Mini Games

Something Magical (Circuits)














Creative story still in the works. Possible ideas are that the princesses are trying to save a town from flooding by redirecting water; another is that they are trying to power something with magic (that is, magic in place of electricity)

This mini-game uses drag & drop mechanics to drag wires and resistors into the correct position to complete the circuit. The board will be set up as a grid (here 5x7) with a battery and light-bulbs in place. There will not be moveable. The player must drop wires to connect the battery and light-bulbs. The circuit is complete where there are wires connecting the light-bulb to the battery, though there are multiple ways to do this.

The challenge comes with batteries of different power, more light-bulbs, and different configurations. The player will learn simple circuit rules through the rules of the game. For example, in the level 2 set-up there is a higher power battery, as indicated by the double lightning bolts. If the player tries to connect the light-bulb to the battery directly, the light-bulb will fry from too much power.

Each level gives you 3 light-bulbs to burn out, before booting you from the mini-game and making you start over.

The players will learn how different types of resistors will interact with the battery and bulb. On the right, too strong of a resistor has been put in (3 squiggle instead of 2). The light-bulb does not have enough power.

Finally, we see that a 2 squiggle resistor (where the number of squiggles is proportional to how much they resist the battery) is strong enough to prevent burning out the bulb, but weak enough to let the bulb glow!

The game also must be able to handle many right answers, as the resistor can be placed anywhere in the path between the battery and bulb.

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IDEA: DRAGON DROP (have to warm a nest to hatch an egg)

Sheep (coding)
The story behind this mini-game is that the princesses are helping someone program their robot dog to herd their sheep into the pen (indicated by the gate).

This mini-game uses drag & drop mechanics to drag code pieces from a menu and drop them into the code box (the bottom half of the paper). The code pieces stick together and are run through an interpreter that moves the dog (on the upper half of the paper) around the field.

The player beats a level when they successfully program the dog to herd all the sheep through the gate. Level difficulty is changed by adjusting the layout of obstacles in the field and changing the complexity of the code fragments.

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Cat (physics)
In this mini-game, the princesses are helping to rescue someone's cat from a tree. Previously to playing the mini-game, the princesses have to talk to the townspeople and ask them to donate their furniture to help build a structure to reach the cat. Once the princesses ask enough townspeople, they can play the mini-game.

This is a physics-based drag and drop game. The player drags furniture pieces from their inventory onto the playing screen to place it on the ground. As the player builds up more pieces, they will have to be mindful of the structural integrity of the furniture. When the player presses a "go" button, the furniture pieces become bound by the rules of gravity as the cat tries to walk down them. If the cat cannot make it down, the player tries again.

Different levels can have trees of different heights and furniture pieces that are more/less difficult to build with. They might also have cats that are better or worse at climbing.

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_FORCETOC__

Character Selection Screen (UI)
A fundamental mechanism of this game is the personalization of the avatar by the player. Because representation plays such a key factor in the positive experience, we want to give the player a high level of customizability for their avatar, so that they don't feel like they are shoehorned into playing the story of a generic looking protagonist. Rather, our aim is to help them create an avatar that they can identify with, and whose strengths and story-arc they can internalize. The character selection options are laid out on a grid, with a model representation of the current selections on the right hand side. There are 5 rows: Hair, Torso, Legs, Shoes, and Color. Each row has 5 columns, each containing a different style within the row. Color refers to the color of the currently selected trait, and can be different for each row. Below the grid, there is a skin-tone slider. The slider is important for skin tone because it allows for the creation of a highly personal avatar, through one of the more salient features of physical identity.