As makers of serious games, hearing about teens working on their own meaningful game projects is music to our ears. Students at Western Middle School are developing serious games on a huge range of topics: pollution in the Long Island Sound, teen body image, videogame addiction (very meta), suicide prevention, and even the death penalty. The play4REAL XR Lab Team recently had the opportunity to visit with these talented kids to share our game development process and learn about theirs.
All the magic is happening in the Innovation Lab, headed by Mr. Gaspare Lipari, where kids at Western Middle have access to all the coolest VR and AR tech, generously supported by the Greenwich Alliance for Education. We kicked off our visit to the Innovation Lab with a presentation about how we created Invite Only VR, starting with focus group research, moving on to script writing, voice acting, and countless iterations from prototype all the way to final product. After our intro, we split the large group of 30 kids into three groups so that they could all take turns playing Invite Only VR, participating in mock focus groups, and pitching their game idea–Shark Tank Style–to members of our team.
The visit was an absolute blast and we can’t wait to hear more about these projects as they evolve! Thanks to The Innovation Lab, Western Middle, and the Greenwich Alliance for Education for putting together the event. It was a wonderful beginning to an exciting new collaboration!