Design Document: Adventures of Tammy (AoT), Play your Stories

LA Nuñez
Nov 15, 2021
5 min read

One of the most treasured work of LA Nuñez during the course of their study was Adventures of Tammy (AoT). AoT was the first fully developed game that LA had produced that reached certain media; for them, AoT is not just a CAPSTONE project but a manifestation of LA's work ethics. Nevertheless, let us see the world behind Adventures of Tammy though its design document prepared and designed by LA, themself.

Preface

Adventures of Tammy(AoT) is an interactive storytelling mobile game with Augmented Reality(AR) story playback intended for ages 6 to 9 years old and above. Aside from creating an interactive storytelling mobile game, the whole concept of the AoT project aims to combine 2D assets and environments and 3D objects together in an application for kids; as well as to maximize the use of AR for added user experience.

In the Philippines, few records and studies are available about the study of 2D and 3D hybrid techniques in animation and digital arts. It is, as a challenge of today, would be a contribution in the field of digital arts and animation.

Game Concept

Adventures of Tammy

Adventures of Tammy (AoT) is an interactive mobile storytelling game with augmented story playback. AoT is a dialogue-based game intended for children ages 6-9 years old where they can choose amongst the options presented to them to unlock a story ending. It comes with narration that users can activate to help them read the story, and mini-games to test if users were able to retain a part of the story into their minds.

Platform

ANDROID. AoT will be available on any android mobile phone, granted that it reaches the minimum requirements set for the game. However, there are only limited devices that the AR feature supports.

Peg

DIALOGUE-BASED GAME. As users enter a stage, they will be presented with a story, each stage features a different story and they can open a total of three endings per stage. The users will be able to unlock different endings by going through the story and choosing amongst the dialogue choices presented to them. Each option is consequential as it branches out into different story endings.

AR STORY PLAYBACK. Each story comes with three possible endings which can be revisited and reread as an augmented reality scene.

Target Audience

KIDS AGES 6-9. This project is intended for elementary school students from grade levels 1 to 3. They are visualized to be at age 6 to 9 years old. Furthermore, this study focuses on those kids who use mobile devices on a daily basis. Furthermore, the target users may be having trouble reading and comprehending stories, which is why this project is proposed for them.

Key Features

Hybrid 2D and 3D Design

Assets and Environments, as discussed in the earlier part of the project, would take from 2D and 3D hybrid techniques. The background, or the environment, would be in 2D; while the characters would be in 3D.

Dialogue-Based Game

As users enter a stage, they will be presented with a story, each stage features a different story and they can open a total of three endings per stage. The users will be able to unlock different endings by going through the story and choosing amongst the dialogue choices presented to them. Each option is consequential as it branches out into different story endings.

AR Story Playback

Revisit the unlocked story ending through the story playback and immerse with the scene through an augmented reality technology.

Gamification

Gamification is using game elements and mechanics to engage users from something boring to engaging activity. Reading as a habit alone is difficult to instill to children, and yet they are at ease with using technology, more than ever.

Game Mechanics

Core Game play

Read, select between dialogues, and unlock an ending.

Read, guess the line from the story ending, and earn stars.

Go to library, select a story, and reread it through an AR technology.

Dialogue-based game

One of the highlights of the interactive game that uses gamification is the dialogue-based game. As users enter a stage, they will be presented with a story, each stage features a different story and they can open a total of three endings per stage. The users will be able to unlock different endings by going through the story and choosing amongst the dialogue choices presented to them. Each option is consequential as it branches out into different story endings.

As it highlights the storytelling feature, the narration was made available, as well as translations of the text. Narration and translation are in English and Tagalog which players can toggle on or off based on their preference.

The dialogue-based game can run around five to ten minutes per ending that was opened depending on the user’s leisure. Once a story ending is unlocked it would be then available in the library to be re-played with the aid of Augmented Reality (AR) in the form of a storybook.

AR story playback

To access the AR story playback in the Library module, users must have already opened the story ending through completing the dialogue-based game.

The users can choose what story and which specific ending they want to read again and explore. After choosing which story to read, the user must allow the request to use the camera to be able to let the AR scene pop out on their screen.

The scene on their screens reflects the highlight of the ending they unlocked. Aside from the 2D environment and 3D character assets, Tammy is also present on the scene. There will be an on-screen control to move Tammy around so the user can interact with the environment.

The story playback, as mentioned earlier in this study, would play the story in a form of storytelling. However, unlike in the dialogue-based game, the AR story playback will not include the feature that lets the user choose the path of the story. Thus, the narration to accompany the readers in reading the story would still be available both in English and Tagalog, which the users can opt to let on or off. A single story for a specific ending can run to five or ten minutes depending on the user’s reading time.

Mini-game

The mini-game is a guess-that-line type of assessment where players will be given all the letters in the alphabet. They will have to guess what is the line or quotation that is being concealed on the screen. Players are only given three chances or hearts to guess the correct letter that would complete the line or quotation. Accordingly, the player will lose one heart for every wrong guess.

Users can also ask hints from Tammy. However, they can only do it three times. The hint button will automatically disable after the third hint is requested. With the hint, Tammy will suggest a letter that is the unguessed letter nearest to the beginning of the statement.

The first time they successfully complete a mini-game, players will be rewarded with a star and 100 XP up top, but will be deducted depending on the number of their mistakes. The succeeding completion of the mini-game will grant the players XP that could lead them to earning badges. The table below shows the rewards for the mini-game:

Earning Experience Points and Badges

XP can be earned through playing the mini-game. Additionally, the badges are achievements awarded to honor the player's efforts. This information will be shown on their accounts tab. There is a specific number of XP to be able to receive a specific title. The table below shows the titles that the players can acquire.