Language Learning Game in VR
Our brief for this project was simply to create an arcade style game that would help someone to learn a different language - in only 1 week. My partner for this project, Kate Linn, and I sat down to discuss what VR could bring to the table that apps like DuoLingo or Rosetta Stone couldn't. My first inspiration was memory palaces - spatialized memory aiding in learning and recollection. When we started to think about how this might be applied to a gaming environment, and most importantly one that felt like the right place to be learning vocabulary, a store concept started to form.
The Game
From these ideas came another one - Supermarket Sweep, a TV competition from the 90's where players would run through a grocery store to collect certain items. This became our jumping off point: A game where the player collects items from a list that is in a different language. With a fun environment, a fast pace, and a lot of reinforcement of the vocabulary it could be fun and effective! I decided a retro-style would be the easiest to make quaint and quirky, like a 50s supermarket playing elevator music mixed with a Jetson's future with floating carts and robot helpers.
Constructing the Market
Due to the time constraint, we decided to keep the visuals simple and easy to relate to. This comes fairly easily for a supermarket (initial sketch in blender shown below) , but is a little harder when you start to model out the items to be retrieved. While we could have purchased ready-made assets, I wanted to take on the challenge of simplifying fruits and vegetables down to their most primitive representations. Then there was the cart and robot - I was especially happy with the robot because prior to this project I had not animated a model and the constant up-down movement added so much to the character once you were in the game.
Effective Language Learning
There were several aspects of the game that we focused on from the beginning as essential to language learning:
Reinforced Learning: all of the items in the store would, if you picked them up, be spoken aloud in the target language, linking the visual with the auditory, and eventually the written word.
Variable Content: a store can hold any number of things - objects scaled up and down, objects in motion, objects able to be described with adjectives. This leaves room for a hugely scalable vocabulary game.
Fun Gameplay: obviously the game needs to be fun in order for players to come back and use it as a learning tool. We found that the mere task of throwing objects into the cart could be fun with the right feedback and with the cart moving around autonomously. This paired with a timer and progressively more difficult vocab really did the trick!
Reinforced Learning: all of the items in the store would, if you picked them up, be spoken aloud in the target language, linking the visual with the auditory, and eventually the written word.
Variable Content: a store can hold any number of things - objects scaled up and down, objects in motion, objects able to be described with adjectives. This leaves room for a hugely scalable vocabulary game.
Fun Gameplay: obviously the game needs to be fun in order for players to come back and use it as a learning tool. We found that the mere task of throwing objects into the cart could be fun with the right feedback and with the cart moving around autonomously. This paired with a timer and progressively more difficult vocab really did the trick!
Earworms
There is a universal cliche to supermarket music. Having worked in a grocery store myself for many years, I had a clear idea of what I wanted to compose for this experience. I created three themes: a relaxed main menu theme, one sped up for gameplay, and a theme for gameover.
Main Menu Theme
Gameplay Theme
Gameover Theme