Indie game combines role-playing elements with education

MANILA, Philippines – During the Philippine Game Dev Expo (PGDX) last month, a popular independent game called “High Chance of Misadventures” caught the attention of most of the attendees. Developed by university students, the game combines two unlikely things — a role-playing game (RPG) with arguably one of the toughest mathematical concepts to grasp, probability.

"It is essentially a rock-paper-scissors game where you don’t have full control but instead shift your chances. We decided to create this type of game because we wanted to see the effectiveness of games in learning. Since games are becoming more popular, we wanted to see how they would help in learning or teaching," said Ricielle Singian, one of the game’s designers.

Following in the footsteps of their seniors who presented their projects in last year’s PGDX, the team decided to do the same and was overjoyed to connect with gamers and fellow developers.

"The attendees were more curious because they saw the word ‘mathematics’. There were some that were intimidated because it’s math but after explaining to them [that] it's simple mathematics, they decided to give it a try. Most found it fun and interesting and could be a good thing for the education system here. Some we’re willing to give suggestions as to how to improve the game and we took them into account," added Singian.

The game is still under development and is part of the students' research, but the team hopes it can be used as an effective learning aid for schools to include in their curriculum in the future.

For more information on High Chance of Misadventures, please visit their Facebook page.

Games for a greater purpose

PGDX has hosted many student developed games that have a driving purpose as it is part of the students' capstone project for their Bachelor of Science in Interactive Entertainment Major in Game Development course as offered by the De La Salle University.

Speaking to Philstar.com, Associate Professor Neil Patrick Del Gallego explained that the capstone project is a one-year program that begins during a student's fourth year with the course and tasks them to develop a game with a faculty adviser.

Games like High Chance of Misadventures and?SEAker, a 3D hidden objects game that tasks players to clean the increasing pollutants present in the Philippine marine ecosystem, as well as Street Smart, a puzzle game that advocates for active transportation as an alternate solution to the current traffic congestion the country is facing, were among those produced by students undergoing their capstone project.

"Since we need to offer the BS Interactive Entertainment program that also aligns with the?university's mission and values, as well as the UN's sustainable development goals (SDG), advocacy games such as these are perfect for attaining these goals. It is not a hard requirement for a capstone project," said Gallego.

He adds, "We believe there's no easy course. In our institution, we always push our students to meet the industry standards. For game arts and design, one would need a very good eye for detail, as 3D asset creation that is of AAA standard must be done meticulously.? For the game development program, it is akin to a computer science program, where students are expected to be good at math, like linear algebra and trigonometry, as these are commonly used in game programming and computer graphics."

Though local acceptance in the academe for game development has evolved throughout the years, with more universities offering courses in game development and the like, Gallego believes there are still areas that can be improved on.

"Pursuing and publishing high-impact research in the field of game development, especially disseminating it in high-impact venues (e.g., scholarly conferences and journals) [is the thing to be improved the most]. We are one of the few universities that publishes research in the field of computer graphics, game development, game HCI, and we believe we should be encouraging fellow academia to dedicate time to pursuing research, not just advising various capstone projects, putting it in a book-bound document, and then calling it a day. This also creates a positive loop of educators being up-to-date with the latest techniques in the field of games, which allows them to keep their teaching materials updated while boosting our country's reputation internationally as a knowledge contributor," he said.

For more information about De La Salle University’s game-based projects and other works in the field of computer graphics and interactive techniques, readers can go to the official DLSU GAME Lab Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/DLSUGAMELab