Aquaphobia

Aaron Crutchfield

Why I Made This Game

Some Things About the Gameplay

• Player controls the Recyclebot• They must track the recyclables as they

fall down in order to get points• Need 500 points to advance to next level• They have 3 lives and 4 minutes to

advance to each stage• Lose 100 points for being eaten by a shark• They win the game and help save the

ocean!

So what makes it so fun?

• I believe people will enjoy the physics I have placed into the game. I originally was going to have everything scroll across the screen but started tampering with wind, water, friction, gravity, etc. Trying to adjust to all this while avoiding sharks makes an interesting little game to sit down and play for a few minutes.

• I also found a neat little trick to factor collision detection based on the speed of the characters or the enemy’s sight range/line so touching the enemy does not always mean death and thinking you avoided an enemy is not always safe.

Target Audience

• The demographic I am trying to reach would be kindergarten through 3rd grade, so about ages 4-8. I think a game with colorful images and a little challenge will help them retain information about recycling more easily. Hopefully, they would notice things around their house that instead of throwing away, they could recycle. I hope it would lead them to do more research on a serious subject and do what they can to help.

Why this art style?• Studies have shown that children react and

gravitate towards bright colors and can often retain images and ideas from such things much more easily and for longer periods of time (hence why they can do things like recite nearly every Spongebob Squarepants episode.)

• Repetition with a wide array of bright colors is often the best way to teach young children as this stimulates their brains.

• Thus, bright colors and repetition helps their hands on learning and information retention greatly and has the best chance of education.

Final Reflections• My game changed a lot during the developing

process. Some of the reasons include:• Difficulty with hit boxes or irregular shapes• Scrolling items locked together• Individual sounds for getting points just became

annoying, so I decided only to add background music

• I would have liked to add more levels and add more little known recyclables to the levels, but too many scrolling items made for a confusing Flash code and it wouldn’t always function correctly.

Any Questions?