VR Fiets Internship
Client: ChangeFied
Service: Game Design and Research
Period: 5 months
Platform: VR
Website: https://en.changefied.nl/
The game is meant for autistic children to practice traffic rules safely inside the classroom. Learning from books or on the real road is often difficult, and in-person practice is often not feasible for teachers to provide. This is where the game allows children to learn to ride a bike in a safe environment. I was the game designer for the new VR Fiets curriculum and created the levels and objectives for the game.
The game project was done for multiple VR modules. The internship was five months. I had done hybrid work of two days remote and three days in the office.
Tasks and Responsibilities
My role for the project was game designer. I was the first game designer in the office, and my goal was to define the game and set development guidelines.
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Created Game Design Document and organized level content
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Moodboards of content, problems on the road, and the environment to help visualize for the team the intention of the game mode
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Defined the game concept and controls
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Level prototypes in the existing engine and game level
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Research on how autistic kids struggle on the road and learn traffic rules.
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Testing in person with kids and observing gameplay.
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Communication with the team, receiving feedback, and updating on progress
Challenges
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Create a level and a new game mode in an existing IP with the same target audience in mind
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Researching into a niche audience and testing with them
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Creating a curriculum of levels to teach TAs how to navigate a bike in NL
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Design a map that can be reused multiple times for levels with different objectives for optimization.
Below is a map of the level I designed and the location of triggers planned by me for the programmer to implement in their system.
Learnings and Takeaways
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How to research niche topics and make game elements out of them
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Interviewing experts about their topic and involving them in the curriculum to teach the most difficult parts that cannot be done in a classroom, but in practice
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How to collaborate with leaders and work on an existing IP
