App Store
shirts, and stickers. Many used Google
Sites to create professional-looking
websites for their fictional companies
that included screen shots, promotional details, and videos.
Making Videos to Promote the Apps
Once the games were finished, students were ready to start marketing
the apps. First, we presented a short
lesson on how to use iMovie, and then
we examined a few gaming videos
from the Apple App Store and the
internet. These videos helped students
visualize the direction and content of
what they needed to do.
We led a discussion about what to put
in the video and key information to include. We had three main requirements:
1. They had to include a logo.
2. They had to show game footage
and include the release date.
3. The video had to be 30 seconds
long.
We offered advice about keeping images moving in the video and
suggested that no image stay on the
screen longer than 3 seconds.
This was a challenging task for many
students. Some had trouble organizing
the video or message. Others stuggled
to make their videos as long as 30 seconds. And many of them had to redo
their artwork to make the commercial
look good. They worked through all
these challenges and made great videos like the one at goo.gl/MH2Is3.
Publishing the Apps
At the conclusion of the project, students attempted to publish their apps.
The Apple App Store accepted two
of the student-created games, Super
Happy Snail Time and CoinCatch.
Super Happy Snail Time. Two eighth
grade students created this app,
which is based on one they previously
designed called Super Happy Turtle
Time. They improved on the original
by changing the logo from a turtle to
a snail, redesigning the background,
and changing the objective of the
game to collecting apples while
dodging salt. During the process, the
student developers struggled with
programming the jump command
because jumping requires a large
number of programming commands.
We suggested they use a bounce programming command instead. Once
the student replaced jumping with
bouncing, the game was complete.
CoinCatch. Two seventh grade students
created this game, which requires players to collect coins that fall from the top
of the screen. Miss a coin and you lose
a heart. When all five hearts are gone,
the game is over. The background color
changes to indicate the passage of time.
After a predetermined amount of time,
a boss—a green wallet—appears. The
wallet tries to destroy coins by moving
and shooting at them before players can
collect them.
This scenario was not easy for the
students to program. They had to set
a variable to represent the location of
each coin on the screen. Then they
programmed the boss to check for the
lowest coin on the screen. Once the
boss found the lowest coin, it would
move to the coin’s Y-axis and shoot
at it. The students also developed a
“disco mode” for CoinCatch featuring upbeat music and different background colors.
Both games are free to down-load at goo.gl/RlDFd5.
Project Reaps Impressive Results
As expected, the process of playing, testing, and creating electronic
games generated great interest among
students. We noticed that motivation levels briefly tapered off during
the middle of the project, possibly
because of an unexpected delay in
students’ ability to upload their
game to the Apple App Store. Once
students were able to upload games,
and particularly after Apple published
the first game, student engagement
increased.
When they were finally able to
upload their app, the creators of
CoinCatch decided their work wasn’t
up to a high enough standard. They
completely redesigned their app,
stating, “We need to remake our
game and make it better.” Ultimately,
it was their new version that was
accepted.
