DUNWASTIN TOWN

Created in a team of 7 as part of the Abertay University "Profesional Project" unit, Dunwastin Town is a prototype edutainment game made for Android devices, created for Zero Waste Scotland.

It features a character creation system, a small town to explore, five unique minigames and a polished progression system. The game was designed to educate about Food Waste and possible solutions, with every choice having research behind it.

I took the roles of Producer, Designer and Programmer. Additionally, I was responsible for communication between the clients and team.

Casual Design for Mobile Devices

Each of the five minigames came from collaborative brainstorming sessions based on research conducted, and I was responsible for taking two of them from ideas to a fleshed-out experience.

As well as needing to represent an aspect of food waste, the games had to be easy to play for a casual audience, and fun enough to return to. Of particular importance was using the unique methods of interaction which Mobile Phones offer and the design process involved playing and researching popular mobile games to understand the moment to moment sources of entertainment.

Emotional Connection

We felt that a key aspect of educating about food waste, a topic which has a major impact on our daily lives, was creating an emotional connection between the player and the game.

To this end we created a small town which the player can improve as they play, reflecting the positive changes that are possible.

Additionally, the client requested that we have food avatars, and we added a customisation system to better reflect the player within the game.

The final prototype included a polished progression system which linked the Town, minigames and subject matter together, to create a complete playing experience.

Programming for Mobile

As well as programming the two minigames I designed, I was also responsible for creating the audio, progression, text and loading systems.

Programming for mobile created some interesting additional challenges. I implemented a custom input handling script, which could work on PC as well as mobile to make testing faster while ensuring it would work on Mobile from the get go.

Of course optimisation was also vital, and I worked with the other programmers to ensure that every script was as efficient as possible.

Production & Planning

We were aware that tackling multiple minigames could lead to production issues, so I created a plan for each game under which groups could work independently, presenting to the team in general at milestones. As well as giving us all a vocabulary with which to assess our progress, it allowed me to quickly find blockages within a games pipeline.