Stress Test (Dillster)

Stress Test was intended to teach the complex concept of anxiety to 6-9 year olds.  We researched the topic to create a more accurate experience.  The player goes through the school day and different classes answering questions and talking with classmates while struggling with anxiety.  Between classes, the player gets an idea of what they character is feeling from a sort of "journal entry" that changes based on their performance on the questions and interactions with Robbie.  There is also Robbie the rabbit who exhibits signs of anxiety.  The player can talk with Robbie to get a better idea of what anxiety is like.  Robbie was meant to show that anxiety is not uncommon and that those who have it are not alone.  The requirements were that the game be targeted at 6-9 year olds and that it be an educational game about an underrepresented group.

The team was comprised of 6 members:

Producer - Andrew Gerrain

Designer - Andrew Fay

Programmers - Andrew Griffin and Dillon Drummond

Sound Designer - Miles Cummings

Artist - Daniel van Duzer

The hardest part of Stress Test was developing the concept.  None of us had experience with educational games.  We added many things, changed a lot, and worked on feeback a lot to try and really drive home the message and educational aspect.  One example is we changed the timer at the top of the screen to an anxiety bar that fills to explicitly communicate the idea that the timer is your "mental bandwidth" or "social stamina."

After that, we had many systems planned which got somewhat hectic.  I was responsible for:

- Movement

- Object Interaction

- Classmate Interaction (Andrew Griffin was responsible for the dialogue box that pops up)

- Interaction with Robbie the Rabbit

- Journal entries between levels

- The two end screens (based on how well you did on the questions and whether or not you talked to Robbie)

- Points System

- Timer

- and several other smaller systems

I was not responsible for the question and answer system, menu traversal, sound implementation, grade difficulty, or the pause menu.