Coding in Narrative

Design Experience

I chose Scratch to design this program. As I started and continued coding, I began to recognize patterns. This increased my understanding of how coding works. This ended up being really fun and a little deifying as I really started to feel as if I had control of a world. Some things I learned about coding is that order and placement is important. For an example, I accidentally put the “wait” code slightly lower than it should have been in my code matrix and my car barely moved as a result. When I caught the mistake and moved the block up my car returned to normal speed. This really emphasized to me how detailed oriented coding is in order to garner the desired results. I personally really loved the different colors for the different coding types as it helped me recognize the different coding types quickly and visually see in the coding matrix the action steps my objects would be taking in the game.

Coding Proposal

Title: Get Away to a Car Racing Game!

Concept Overview: This is a simple car racing game in which 2 players can race against each other while attempting to get a speed boost and they have to avoid the grass to stay in the race!  Who will make it to the next lap along this curvaceous route?

Statement of Need: Initially I wanted to create a game that focused on educating people more about the pandemic and safe practices. But honestly, I struggled to figure out how to code for it. So, I pivoted and reasoned that since I advocate in my anxiety calming video that people should do a completely different activity to help get their minds off their stressors that I can create a game that does just that. As a result, I created a game that is not based on the pandemic and allows people to have a breather from the constant news and information about it. A car racing game is a classic game that most if not all people have played at some point in in their life so it’s nostalgic and people won’t have to learn or process any new information, which helps with both cognitive load and reducing anxiety. People can just relax and let their fingers go on autopilot and loose themselves in a world free of stress, sickness and death. 

Concept Description: The game starts off with 2 cars which have separate controls. 2 people are meant to play the game at the same time. They each race to grab the coin which will give them a speed boost. If they touch the grass then it’s game over and participants will need to start the game again. The person to make complete a lap first is the winner. 

Target audience: The target audience is for people ages 4 and up. 

Learning Goals: 

• Players will be able to learn switch their minds to a different topic as a way to alleviate stress
• Players will learn the navigation rules of the game.

Learning Theories: 

• Flow Theory (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975):  The notion that you become extremely involved in an activity, in this case the game that you lose sense of time, self, consciousness, etc. Being this engaged helps people remember as much about the game and the information learned in it. 

References

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. 1975. Play and intrinsic rewards. Humanistic Psych. 15 41–63.