Stephane Zerbib: Master Of The Mall, An RPG For The Classroom http://youtu.be/ZZfM9CMuK_Q Computer games seem to motivate young people in a way that formal education doesn't. It is repeatedly pointed out that young people of their own volition choose to spend many hours playing complex computer games outside school. Games, it seems, 'have something', they seem to have a way of engaging and interesting young people. The desire to harness this motivational power to encourage young people to want to learn is the main driver behind an interest in computer games for learning.

1. An RPG for the Classroom
Stephane Zerbib
stephane@wasabidigital.com.au

2. Who is WASABI?

4. Video intro

5. What is Master of the Mall?
•Online RPG game
•played in the classroom
•And as homework
•12 month in production

6. Context
•Commissioned by Office of Fair Trading
•Players: 12-15 y.o. Students
•Teach young people :
•their rights and responsibilities
•as shoppers
•and workers
•Best manage the transition from school to work
•Empowering young consumers and workers

7. Learnings for Students
refunds Phone coverage gift certificate
warranties Ringtones hairdresser
credit notes applying for Credit card Minimum hours
comparison buying online Sick leave and penalty rates
for WE hours
dual pricing online scam Breaks at work
Bait and switch bogus work from home scheme holiday pay for casual
Lay-bys credit contract unpaid trial work
Misleading advertising computerised scanning employee responsibility
Phone Contracts bag search till shortages

8. Our Concepts
•4 months in concept development iterations
•“Hunt’m Down”
•Catch rogue vampires
•Play pirates
•Hunt Aliens
•Trivial Pursuit
•Online board game
•Virtual theme park

9. RPG for the classroom!
•Settled on game mechanics first
•Isometric virtual mall world
•Quest based
•Avatar based
•Narrative based
•Quiz/brain training mechanics
•Micro-games relevant to learnings

10. Narrative
•Game starts like a late night TVC
•Spruiker, our shifty Master of the Mall invites
players join a competition to promote his new
venture.
•The prize? Anything and everything in the mall is
there for the winner’s taking!

11. Narrative
•Our Biggest challenge: achieve simplicity
•So much content, had to create flexible narrative
structure that made sense
•Overarching narrative guides the player through:
•Minigames
•Transactions
•Mission mechanics and Q rewards

12. Process
•after 4 months in concept dev worried about
looming delivery dates
•Agreed on the core game mechanics
•started dev while ironing details
•That were more than details
•the RPG format being extremely well defined this
helped
•while the bulk of the creative work then became
scripts development and mini-games

13. Art
•important but not 1st priority
•build the whole game with temp art
•when mechanics working then move toe acual
design
•created early design to satisfy the client curiosity
•educated client in not getting attached to art and
focus on outcome

38. Microgames

48. A Balancing Act
•A balance of learning and fun for young people
through:
•mission-based story telling,
•quizzes
•And mini-games.
•Injects fun and humour into the learning
experience.

49. Where to from here?
•Deployed in NSW, licensed to other state agencies
•Localised for other states needs
•Information-heavy concepts can be successfully
blended with a fun game format
•Detached the content from the gameplay
•Ready to apply the game model and our learning
to future game projects

50. http://preview.wasabidigital.com.au/games/MotM/deploy/
user: wasaprev
password: w4s4prev