Antura and the Letters è un videogioco nato da un bando internazionale per aiutare i bambini siriani che non possono più andarea scuola. Vincendo numerosi premi e riconoscimenti, tra cui l'Italian VideoGame Award, il TechFugees e Croce Rossa, da tre anni stiamo sviluppando ed esplorando il mondo degli "applied games", ovvero i giochi progettati per determinate cause o problematiche. E' un ramo molto interessante del mondo dell'entertainment, ricco di soddisfazioni e di crescenti opportunità lavorative.
18. ’90s and early ’00
keyboard player & music programmer with Jovanotti, Franco
Battiato, Antonella Ruggiero, 883.
music productions, movie soundtracks, tv jingles, interactive
installations
history
19. 1997: CD ROM FUTURA
Enciclopedia Umanesimo e
Diritti Umani
36. Photo: Mai Saki
Approximately 2.3 million Syrian children have lost their opportunities for schooling because of the ongoing conflict.
Many Syrian children who attend school face difficulties in learning, because they have endured long-term stress, or
because they are being taught in a language they do not master. Most of them cannot read. (source Norad)
37. On a global scale, the challenge is much bigger with only 61% of refugee children
attending primary school in 2017. (source UNHCR).
Photo: Francesco Cavallari
38. Quality education is not a challenge only for refugees and being enrolled in school is not a guarantee of learning.
Most surprising, and alarming, is that two-thirds of the kids who are not learning are in school. Of the 387 million
primary age children unable to read proficiently worldwide, 262 million are in a classroom. (source UNESCO)
Photo: Francesco Cavallari
39. Photo: Marit Hverven/Norad
What if a video game could help them, taking advantage that a large majority of Syrian families have a smartphone and that the access to
smartphones is increasing everywhere, especially in developing countries?
For example, UNESCO estimates that the number of smartphones in Africa will pass from 226 millions in 2015 to 720 millions by 2020.
40. Smartphone game for children (5-10 yo)
Learn to read and write in Arabic
Budget ~1.7M USD
EduApp4Syria competition
1. Free & Open Source
2. No need of internet connection
3. Easy to download (<100Mb)
https://www.norad.no/eduapp4syria
43. The game is completely FREE and it offers a great variety of activities with more than 20 hours of play.
Kids learn to read simply by playing autonomously on the family phone, no matter where they are and with no need of internet connection.
Photo: Marit Hverven/Norad
44. Photo: Marit Hverven/Norad
Kids learn all Arabic letters in all their forms (in Arabic each letter can be written in 4 different ways depending its position in the word)
and with the main diacritics (accents that behaves like short vowels). They also learn how to decode and read more than 400 words!
45. Photo: Integrated
An independent test in Azraq refugee camp in Jordan (with 300 kids playing the game + 300 kids as control group) proved its
very positive impact both on Literacy and Psychosocial Wellbeing. The full report about the impact evaluation is available here.
46. Photo: Marit Hverven/Norad
After few months experimenting with our digital ads campaign we reached more than 120K downloads with an acquisition cost of 0.10€
per family in areas with high density of refugees (1 download = 1 family = up to 5 kids playing). Recently Facebook decided to support
our project with 25K USD in free digital ads and we estimate we will be able to reach at least 300K downloads by the end of 2019.
+300.000
downloads
47. Photo: Yavuz Samur/Bahçeşehir University
Antura & the Letter (Arabic) received a very positive feedback from the players (4.7 stars on Google Play)...
50. The pilot project is the result of the collaboration of 3 Partners with an international and distributed Team...
51. We are now ready to reach many more children all around the world, helping them to learn to read in their mother language!
That’s why we are developing Antura and the Letters in several languages...
52.
53. Photo: AFP
According to Amnesty International, more than 2 million people is internally displaced and 40% of kids are out of
school in Afghanistan.That’s why we are prioritizing also regional languages like Pashto and Dari (Persian).
54. … including both international and regional languages, always in collaboration with local partners to maximize outreach and impact.
We are currently focused on Afghanistan (Pashto, Dari), Morocco (Darija), Africa (French, English) and Latin America (Spanish,
Portuguese). We expect to release all the above versions in the next 18 months, starting from Pashto, Dari, Spanish and English.
Spanish
P
o
r
t
u
g
u
e
s
e
French
E
n
g
l
i
s
h
Darija Dari
Pashto
55. Photo: Francesco Cavallari
International languages may seem simpler to develop, but they still need strong local partners for the distribution and the promotion.
We are already collaborating with Plan Ceibal (Uruguay), ProFuturo (Africa and Latin America), UNESCO (worldwide), Techfugees
(worldwide) and we are in discussion with several other potential partners, both for funding and distribution.
56. Antura and the Letters is a 100% Unity project and it includes several technical features:
➢ Modular architecture
➢ ~40 minigames and 10+ tests
➢ Hundreds of customization items for Antura
➢ Support for multiple languages and alphabets
➢ All learning curriculum defined by an external
DB
➢ Teacher-like AI to customize the learning
experience for each individual player
➢ Heavily optimized (<100Mb app size)
➢ Support for gender declined audio sentences
➢ Fonts and drawings use TextMeshPro SDF
Glyphs
➢ Custom optimization of Arabic text rendering
➢ SQLite local DB to log all player’s actions
➢ Export of all player DB for offline analysis
➢ Open Source code with clear Coding Guidelines
➢ Complete documentation
Everything is available on GitHub.
https://github.com/vgwb/
Reusable Tool for Literacy
58. » More than half of the content should be reused...
» … but some content must be language-specific!
Language Adaptation
Why not bilingual versions?
60. Cultural Adaptation
» All Antura content has been designed to be suitable
for all children on the planet…
» … but always better to double check! Is it ok to use a dog?
Yes, it is!
61. Distribution
» Specific for each language/territory
» Partner with NGOs & Institutions
» If possible, run awareness and empowerment campaigns to
ensure no one is left behind !
Are mobile devices available?
Controlled or free usage?
How to achieve max outreach?
Photo: Marit Hverven/Norad
Photo: Marit Hverven/Norad
62. Impact Test
» Collect players data for analysis
» Testing of Arabic version will set the basis
for standard processes and indicators
» Identify and share Best Practices
65. APPLIED GAMES
SINONIMI
Per il momento consideriamo SINONIMI i termini
- Serious Game
- Applied Game
- Impact Game
- Game with a Purpose
66. APPLIED GAMES
DEFINIZIONE
La definizione di un “applied game” varia a seconda degli ambienti e
della geografia, ma sicuramente ci sono dei requisiti di base che
sono:
▸ Avere degli obiettivi educativi/pedagogici (learning) molto ben
chiari, definiti e misurabili
▸ Mostrare ai giocatori un problema / sfida ben identificabile
▸ Usare le dinamiche di gioco o le tecnologie dei giochi
▸ Fornire ai giocatori del feedback positivo/negativo rispetto alla
progressione verso la sfida del gioco e il raggiungimentoi degli
obiettivi pedagogici.
68. APPLIED GAMES
GAME PLAY
Al di là del “genere”, ci interessa sopratutto: come è giocato?
Play based (paiada)
Senza obiettivi (goals) e regole ben definite
does not explicitly evaluate the performance of the player. However, the player is free to state
his own goals if he decides to
Game based (ludus)
Regole e obiettivi ben definiti
69. APPLIED GAMES
PURPOSE (FINALITÀ)
Broadcast a message
▸ Educative
▸ Informative
▸ Persuasive
▸ Subjective
Training
▸ Mental
▸ Physical
Data Exchange
Games collecting information from their players or encouraging them to exchange data
70. APPLIED GAMES
SCOPE: MERCATI
▸ Advertising
▸ Corporate
▸ Culture & Art
▸ Ecology
▸ Education
▸ Entertainment
▸ Healthcare
▸ Humanitarian & Caritative
▸ Media
▸ Military & Defence
▸ Politics
▸ Religious
▸ Scientific Research
▸ State & Governement
SCOPE: PUBLIC
▸ General Public
▸ Professionals
▸ Students
71. APPLIED GAMES
GAME PLAY + MARKET COMBINATIONS
Video Game
title featuring a "game-based" gameplay and used in the entertainment market only.
Video Toy
title featuring a "play-based" gameplay and used in the entertainment market only.
Serious Game
title featuring a "game-based" gameplay and used in one or several additional markets
besides entertainment.
Serious Play
title featuring a "play-based" gameplay and used in one or several additional markets
besides entertainment.
81. IMPACT GAMES
HUMAN CENTRIC DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT PHASES
1) Concept phase - Goal: build a proposal adapted to your audience and context
5 Critical questions to answer
2) Pre-prod - Focus on the qualitative aspect and proof of concept
Are you appealing to the audience?
3) Production: until Beta - Focus on the productivity
Are all features implemented and playable?
4) Production: Beta Iterations - Field evaluation and feedbacks
Are we impacting and how to improve?
5) Launch and post launch consideration - Reach out the audience and react
85. Maggie - Il tesoro di Seshat
di Soroptimist Club Firenze
e STUDIO EVIL
▸ Don-Ay: Pet Land di Affinity Project
▸ Sema Land di Melazeta
▸ ScacciaRischi dei P.M. Studios.
86. IMPACT GAMES
SINTESI
▸ crescente interesse in ambiti non ancora toccati dai videogiochi
▸ mercato in espansione e da esplorare
▸ opportunità di lavoro (sia indipendenti che startup)
▸ sviluppo intelligente e integrale
87. il prato è più verde
dove lo innaffi.
e noi crediamo nei
videogiochi