FamilyVille with Egale Canada
For Soft Chaos’s largest project to date, the team spent the better part of a year designing, developing, and then supporting a game to be distributed by Egale to the Ontario Board of Education.
Client
Egale Canada
Service
Full-Service Game Design
Date
Jan-Aug 2024
The Challenges
Egale came to the project with a vast cast of characters as well as a randomization mechanic that needed to be included in the game. The team also had a rigorous approval process to make sure that the game reflected the values of the organization, and a large age range they hoped the game could serve so that they could reach as many students as possible.
The Process
Soft Chaos came to the project with a proposal addressing the cast of characters already in place and the required randomization mechanic. We proposed a Neopets-style world full of minigames that all centered around a ‘Home’ where a random selection of characters would live together to create a family.
The Outcome
Once approved, Soft Chaos designed several minigames informed by the Ontario Department of Education curriculum. We outlined a detailed project management schedule and approval procedure, and consistently delivered on that schedule, resulting in a full and completed game ready to be distributed to Ontario schools.
Congratulations to everybody who made this project happen, we couldn't do any of this work without you and we thank you for the amazing work that was produced at the very end. We are super proud of what has been produced and can't wait to share it with others.
Amanda Wong, Egale Canada
The Project
Design and develop an educational video game that will teach students in grade 1-6 about diverse families while also concretely addressing other learning objectives from the Ontario Curriculum in 6 months.
About Egale Canada
Egale Canada is one of Canada’s largest not-for-profits serving 2SLGBTQI+ people. When they are not creating educational resources, they are supporting equity and justice for queer Canadians in the courtroom and providing support to 2SLGBTQI+ youth. Their mission is "to improve the lives of 2SLGBTQI people in Canada and to enhance the global response to 2SLGBTQI issues."
THE CHALLENGES
A 6-month timeline made for a tight turnaround with the amount of content that needed to be created and then go through rigorous approvals! In 6 months:
- Lucie, our guest contract artist on the project, created 40 character designs.
- Jess wrote the equivalent of a short novel in interactive narrative (and then we translated all of that to different reading levels!)
- The team designed 4 minigames which Squinky had to program and implement on top of the basic game functions
- The entire team advised on and contributed research to the accompanying educators' guide.
THE PROCESS
Soft Chaos came to the project with a proposal addressing the cast of characters already in place and the required randomization mechanic: a Neopets-style world full of minigames that all centered around a ‘Home’ where a random selection of characters would live together to create a family. This proposal also allowed the project to scale up and down depending on the available resources and time, while also allowing Egale to continue to add new minigames if they wanted to further develop the project in the future.
Once approved, Soft Chaos designed several minigames informed by the Ontario School Board curriculum, making sure that the game not only represented queer families but also addressed other learning objects that teachers might have for their students.
Soft Chaos also outlined a detailed project management schedule and approval procedure, checking in consistently with Egale to make sure that all the decisions being made reflected the values of their organization. To address the timeline and content volume, we contracted a project manager to streamline the process.
Art
The art style was very important for this project, as it really needed to appeal to students, so Soft Chaos brought on the extremely talented Lucie Viatgé for this project. With her work on the project, each of the diverse characters in the world truly comes alive.
Game Design
Soft Chaos worked to leverage the unique affordances of systemic design to teach about diverse families in ways that go beyond just reading about them. Over the course of completing all the activities in FamilyVille students get the chance to:
- plan a potluck that meets all the dietary needs of their family
- create a comic strip addressing the interpersonal relationships in their family
- plan a green alleyway in their neighborhood while learning about native species and waste disposal
- play through their family members’ interactive narratives, each addressing a unique aspect of those characters' intersectional identities
Education
Going above the required ask, Soft Chaos also proposed and produced content for an educational companion. This involved everything from research for educators about the effectiveness of games, to activities that would help students take their knowledge off the screen and into their lives (like how to create a green alleyway in your own neighbourhood!).
Narrative
Egale had clear ideas about why each character was in their game and what they represented. Soft Chaos needed to take those ideas and make sure they were communicated to the players in an accessible, appropriate way. To do this, each character had a personalized interactive narrative that players could explore as they got to know their family better. For students who might not yet be comfortable with reading, we brought on a voice actor to make sure all lines were also able to be listened to, as well as writing all narrative content at multiple reading levels and allowing players to toggle between those reading levels.
Programming
FamilyVille was entirely programmed by Squinky in the Godot game engine, which is free, open source, and cross-platform, allowing for both web-based and downloadable play. All minigames had to allow for different combinations of characters to be present, as the player's family is randomly selected on each new playthrough. Players can also create user accounts to save the families that they generate, their progress in minigames, and keep a photo album of memorable moments as they play.
THE OUTCOME
We created a visually appealing, narratively interesting game with four complete minigames for youth to enjoy as they learn about diverse families.
