Play here!
Improvements made
Meaning and learning goal of this game:
The comments that I got from Gilbert, Christina, and a few other students suggested that the story itself is really fun, but then it is difficult to figure out the actual goal of this game. In other words, what is it trying to teach?
This was a fair comment because i started this off with the story, not with a learning goal in mind. However, after doing more machine learning assignments and learning about the techniques and implementations of machine learning, the goal clarified as follows:
As people with the technological knowledge, we have a responsibility to think about the consequences of developing the technology.
The protagonist’s character has been developed further as a young adult that works at McDonalds due to his financial circumstances, but
If you follow the benign ending, it leads to the newly written extensions about what happens afterwards. The other ones were also extended, but not to as significant an extent as the intended ending, which is the one in which you turn in the wizard.
In this ending, the protagonist enters Stanford and gets a machine learning lab opportunity. It turns out that that’s the lab that produced the initial chips, and he is faced with an important moral dilemma in terms of how to deal with that difficult situation.
The one that produces the happiest, but somewhat bittersweet result, is the one in which one is thoughtful about the consequences of mindless research, and is able to communicate that to others.
Writing improvements:
From my playtests, I received feedback that sometimes it is difficult to see who’s saying what. Also, there were some typos and bugs that I needed to fix.
I made the following adjustments:
1) Fixed all typos.
2) The protagonists quotes are single quotes, and everyone else’s quotes are double quotes.
3) There are no longer choices that lead to unresolved dead-ends, and to prevent confusion, there are no single-line choices without non-choice texts.
Other extensions:
I added music and photos to the game.
Notable musical additions are as follows:
- Door sound
- Ominous sound
- McDonalds sounds (ba-ba-ba-ba-ba and I’m loving it)
- Wingardium Leviosa
- Sam Smith
I also used photos and theme changes to show where things are taking place:
- Red: McDonalds
- Road
- Mr. Zauberkurg’s House
- Basement with a lot of potatoes.
- Black: Future outside of the main plot.
Playtest Log:
Ivan
- Liked the fast pacing of the writing style.
- There are some bugs and typos which need to be fixed.
Isabelle
- Loved the story, had so much fun.
- Sometimes confusing who’s saying what.
- What is the learning goal? Extend on it.
- The ending actually did not feel abrupt at all.
Kyle
- Hilarious
- Learning goal was not initially clear.
- Typos and errors.
Elijah
- Liked that there were a lot of choices prompting the reader in the right direction.
- The learning goal actually felt clear.
Mathis
- Initially, the story was a bit confusing and the machine learning discussion was a bit distracting for as a non-CS non gamer, but really appreciated the humour in the game.
- Loved the addition of the musical elements and would like to see more of it play a part.
Nathan
- Loved the narrative development.
- The ending was really thoughtful and it reminded of the message in Everything Everywhere All At Once, about what is an important value in life. It is definitely more than just money, and liked how it was about kindness and bravery. Initially chose the right ending and it was really memorable, so went in and clicked on all three endings.
