In Retrospect: Outcomes of Cosmos Chaos!

Meagan Rothschild · Javier Elizondo

Wed., June 10, 2:00–3:00, Inn Wisconsin (2nd floor, East/Southeast)

This case study focuses on the production process and evaluation hurdles that a first time team of developers had to overcome in order to put educational and gaming theory into practice. COSMOS CHAOS! is a vocabulary game developed for the Nintendo DS platform and is funded under a U.S. Department of Education Star Schools grant. This game, intended for struggling 4th grade readers, completed development in October 2008. Including a twelve month pre-production process, COSMOS CHAOS! was completed in less than 36 months, against the odds of an inexperienced but spirited team. Despite all the challenges, the outcome is a game that team members are proud of. But that can’t be enough. It is, after all, the product of hearts and souls pouring into what is believed to be good (and fun!) for the kids. Completing game development alone is not sufficient, it has to be played and it has to have results.

Formal evaluation is currently ongoing in San Diego at thirty after school programs with over 300 children playing the game. And we thought production was challenging! The evaluation design needed to sustain a balance between allowing natural student gameplay behaviors without sacrificing the integrity of data collected, all while working within a structured state educational system. While concessions had to be made by both gaming and evaluation specialists in developing the implementation design for the study, the teams were ultimately able to get the games in the hands of the kids, and are eagerly anticipating results. Early evaluation reports will be available in Spring 2009.

From selecting specific content to finding a publisher, and with oodles of partnerships and culture clashes in between, this presentation will provide an informative and hopefully entertaining recount of the hits and misses of the creation of an educational game, and will present the outcomes and lessons learned from the game implementation in an after-school setting. It is the hope of the game development team that this process can provide support for the learning strengths of a mobile game in a supplementary educational setting, and in providing evidence and lessons learned, promote further development in the educational gaming industry.