A prototype of a video game based on Ávaxtakarfan

Abstract

Video games are a medium of entertainment which allow unprecedented levels of interaction with a given world. This has led to games being used as a tool to teach things both explicitly and implicitly. The paradigm of teaching values and morals through media is not new, and often childrens media aims to incorporate some message. This is the case with Ávaxtakarfan, an Icelandic childrens musical about fruit which sends a strong anti-bullying message to its viewers. It has been showed on stage and screen multiple times in the decades since its conception, and remains a component of Icelandic culture to this day. It is natural then to consider the option of adapting this story to a new medium which has great potential to allow the message to be engaged with interactively. The subject of this report is the development of a video game based on the musical, Ávaxtakarfan, which incorporates its core values while giving the interactivity of video games an opportunity to provide immersion in the narrative. We apply an iterative agile methodology to the development of the game, and use user centered design to try to align the product with our goal of having the user immerse themselves in the story and absorb the moral and message. Through this, we produced and evaluated three prototypes which serve as the first steps towards an adaptation of the musical into a video game. For every prototype we produced, we conducted an evaluation of the artefact to continuously center the stakeholders of the project and involve them in the process. We did this through formal and informal surveys as well as talk-aloud user testing. The end result of this endeavour is a prototype of a virtual world representing the world of Ávaxtakarfan as well as a puzzle game made to represent a story beat in the original musical. This can be built upon iteratively to include more of the original story, thoughtfully curating minigames to deliver the values of Ávaxtakarfan in a new way.