ended up with having an easier time later on. 00:56:18.780 --> 00:56:21.470 STUDENT 1: There's also the fact that because we had learned 00:56:21.470 --> 00:56:23.700 these things from the prototype that we were putting 00:56:23.700 --> 00:56:27.880 into this game, that also meant that the objects that we 00:56:27.880 --> 00:56:31.570 created-- because we wanted similar functionality to things 00:56:31.570 --> 00:56:33.970 that we had already seen and we knew worked, 00:56:33.970 --> 00:56:36.490 it meant that we were comfortable pulling out 00:56:36.490 --> 00:56:38.970 the functionality into that. 00:56:38.970 --> 00:56:42.840 So I don't want to say it was designed to fit, 00:56:42.840 --> 00:56:48.419 but there was the fact that we moved it on purpose, really. 00:56:48.419 --> 00:56:50.252 AUDIENCE: I would like to something on that. 00:56:50.252 --> 00:56:54.110 So we had a very good MVC model. 00:56:54.110 --> 00:56:58.119 So models were in this tree-like structure, 00:56:58.119 --> 00:57:00.584 and it was very easy to change models. 00:57:00.584 --> 00:57:03.570 So models knew about-- Sorry. 00:57:03.570 --> 00:57:05.620 User knew about models, but models 00:57:05.620 --> 00:57:06.870 had no idea about [INAUDIBLE]. 00:57:06.870 --> 00:57:08.370 So basically, it was quite easy. 00:57:14.070 --> 00:57:15.270 PROFESSOR: Thank you. 00:57:15.270 --> 00:57:16.170 STUDENT 1: Thank you. 00:57:16.170 --> 00:57:19.520 [APPLAUSE]