The Kathmandu Kids Entertainment Workshops - Entertaining the Whole World - page 11

Fig. 2.7 Students at
Rudrayanee with the canvas
at the back
Fig. 2.8 The avatars ( a ) and
the sock puppets ( b )
The organizers developed a simple game consisting of a pair of sock puppets and
their avatar alter egos (represented by a singer and a conductor) to examine how
children relate to the puppets and the avatars, whether they can learn the rule set
behind a game through a pure process of discovery (i. e. without being given the
rules) and whether they would continue to play the game and re-enact the rules of the
game when the power fails and thus the avatars vanish from the screen and all they
are left with are the sock puppets and the set of rules they have learned (Fig. 2.8 ).
The game consisted of a simple set of mechanics. When the singer sock puppet
opened his mouth the singer avatar started singing, and when the conductor puppet
opened his mouth the conductor avatar waved his baton. In addition, if the conductor
avatar waved his baton at the same time the singer avatar was singing the singer
avatar changed his tune.
The game was governed by a set of two rules: The first rule was that the puppet
(operated by a player) controls the avatar appearing on the screen. To enact this
rule the player had to interact with the computer. The second rule was that the
player/puppet/avatar control each other. To enact this rule the players had to interact
with each other. Each play session started with the power supply on and thus a fully
functioning computer and ended with a simulated power failure which disabled the
computer and left the children holding the sock puppets in hand.
It was hoped that if the children can discover/learn these rules in the digital game
(Fig. 2.9 , left) they would be more likely to enact them when the electricity supply
failed and the computer ceases to function (Fig. 2.9 , right) and that the sock puppets
coupled with the learned rules and a sense of play would provide an engaging (and
hopefully an equally engaging) experience (Fig. 2.10 ).