The making of a Library Induction Game with RPG Maker MV.

***** Open Source files of game can be downloaded here: http://gamify.org.uk/downloads/Book-Runner-Source-Files.zip under CC license: Edit and modify for own use, cite Disruptive Media Learning Lab as Original Creator. *****

*** Game Playable here: http://libinfo.coventry.ac.uk/Induction/Lib/WWW/ ****

I have been a busy little bee the past few months. Aside from the usual tirade of ALL OF THE THINGS to do (being mum to two very small and boisterous children, general life and sadly unexpected death, insane work commitments, writing all of the academic things), part of what I wanted to try and push for more this year, was creating things. Actual, playable things. Not just my usual, ‘oh I though up a cool project idea’, which I tend to do a lot, get distracted and then jump to something else.

So a few months ago, maybe four, we had a guest lecture from one of our Scarborough Campus colleagues, Mark Richardson. He gave a talk that showed how he had been using RPG Maker MV to develop some interesting games with learning outcomes for nursing students. Following this, he also gave a half day tutorial on how to get to grips with the basics of RPG Maker. I have to say, from here on out i was slightly obsessed. It was nice to find a tool in which much of the work had already been done (perfect for someone like me who gets distracted easily). It had pre-made art and the logic programming of it was simple to understand and use. now the nice thing about RPG, is that you can make all your own art and dive into Javascript programming if you want, as it supports all of that high-end stuff, but if you just want to make something relatively quickly and maybe don’t have those skills, bam… you have the power as they might say, because it has all that built in. As a side note – this has been great for getting me interested in Javascript, I think I might do a small course, time permitting of course.

Myself, Becky and Darren (Two of Coventry Uni’s Subject Librarians) had been talking about making a game for induction. To be honest, I’d wanted to work with the librarians for years since I’ve been at the DMLL, but as always there was never any time. But it seemed, that with this program we could develop something fairly quickly. There was much discussion at first on how and what we wanted the game to achieve, whether it should be a blend of digital and real world activities or did we want the students to play it at home. What we all agree though, was that the game should be story driven (I’ll get to that later).

So Darren and Becky went away to discuss what they wanted out of the game and came back with a series of learning objectives that we then prioritised with 1 being vital and 4 being nice to have.

Category	Learning Outcome	How?
Orientation	IT Services	Mini task – finding it
Orientation	Sigma	Mini task – finding it
Orientation	CAW	Mini task – finding it
Orientation	Group Study Rooms (that they exist)	Mini task – finding it
Orientation	Rovers Podium	Mini task – finding it & source of help
Orientation	2nd Floor Enquiry Desk	Mini task – finding it & source of help
Orientation	Subject Librarian Office	Locating it, then more additional tasks
Orientation	Mobile Shelving	Include it if we can make it some sort of puzzle (mvoe the shelving to get to another location/NPC)
Online Orientation	Library Basics Libguide	Code on Libguide – should be an early task?
Online Orientation	Libguides	Code somewhere on a guide
Online Orientation	Twitter page	Codes hidden on pages
Online Orientation	Facebook page	Codes hidden on pages
Online Orientation	Youtube Channel	Codes hidden on pages
Online Orientation	Document Supply
Online Orientation	YouChose	Place request for specific dummy book, reply with code?
Online Orientation	Referencing Guide	Code on Libguide
Library Skills	Construct a reference in CU Harvard	Making the reference provides a code (e.g. first letter of each part?)
Library Skills	Find a book in the library	Finding a book in the game’s bookcases
Library Skills	Find an eBook	Dummy eBook on Locate – code within book – also covers navigating an eBook
Library Skills	Find an article on Locate	Dummy article record on Locate
Library Skills	Reserve a book	Reserve a dummy book within the game, collect it later.
Knowledge	Loan limit is 20 items	Character giving quiz?
Knowledge	Books can be borrowed for one or three weeks	Character giving quiz?
Knowledge	Fines	“Character giving quiz? / X owes 60p, how late was he?”
Orientation	Self issue machines	Some sort of game/puzzle using the machines?
Online Orientation	Accessing databases	Dummy dragon -slaying libguide
Knowledge	Support offered by subject librarians	Interaction with in-game characters?
Knowledge	Support offered at service desk and enquiry desk	Interaction with in-game characters? (If you get stuck in the game you can always go to the enquiry desk?)
Knowledge	Support offered by Rovers	Interaction with in-game characters? (If you get stuck in the game you can always find a Rover?)
Knowledge	SCONUL
Knowledge	Postal Loans	end game – i live far away

They had also given some suggestions on how this may be realised in the game which was really useful to me. as previously mentioned, we also spoke quite a lot about narrative, and they had both put down a lot of different ideas for style and genre, which we discussed and came to a decision – we were going to do a take on 2001: A Space Odyssey, but instead of a creepy Hal, the Coventry University library system ‘Locate’, would take it’s place.  This gave us lots of room for including many geeky references and above all, we really wanted to try and instil the game with a bit of humour (whether people get the humour is besides the point).

So, we three, started working on a Google doc to flesh out the narrative, adding information where needed and having meetings to discuss interesting ideas that the player could do for each of the LO’s. It was great to work on a live document that everyone could share and edit, very useful in the design stage.

I wont go too much into the dev side as it was mostly me swearing at RPG Maker when I wanted it to do something and obviously it wouldn’t (I had complex ideas). But 3 months later – yesterday in fact, the main functionality of the game is now complete, and I have to say, I’m pretty happy with it. Is it going to win game of the year? Probably not. Is it going to help students? Maybe… I’d like to think so. Here, take a look at some screenies.

One feature on the dev side I will mention though, is that RPG Maker let’s you build in the function (quite easily) to open up separate resources like websites, videos or pictures. This feature has been really useful for allowing this game to support players navigating some of the library systems in order to solve puzzles to put into the game. See below for an example, where the player has been asked to go onto the computer in the game. Once the player interacts with it, it brings up Locate.

Very useful! Anyway I love it, and and and … we made a thing that is a real thing and will hopefully be live for September students. I’m so happy that I pushed myself to get it done in time, and it is not one (of the many) other projects waiting for my attention (there is not enough hours in the day). Currently it is now in play-test mode, getting people to break it and see where it’s maybe not intuitive. Hopefully, we will then put it out to Beta test as it’s especially important we have testers who are not familiar with the library and it’s systems.

Anyway, what I really wanted to say, is that RPG Maker MV is a great tool for creating quick and easy game-based learning applications, and even better it has a MASSIVE support community if you do get stuck in development.

I’m hoping to do many more games with it and use this as a test bed to show our lecturers the potential that this program has.