Course Summary - Phase 2

The very first post on this blog recaps the first main phase of our Scholastic Collab Studio Fall 07. The narrative ends with the submission of five different creative briefs that present full-fledged interpretations of what a Monster Quest game could look like.

Phase II of the Collab Studio was kicked off with a new Monster Quest creative brief that was created by the instructors based on the content in the student creative briefs. The new brief was entitled Mail Order Monsters. The core vision for the game was as follows:

As the possessor of a mysterious (and magic) catalog of monster costumes, the player buys fantastical outfits that, when worn, transport him to a dreamlike realm where he is transformed into a powerful creature c.f. Ben Ten. In this realm he is the Guardian of a small tribe of humans (and other players are Guardians of different tribes). The player plays mini-games, goes on quests, and explores the realm to help, protect, and grow his tribe.

The core elements that made up the brief included:

• Collecting - The player has an avatar that can collect, improve and level up multiple magical monster suits/costumes.

• User generated content - The player can craft her own suits and customize pre-crafted suits/costumes.

• Mini-gaming - Part of the game experience involves playing mini-games.

• Questing - Part of the game experience involves questing and RPG style gaming.
  

• Community - Players can show off their collections to each other and in massively multi-player environments.
  

In addition these core elements, the brief also left the space open for better solutions to the possibility of user-generated quests, one of the core design concepts from the original Monster Quest brief.

The Mail Order Monster brief was presented to the class and a lively discussion ensued. The class was then broken into four teams -- two to work on visual design and two to work on game design. The efforts of the teams were meant to be complimentary but also overlapping and competitive in a friendly sort of way. The goal was for each team to attack a set of well-defined design problems and then present those solutions to the larger group, including outside visitors from the Scholastic Lab for Informal Learning.

Below you can read posts from three of the four teams describing their efforts in Phase II. With the completion of their work, we have moved into phase III, with all members of the class cohering around a single design vision, team roles and execution plan in preparation for presenting a final conceptual prototype on December 12.