Project Title: Make a Change: Fact Finder
Development: ActionScript 3.0 / FlashDevelop
My Role: Framework / Gameplay / Systems Programmer
Project Staff: Amanda Crispel, Adam Walker, Joann Patel, Joseph Manley
Designers (Make a Change): Jovan Ellis, Amanda Crispel, Naomi Fambro
Artists (Make a Change): Brook Chipman, Hadara White, Mary Burbridge
Programmers (Make a Change): Robert Hacker, Vincent Loignon, Evan Schipellite
Designers (Fact Finder): Jovan Ellis, Amanda Crispel
Artists (Fact Finder): Hadara White
Programmers (Fact Finder): Evan Schipellite
Fact Finder represents one of the game structures created by Champlain College's Emergent Media Center for the Harassment Awareness project. The over-arching goal of the project is to utilize social media, narrative, and video games in order to provide lesson curriculums to inform a student audience about the realities surrounding sexual harassment and assault at colleges. The project also intends to openly discuss some of the more vague grey-lines between harassment and acceptable interactions, while also providing overt access to harassment reporting procedures and college documentation.
For the duration of about three months I worked as a programmer on several different prototypes during the project's brainstorming and pre-production phases. Eventually, four prototypes were chosen to move forward: Head Space, Change of Heart, Time Out, and Fact Finder. While all of the programmers were involved in the complete codebase, each programmer took ownership of at least one developing prototype. As such, Time Out and Fact Finder represent two of the four projects that I primarily assisted in progressing toward their beta stages.
Overall, Fact Finder was relatively simple develop. The systems are based upon the process of transferring, checking, and containing Statement objects over the course of gameplay. The player moves the Statement objects to different categories and submits the placements for validation. The only complex piece is represented by the fact that Statement objects also have different visual states they can display. Statement objects are visibly different depending on if they are in the Character Pool, Category, or held by the mouse. Despite this, there is still a simple process of displaying the correct quantities depending on the requested state proposed by the holding container.
Although the game went through various tweaks over development, the overall system of transferring statements and changing their visuals remained constant. At one point, there was an additional system labeled as the Contradiction Category. This Category initially accepted two Statements, and via button press, would check to see if the narrative pieces conveyed invalid information. For instance, if character A stated they were not present at the party, but character B notified the player that character A was present; this Category would offer insight into the validity of both statements. However, due to the complexity in terms of designing this feature, it was eventually dropped in favor of a simpler game progression.
The overall presentation of Fact Finder represents a system that will likely undergo further changes within all disciplines, but its core intent, to provide a thought-intensive conclusion to narrative chapters will likely remain the same. The structure reads from xml files in a manner that will enable easy transitions to various levels and games, and art assets for the Statement visuals can be easily be amended via the code with new types of display objects.
The system for handling Statements can also undergo further adjustments, as it is relatively simple to add new containers by allowing the event system to inform all containers of transfers. Further polishing and improvements will likely need to be conducted in the areas of animation, as at the current time, the game represents a beta display of core mechanics, but it is likely that additional feedback interactions will need to be implemented to enhance the quality of the gameplay.