Two years have passed since we received the notification of the approval of WORK@BLE project from the Spanish National Agency of Erasmus + programm. The last month of the project we have organised several events to present our game, and there have been a question that many people has made to me: How did you do it? How have you manage to create a game like this?
Here is my answer: joining efforts, combining knowledge and summing up.
We were not experts on videogames, but we are very good team workers, and that was our ace under the sleeve. We worked on the creation of the game from scratch, starting by researching about the key skills trained by job coaches when they target people with disabilities like special learning needs, cognitive, developmental or mental health problems. At the same time we also defined the profile of the future users and the context in which the game was going to use.
Once we got this picture of the contexts, the players and the skills, we designed the puzzles of the game. That was the most challenging stage of the game creation. We distributed the skills identified among partners, and each invented puzzles to train a set of skills. In October 2021, we met by first time face to face in Tallin, and during 2 days of work we shared our puzzle ideas, discussed, selected some, discuss, agreed the game logic, discussed, ordered the puzzles, discuss….And when we went home the concept of game was READY to be code!
Some months later, we met again in Valladolid to learn about the mock version of game. We played, discussed, proposed changes, discussed, agreed on outlook, discussed, layout the guidelines content, discussed…and we went home with a clear picture of game, which was completed and amended in a couple of months and we started testing it.
Several versions followed after another, by fixing bugs and including improvements till the game was STEADY to pass the definitive proof with job coaches and final users.
The pilot testing took place in 5 countries, with different profiles of job coaches and users, some more adjustments had to be done, and finally the game GO!
That is the story on how we created the game. Impossible without sharing ideas and discussing. Now the project is over, but I have the feeling that this is not a game over…the last time we met in Athens, we discussed and figured out a WORK@BLE 2.0!!
Be attentive, it is coming soon…
