Hey Gamers! Sorry to intrude upon your thread but it looks like you're in between games and I wanted to pick your brains. I'm hoping I can take advantage of the hivemind with a project I'm working on.

I'm doing some freelance writing for a startup company that creates toys. These are experienced toymakers and, indeed, the two brothers I'm working with are the children of the guy who created Mr. Potatohead. So, the family business.

Their current project is exciting but sprawling as well, and one of the things I'll be helping them with is the narrative for their investor pitch, as well as some meetings they have with big media (currently Canadian TV, but looks like they'll pitch in Los Angeles as well).

I've been tasked with creating some basic game design for this pitch because the whole project was conceived to be transmedia from the beginning, and the implications of their product are wide ranging.

So game design is where I'd be picking your brains.

The basic narrative involves a young girl, Giapetta, who is a tinkerer from a long line of them. She accidentally opens the portal to another world (very Steampunk) and meets another girl from that world. From there she discovers portals to a variety of worlds and has adventures.

So far so good. A familiar enough set of tropes but nothing revolutionary.

This narrative though is the off-shoot of the original conception of their project which was to bring Etsy-like jewelry construction together with STEM education for girls.

They began working on creating a jewelry that was programmable and interacted with an app that would open up on this imaginary world.

The thing that's opening doors for them and getting them into these meetings is that they've created an app that interacts with the jewelry itself which doesn't actually have electronics in it. (It just needs brass in the jewelry to engage with the app - which, fortunately, works well with the steampunk aesthetic.) I've seen the demo video for this and it has a significant "Wow" factor. I think it's a genuinely unique and revolutionary interface with computers and will have implications for computer games, and beyond.

It basically allows you to create your own magic talisman which interacts with a computer. You can create an earring or a Buffy-villain power center talisman necklace that you place on your tablet and it unlocks doors, or moves things around, or opens windows into another world.

They have a patent pending, but please be discreet about discussing this outside our thread, because they're still meeting with investors.

The implications for their product are wide ranging, but they want to maintain that STEM for girls/ creating/programming element that was at the core of the original concept.

What I'd like is gameplay that teaches a basic aspect of computer programming which can also be manifested physically as jewelry.

My first thought on this was using a Fibonacci sequence as an introduction to the idea of an algorithm and then incorporating that into the design of the jewelry.

Do you have any ideas on how you would set up a simple bit of game play that required figuring out the Fibonacci sequence and then applying it to problem solving? I would think the first part would be identifying the sequence - seeing and then understanding the pattern. Then there would be an element where you work out that pattern and see it's implications. And then finally you apply it by creating the object itself, which could then unlock something in the app.

Thoughts? Feelings? Numbness at the extremities? Please throw your notions and responses at me.

Something involving Fibonacci squares might work nicely -- it's a clear physical representation.

Something involving Fibonacci squares might work nicely -- it's a clear physical representation.

That's what I was thinking. I was looking at another website that focused on creating games that foster programming skills and they listed for their character Ruby:

*******

6. Programming skills. There are some very foundational programming principles that are relevant to different programming languages. Even small kids can learn to recognise these structures before they can read or write. Afterwards, they’ll have an easier time understanding the formal output (code) of the same phenomena they learned as a kid. Ruby’s programming curriculum consists of the following:

Algorithms and sequences. Write down an instruction to guide lost penguin out of the maze. Data: numbers, strings & booleans. Sprinkle cupcakes with operators.
Variables and collections. Make a shopping list for dad. Sort the list into things Ruby likes and doesn’t like.
Loops (for & while). Make your own bracelet designs. Describe Ruby’s day, week and year as a loop.
Event handling (if/else statements). Dress Ruby for a rainy day and a sunny day. What happens if it rains until afternoon?
Functions. Make your own clothes for paperdoll Ruby.

That's so very cool! I'm wearing a LEAF fitness/lifetracker right now, which is jewelry that works with an app.

The Fibonacci nautilus would be a good visual representation, and pretty much all natural things grow according to the Fibonacci sequence, so games that sort jewelry designs into radial, alternating, whatever, and show how the sequence applies?

Let me ponder..

The Fibonacci nautilus would be a good visual representation, and pretty much all natural things grow according to the Fibonacci sequence, so games that sort jewelry designs into radial, alternating, whatever, and show how the sequence applies?

Oooh!

A music aspect would work very well with the fibonacci sequence as well. For an example of this in practice, see the Tool song Lateralus, which is largely based on the fibonacci sequence, both musically and lyrically (at least the meter of the lyrics, anyway).

Black
Then
White are
All I see
In my infancy
Red and yellow then came to me
Reaching out to me
Lets me see

There's many more levels to it, but that's enough to give you the idea.

Also, the chorus of the song is a measure of 9/8, followed by a measure of 8/8, followed by a measure of 7/8. The number 987 is the 16th number in the sequence.

That's cool. I was actually thinking about Loom (the game) and this, and somehow using the jewelry to activate or play music, or add new musical sequences to your inventory.

Hec, are you looking for a game for the pitch, but not as part of the actual toy when it's marketed? Or are you looking for something that could be the actual play, but is used as as example for the pitch?

Also, Rule #1 of Game Design is: what behavior do you want to incentivize?

• Physically making jewelry
• Buying pre-made pieces
• Learning to code
• Learning math theory
• Playing cooperatively
• Playing competitively
• In-game purchases
• Recruiting friends to buy the toy

Insent a longer letter - if you need/want help fleshing out a game, let me know!

That's super helpful, Raq.

RftG

Heads up, we'll probably start up the second game in a day or so. There's room for one more if anyone wants to sign up; if not, we'll go ahead with three.