ANTURA AND THE LETTERS
PROFESSIONE:
APPLIED GAMES DEVELOPER

NON SEI QUELLO CHE HAI
SEI QUELLO FAI

CHI SONO
STEFANO CECERE
Sviluppatore multimediale, educatore, attivista umanista.
Giochi e tecnologia formativa.
▸ R&D e Community @ Videogames Without Borders
▸ musician & developer @ KRUR
▸ author & educator @ Jamurr 2042
▸ docente @ The Sign Academy

PEEK E POKE

I CAMPIONI
la cassetta del C64 e
DIGITALIZZAZIONE AUDIO
e il SID

PIANO CON LETASTIERE
si inizia per emulazione o immaginazione
poi scopri che schiacciando tasti trasferisci idee ed emozioni

SCHIACCIAPENSIERI
divertimento tascabile Nintendo
sognando l’iPad mini

D&D
il ruolo dell’avventura
di ruolo
in prima persona ma in
compagnia

AMIGA
multimedialità e RPG

ASSEMBLER & DISASSEMBLER
raw metal, hacker, reverse engineering
Copper & Blitter

Amiga: videogiochi liceali

Laboratorio di Sistemi L e
Caos

the Director Era:
30 CDROM multimediali con
QuickTime VR, Enhanced CD

’90s and early ’00
keyboard player & music programmer with Jovanotti, Franco
Battiato, Antonella Ruggiero, 883.
music productions, movie soundtracks, tv jingles, interactive
installations
history

1997: CD ROM FUTURA
Enciclopedia Umanesimo e
Diritti Umani

Sviluppo web B2B / Industriale (Opensource CMS)

globetrotting, sudamerica,
africa, medio oriente

NON C’È PROGRESSO E FELICITÀ
SE NON È
DI TUTTI E PER TUTTI

studi in filosofia,
psicologia, storia
delle religioni e
della tecnologia

L’EGOISMO È UN ERRORE DI CALCOLO
E’ CREDERE CHE RICEVERE SIA PIÙ
CHE DARE

Il Fannullone: ozio creativo per tutti

Marcia Mondiale per la Pace
e la Nonviolenza (2009)

NONVIOLENZA
COME UNICA METODOLOGIA
VALIDA

papà dal 2008 (bis 2015)

COSCIENZA
DATEMI UN BAMBINO FINO A 6 ANNI, POI
RIPRENDETELO E FATENE CIO’ CHE VOLETE
DETTO TIBETANO

ANTURA AND THE LETTERS
IL PROGETTO

VIDEO

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)

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

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

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.

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

Photo: Marit Hverven/Norad
Our game can help them to learn to read… and we proved it with the Arabic version.

Antura & the Letters (Arabic)

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

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!

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.

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

Photo: Yavuz Samur/Bahçeşehir University
Antura & the Letter (Arabic) received a very positive feedback from the players (4.7 stars on Google Play)...

Photo: Jawad Allazkani

The pilot project is the result of the collaboration of 3 Partners with an international and distributed Team...

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...

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).

… 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

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.

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

Standard
Curriculum
Vocabulary
Teacher A.I.
Player
Profile
Games
Assessments
Modular structure
AI that selects which activities
and content to play next for
each individual player

» More than half of the content should be reused...
» … but some content must be language-specific!
Language Adaptation
Why not bilingual versions?

Independent
Impact Test
(Jordan)
Continuous Test & Improvements
(Morocco, Turkey, Lebanon,
Germany and Greece)

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!

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

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

+UNESCO (INSIGHT)
+TECHFUGEES (NETWORK)
+FACEBOOK (DIST)
+EXPEDIA (AI)

APPLIED GAMES
ESPERIENZE FORMATIVE
UMANISTE MISURABILI

APPLIED GAMES
SINONIMI
Per il momento consideriamo SINONIMI i termini
- Serious Game
- Applied Game
- Impact Game
- Game with a Purpose

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.

APPLIED GAMES
G/P/S TAXONOMY
▸ Gameplay
▸ Purpose
▸ Scope

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

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

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

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.

IMPACT GAMES
PLAYER CENTRIC : HUMANIST MEDIUM

IMPACT GAMES
TO A FORMATIVE EXPERIENCE

CI INTERESSA FAR VIVERE
ESPERIENZE FORMATIVE
un formatore
IMPACT GAMES

GIOCO O ESPERIENZA GIOCOSA CON
UN EFFETTO INTENZIONALE
MISURABILE
IMPACT GAMES

DEVELOPERS
DOMAIN EXPERTS

DEVELOPERS
DOMAIN EXPERTS

BUSINESS MODEL
MODELLO CLASSICO

BUSINESS MODEL
MODELLO APPLIED

IMPACT GAMES
FEEDBACK HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN, DEV, PLAY

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

IMPACT GAMES - PHASES

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.

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

il prato è più verde
dove lo innaffi.
e noi crediamo nei
videogiochi

GRAZIE PER L’ATTENZIONE
DOMANDE?
ANTURA.ORG
VGWB.ORG
STEFANOCECERE.COM