Game Lab

Key stage 1 games are games designed for children at "key stage 1" of learning. They are very simple, and educational, to teach kids the skills they need. Since it's simple, it'd be a good thing to start taking apart before we move on to more complex games. Ah! This will be relaxing.

The game we've been given to review is "Shape lab", you figure it out easily, as there are instructions read to you as you play. We've been asked by a professor named Pablo, to hand him the shape he needs. I don't want to dissappoint the man, so I'd better get right on it.

The shapes appear under the player character in this box. They glow to indicate thier importance. I can immeadiatley tell what I have to do. I click help anyway, just in case.

It repeats the same message from the beginning. Usually this would be bad practice, but in such a simple game you can't really elaborate on it that much.

A couple extra notes I'll make before I move on. Playing in medium difficulty (strangely there is no easy mode) asks you questions relating to the number of sides on a shape. Hard difficulty has questions about shape names and ratios of shapes (1/2, 1/4) , and really hard mode just symmetry. The questions are randomised, and each round asks you five questions, however, there are more than five possible questions.

If you get a question wrong, there is no penalty except for watching the professor get an electric shock, and listening to Molly (the girl you are playing as) say she doesn't think that's the right answer (so, a time penalty? Might have an impact if you're in a hurry to complete it, but in the game, not so much. There is no time limit)

Once I had completed all five questions, the curtain pulled back and I got to see the proffessor's invention. It didn't actually do anything, and the game didn't remember my progress at all, so I felt a little disappointed my efforts had produced nothing.

At first I actually forgot to hit print screen on this one, because I was in a rush


The next part of this analysis will reference Greg Costikyan's Critical vocabulary for games-Which is written to provide a better definition for the elements of what we describe as "Gameplay". He splits it into five important segments, which I will demonstrate using this game as my ginuea pig.
(under the headline is my definition of the featured segment)

Interaction:
The player's actions affect the game

This game has interaction. You can interact with the shapes. By extension, you can interact with Pablo. It is basically just a quiz, however, little interaction is a huge way away from no interaction.


Goals:
Players make meaningful decisions to achieve a win state

The goal of this game is to get all five questions right, and build the robot you see at the end. There isn't much meaning to it, since there's no "reward", essentially. After winning one difficulty, you can move onto the next one. (If there is one)


Struggle:
Players have competition or challenge to overcome

Figuring out the correct object is the challenge of this game, however, if you don't know the answer, you can get it through trial and error, and it won't say what you got wrong, or right, so you can only put information into it, but not get any out of it. Actually that's not strictly true... I think it's possible you can learn from each question, even if you were using trial and error, you just have to know what you were doing.

Game Structure:
Shapes player behaviour, they have to obey the rules of the game

The game is completely linear, in that you answer every question in turn. It doesn't shape the behaviour much beyond simple things like how fast you can click, Or maybe the skills you've learned in the space of four or less questions.


Endogenous Meaning:
The objects in the game carry a meaning within the game

the main thing that carries meaning (and possibly the only "thing" in the game) is the shapes- their meaning is important otherwise the game would just be trial and error.



Conclusion

All in all the game is actually pretty memorable. It made me realise just how much visuals and animation contribute to an experience. If the game was just a quiz where you had to click on the correct shape, it wouldn't have felt the same, despite playing exactly the same.


Afterwards, I had a go at some of the other games to see if they went any deeper. It seemed they were all just quizzes, really. I tried the game "clock works". I only learned how to tell the time about three years ago, no joke.

Strangely, time moved slower back in those days


I felt a genuine sense of accomplishment after getting no answers wrong, despite not getting a reward for it. So I guess completing it was it's own reward after all