Activities/Blocku/Suggestions/Comments

This page has comments and suggestions that we have received from the community. Thank you to all those that gave us feedback, it really helped.



=Comments=

=Game Suggestions=

Benjamin M. Schwartz (via email)
I think it's great. Three points: 1) Users probably don't want to play many games of the same operation     (e.g. x+y=10), and the teacher probably doesn't want to create a new game     for every operation.  You should allow users to select a range of     operations (e.g. numbers up to 12, + - and *) and have the game select a     random operation from the set for each game. 2)  There are some interesting possibilities for using network collab between users and teachers, but work on that last. To start, users should just punch in the operation (or range of operations) when the activity launches. Teachers can just tell the students what settings to use, and then look at the screens to verify. 3) The visual structure of the game seems almost identical to Gnome's     Tetravex.  In the spirit of Open Source, you should consider reusing the     Tetravex gameboard display code. --Ben

Wade Brainerd (via email)
Looks great Mark! Feel free to get in touch with me if you need any help with implementation. I agree with Greg that this would be a good target for PyGame. Regarding the game design, you should consider adding some sense of progress, or else players will get tired quickly. Some ideas: - Start with two cards, gradually ramp up to 9. - There needs to be a good "snapping" mechanism when dropping, so   users don't get frustrated by trying to line the cards up. - Adding the ability to rotate the cards in 90 degree increments would add to the challenge. - Your notion of customization seems limited to replacing the square with a graphic, which might obscure the number. Is this really a good way to customize it? - I agree with Ben that when you start the game you should first select which types of puzzles (* + - / etc) you want, how many squares, whether rotation is allowed. No need for the teacher to be   involved. - Why limit it to numbers? E.g. how about comparisons like "X is   heaver than Y" and on the sides of the cards are things like "elephant", "bacteria", etc. Or "X is newer than Y", etc. This is    where customization would be cool. Let the teacher define a   relationship, and input a series of terms, and define which pairs meet that relationship. This would be called a "set", and could be   exported to the Journal. Good luck with your project!

David Farning (via email)
Very clever. I just cut made a cut out of the game out of paper. My 1st grade niece played with it for over half an hour. It will be a hit on her XO. david

Greg DeKoenigsberg (via email)
Mark, this looks like a brilliant little activity. Simple, fun gameplay, extensible. Really great. Some thoughts: 1. I'd love to see this as primarily a PyGame activity, with just enough "Sugar" to run it on Sugar easily, but also easily available as a Windows or Mac activity. If done well, this is precisely the sort of activity that could cross over. (Which is, in fact, how I'd like to see most Sugar    games built.) 2. Always think a little bit (but not too much) about assessment. The student knows they're    getting better because they are "leveling up". The teacher knows the kid is getting better because... how? Game data is pushed up to a server... somehow? Dunno if anyone is paying attention to this  question, but it would be great if there were a simple way to allow teachers to    aggregate "high score" data, which really doubles as assessment data in cases like this. A great start. I look forward to seeing what it becomes. --g