Inspired by our beach clean-up experiences, we decided to design a game that simulates the journey of a sea turtle to promote the importance of recycling. By experiencing the sea turtle's dangerous living environment/ situating themselves on the sea turtle’s dangerous living environment. Then players can press start to begin their "saving turtle" journey and simply use the keyboard to control the movement of the character.
Our target learners are fourth graders in Taiwan who don't understand the importance of recycling and using reusable bags.
Learners will recognize the importance of environmental protection after experiencing the sea turtle's living environment, and start avoiding using disposable plastic bags, straws, and bottles.
Game development, Learning experience designer
In the research process, we noticed that there were many complaints against the policy which is to charge people money for single-use plastic bags. This policy has been in effect in Taiwan for many years however some people still complain about this policy. We also did research on how plastics might cause devastating impact on sea turtles because the turtles will ingest plastics. It's not just ingesting plastics that cause harm for turtles but being entangled by the plastics will kill them too.
There is a need to educate the next generation to understand the importance of recycling and the possible harmful impact of plastics.
In the design process, we identified the problem first and began thinking what would be the best ways to engage students. As a result, we developed this small game to simulate the journey to engage students in this learning process. The game is more student-centered and students can take agency in the this problem-solving process. In the beginning, we try to let the "turtle" speak to players as instructions.
Originally, we tried to design a game to make students learn to identify different categories of trash and to teach them how to recycle in their daily lives. But we found that it is too intentional, just like a chocolate-covered broccoli. Messages are so explicit that students might find it boring and not able to engage themselves in the game so we decided to change the mechanism.
The main character needs to move and avoid the coming trash, or it will die. We designed different levels for players as they progress.
We created different sprites/characters and edited different codes behind the scene. We created animations and simulated how the turtle floats under the sea.
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