I've been asked to write a simple educational game, about the dangers of alcohol. It is aimed at teenagers of both sexes. The brief is pretty simple: what is wanted is effectively a series of multiple-choice questions. These questions will be supplied to me. On the technical side, it also needs to be small enough to be made by a couple of people (one coder, one artist) or so. The trick is trying to make it fun and rewarding while still being educational. My initial thought was to make it networked, so that people could compete directly against each other: answering the questions correctly would further your 'progress' (however that is defined in game terms) and also hinder your opponents. However, there are two problems with this. Firstly, I'm not convinced that girls are too keen on this sort of direct competition, and secondly it would not teach people to think - they would just do whatever they could to get the question right as fast as possible. Basing aptitude on speed doesn't seem to work here. So, can anyone see a way in which multiplayer could work? Or if not, how do you suggest I go about translating dull, patronising questions into something fun?

There are many possibilities to turn this idea into a game. First of all you have to think about the scope. What schedule do you have ? How about resources? If this is a small short time project, you should first put aside the multiplayer idea. Not because it's too difficult programming-wise, but because it is very hard to create something fun from a questionary if you go multiplayer and have basically no idea how to turn it into a game in the first place.

To me it seems to be most fun to make it some kind of adventure game (the Lucas Arts type of adventure, just not point-and-click). All answers can be integrated into a story (this being related to the questions of course) if possible. The different answers would either create different paths or cut-scenes.

Also remember that if you make a game out of it, the player will try to answer the questions right mainly to succeed the game anyway. So your worries about trying to get people to think are unfounded - it is wishful thinking to achieve this 'magically'. Regardless of the media that is used.

Try to make it fun and keep competitive aspects marginal. The target audience will be confronted with the topic and if wrong answers lead to some dissatisfaction (not necessarily resulting in 'loosing' the game) and right answers will be rewarded, there is a small chance that they earn something.

As in most forms of education you simply cannot force people to learn something. Creating some awareness and sensitising them, however, is both possible and challanging enough [smile].

Good luck,
Pat.

Parents always talk about the "consequences" of drinking...but you have the chance to show them...

What I mean is...if you give players several tasks you might show them the "effects" of doing those tasks after taking alcohol.

A simple scenario would of course be driving (you can emotionalize it by putting a baby sister or grandmother or best friend in the car) while drunk. Of course it would be easy without alcohol, but you would lower their responsiveness and cause them to crash after taking alcohol.

Dont forget social situations. We've all seen people that look like IDIOTS after theyve had something to drink. Make a party scenario where you have to impress someone of the opposite sex and that persons friends...and after drinking you talk like an idiot...and you get ostracized the next day at school.

Those are just two possibilities. I think if you link drinking----> scenario ----> consequence...you might just creep inside their brain and teach them something.

Just a thought.