Week 5 - Game Ideation

The brainstorming method I find the most useful is similar to the Rapid Ideation and Refinement option mentioned on Canvas this week. I take my dog on walks two-three times a day (four if I'm really feeling like spoiling him). During these walks, my standard procedure is to listen to a podcast or read a book -yes I can safely walk & read, I've got it down to an art. (The dog doesn't pull, I have our common routes very well memorized and his frequent stops to sniff are great opportunities to read.)

This walk is a great time to brainstorm, he doesn't need much attention and he is happy in that solitude. So I used one of my walks last night and a second one this afternoon for brainstorming game ideas. While walking, I brought my phone with me and just started walking, giving my mind time to just think. My first strategy was to just think of things I find important to me and jot down basic ideas in my favorite note app Google Keep as they came to me.

Photo courtesy of Flikr's @amenclinicsphotos ac

 My thoughts went to things I am the most passionate about and making some kind of story based on those topics (reading, tv shows/movies, video games, fitness, my pets.) From there I came up with a couple different ideas, but I wanted to keep generating more ideas. My thought was: the more ideas I have now, the a) better chance I'll come up with something that inspires me and b) the more ideas I'll have for future instructional designs. After these two walks, I had a pretty decent list.

My initial Google Keep notes

Next I looked at my list of ideas and decided I would choose 4-5 that I'm most interested in and feel would be able to develop further. From there I made a chart of the various Pros & Cons of each top idea. 

Page one and two of my Pro / Con chart

After this step, I looked at my chart and determined the topic I was the most interested in was designing a Choose Your Own Adventure game around my students making my choices for a Sunday full of lesson planning and distractions. My story is going to ask students to walk me through my Sunday, making sure I get all my lesson planning done, despite distractions to go to lunch or watch TV. While I was brainstorming that particular idea I felt the most confident about it and immediately wanted to start jotting out possible choices that would occur in the game.

Brainstorming notes for my #1 pick

Next I started exploring Twine more in-depth. I put my initial paths into the software that I had already generated from my quick brainstorming sessions to make sure I had a good grasp on how to use the software. As I started working, more ideas kept flowing but a large number of them lead to long paths that will take some time to work out.

Quick brainstorming session on Twine.

Around the same time a friend of mine who teaches fifth grade in California sent me her Daily Agenda Google Slides to give me some inspiration (this would be a great time to say that last week I accepted a position to teach fifth grade here in Cedar Rapids. School is already in session so it's a little chaotic and I realized as I read browsed through her slides that my Bitmoji avatar would be a great resource for use in my story! I consulted my brainstorming notes and what I had already added to Twine in determining what Bitmoji photos may be the most helpful in my story.

Agenda courtesy of Emily Hill

Saved Bitmojis for my story

Having these Bitmoji's stored in my Google Drive should allow for the rest of my storyboarding to go smoothly. Browsing through Bitmoji's various options also served to inspire me further, I made sure to jot down possible choices to consider based on things I noticed in Bitmoji. Doing these brainstorming activities has inspired me in my story creation and gotten me extremely excited to proceed to the next step. I can't wait to see what my end product looks like and I am confident that I will be using it in my new classroom sometime this upcoming school year. Thanks for reading my long winded blog post, see you next time!