Star Rescue: a Two-Player Bouncing Ball Game for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to Enhance Social Skills
Game Designer & Developer | ASD, Tablet Game, Interdisciplinary Collaboration
Teammates: Tong Wu (Duke Kunshan University)
Supervisors: Prof. Xin Tong (Duke Kunshan University)
Time: 02/2022-05/2022
——Project Description——
StarRescue is a two-player synchronous collaborative tablet game that aims to enhance autistic children’s social skills. It augments children’s attention paying to others, perspective-taking, and negotiation by visualizing the turn-taking collaboration process.
Demo Video
——My Role——
Based on the development and results of prior work, I mainly focused on:
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Designed and developed a new gameplay mechanism. Modified asynchronous collaboration to synchronous collaboration.
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Modified the shopping mechanism. Players need to reach a consensus in order to purchase.
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Brainstormed and designed new figures for monsters with my teammate to fit the "rescue" theme.
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Added encouraging discourse.
——Detailed Modification——
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Gameplay
Old
Asynchronous collaboration: Each player controls one paddle and takes turns hitting the bouncing ball. When it is a player's turn, the player has full control of the paddle which hinders the potential for discussion.
NEW
Asynchronous
New
Added life count down.
Added encouraging discourse and text after successfully "recusing"
a monster.
Synchronous collaboration: Two players control one paddle, with each player in charge of one end. When hitting the bouncing ball, they have to communicate and decide which direction to hit, thus enhancing collaboration. In addition, the two ends have different colors, which enables players to have a stronger sense of belonging to their particular end.
2. Monster Figures
Old Figure: Monsters fade away each time the ball hits it. Looks more like "killing" them than "rescuing" them. Not friendly with autistic children.
New Figure: Monsters are trapped in crystal balls. Each time the bouncing ball hits the crystal ball, the crystal ball cracks a bit, and would eventually break down. The new figures fit the theme of "rescue" and are more positive.
3. Shopping Mechanism
Old: Direct Purchase
