“Pollution Removal Rush!”

👏 UX/UI Designer at Irene Geller Design — Emoti-Con Judge

Devesh, I think using a game to help people become more aware of pollution and its impact on us is a wonderful idea! Games have a unique power: they can help educate people without making it feel like education. I’m sure you have learned a lot from games, just like I have, without even trying to! Your game would actually be a great one to bring into classrooms to help other students of all ages learn to identify negative vs. positive influences on the environment.

I think you made some excellent choices in your user interface (or UI, for short). WHAT you show players on the user interface is just as, if not more important, than HOW the user interface looks! The different “signs” we show in a user interface (like a Home icon) play an important role. They tell the player what actions they are able to take and what they need to do to win the game.

You did a great job by telling players the level objective at the top of the screen (so they know what to do to win), and showing them how many “strikes” they have until they lose (so they know when to play more carefully.) Giving players a way to go back or quit the game both in the actual gameplay (the Home icon) as well as when they lose (the “Back to Home” button) are great ideas too. Imagine if the player didn’t have a way to quit or go back to the main screen - they would probably be pretty frustrated and have to quit the app just to get out, right? So it is good to put yourself in the player’s shoes and think about what actions they may want to take on any screen they are looking at, and make sure they can see a way to take those actions by looking at the UI.

I also think you did a great job using different sound effects when the player clicks on bad or good items. You have a positive jingle for when players swipe on bad items, and a funny sad-sounding one when they swipe on good items. Using the right sound effects can help players know when they’re doing the right thing or the wrong thing in a game. You can think about what other kinds of sound effects could be used when players click on other UI elements, like the start button or the quit button too. Next time you play a game, pay attention to all the different sound effects you hear as you click through or tap on different items - almost everything in a game can have a sound effect!

I noticed in your Figma prototypes that the camera area of the phone screen blocked some of the UI from being seen. You’ll want to consider how your UI will look on different types of devices (like a computer, or an Apple phone vs. an Android phone, or a tablet) and make sure to adjust your UI to each type of screen (if the game will be played on those devices.) Something that is easy to see on one device may not be so clear on another type of device. Using Figma, you can make artboards in different sizes to match different device screen sizes and experiment with how your UI is organized to match each device.

The interesting thing with games is that you don’t always need to have a ton of different game mechanics to make a game fun. Taking a simple mechanic (like Fruit Ninja’s swiping) and just adding small variations or changes to it can make a game super fun! If you were to continue working on this project, I would like to see a list of all the different kinds of positive and negative “items” that a player can swipe on, and how each of these items would behave a little differently from each other to make the game interesting and challenging for the player. For example, you could have a “smog” item that blows left and right across the screen quickly and is hard to swipe on. You could also consider having different levels with different themes, maybe showing areas of the world that have specific types of pollution and environmental problems (ex. heat waves, flooding, trash landfills.) Before you design anything visual or write code, you can write out all of your ideas first to get them organized. You can even add those ideas to a Game Design Document (or GDD.) Game developers use GDDs to describe how a game works.

It was great that you included the HEX and RGB codes in your style guide.. That helps any developers you’re working with to quickly input the exact colors into the game engine. By the way, Coolors (https://coolors.co/) is a great resource for finding eye-catching color palettes! Speaking of colors, you may want to do some research about how colors can make a game more or less accessible to other people; take a look at this great article (https://www.gamersexperience.com/colorblind-accessibility-in-video-games-is-the-industry-heading-in-the-right-direction/).

For your fonts, it’s best practice to stick to two fonts throughout a project. That is a super easy way to make any project (not just games) look clean and professional. The first font you choose can have a little more personality (like the Hanalei Fill or Goblin One fonts), while the second font can be something more basic and easier to read (like the Hammersmith one.) With just these two fonts, you can use different font sizes (12-16 px for “body copy”, like descriptions, dialogue, etc, and 24 - 48px for titles and headings) as well as different font weights (regular, bold, extra bold, etc.) to cover all of the different types of writing and titles any project will need. This site (https://typ.io/tags/game) shows some great examples of fonts you could try using for games!

Overall, I think you have a great concept for an educational game! I am impressed that you put together so many different things all by yourself - in most teams, you have different people doing the graphic design, UI design, sounds, development, etc. Great work! I hope you keep expanding on your idea, keep experimenting, and keep challenging yourself to learn more!

👏 Chief Partnerships Officer at INNOVO Net Zero Limited — Emoti-Con Judge

Simplicity of this app is what makes it particularly compelling for use in classrooms. Visuals coupled with sound effects aid reinforcement learning such that one can readily identify common environmental pollutants. As a next step, Devesh, consider testing different ways a user can level-up, such a destroying a target quantity of items within a time limit or achieving a target score by destroying "high value" items representing particularly damaging forms of pollution. You might try to arrange demos with teachers across grade levels to receive a breadth of feedback from users themselves.

👏 Senior UX Designer at ADP — Emoti-Con Judge

I love the concept of your game design, especially its focus on the environment and pollution control, which is crucial in the current global warming scenario. The idea of educating players about different types of trash and their environmental impact through a game is excellent.

I appreciate your use of style guides, which I haven't seen in other projects. The main and additional colors are well chosen, but you might consider using a different font that is better suited for a mobile web application. The sound effects make the game more engaging, and the overall effect is impressive.

Your slide presentation is very organized and detailed, which is amazing considering you did it all yourself. You've provided a clear design and game process, which is commendable.

For feedback on the game itself, it would be helpful if the game tracked and displayed the number of pieces of trash collected. Additionally, it should indicate how many clicks are needed to collect each piece of trash. Including different forms of trash and educating players about various types of pollution and recycling options would also enhance the game's educational value.

Overall, I appreciate your initiative and the hard work you've put into this project.