How we make games!

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Making Great Software – Numbers Up! 2 Baggin’ the Dragon
Creating really good educational software requires a huge commitment of time, energy, resources and dedication to maintaining a vision. Sometimes it seems as if you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. The making of Numbers Up! 2 Baggin’ the Dragon provided a feast of problem-solving opportunities to say the least! It’s all a bit like baking a cake really…

Ingredients – Thoroughly Researched Content
The Content-Creation process began with a thorough analysis of all curriculum documents for both Australia and New Zealand and the development of a Scope and Sequence chart outlining concepts to be targeted in the program. Numbers Up ! 2 Baggin’ the Dragon was developed to focus on practical skills of Measurement, Shape, Space and Data. Our design mandate was to present hands-on experiences in familiar contexts to build pupils’ mastery and confidence to apply mathematics in daily life.
At the same time, the content of the Algebra strand was included to provide solid foundations in higher-level maths thinking for all learners from preschool to secondary years.

Intensive Curriculum Research – Mary.

Numbers Up! 2 Baggin’ the Dragon Scope and Sequence (3000+ Questions)

Baking – The Question-Presentation Process
Numbers Up! 2 Baggin’ the Dragon contains over 3,000 problem-solving questions presented over 11 levels. We’ve done our best to write questions which will appeal to all kinds of children.
We went looking for just the right people to write them – young enough to remember what kinds of questions they would have liked at school, smart enough to get the answers right, zany enough to make the questions fun – then added a couple of mums just to keep things sensible (and check the spelling!).

Planing Questions – Chris, Mary & Susan.

We seized the opportunity offered by the long vacation to grab 8 university students – a physicist, an actuary, two medical students, three science students and a political science/journalism student, all ‘best of the best’ tertiary performers. As well as having different kinds of learners, we had an equal mix of male and female, to make sure we had questions that both girls and boys would enjoy doing.
We got our team together in early January 2004 and they spent 6 weeks in lively, often volatile, question-generation. There were a lot of laughs, a few fights (sorry, discussions!) and a great time was had by all. Conceptual content of the questions was vetted by a highly-experienced secondary maths teacher (working mostly with the team’s co-operation!) and overall co-ordination of the project carried out by primary teacher, Mary Jarrott.
Meanwhile, Richard – our resident pommy illustrator – was busy drawing and colouring in (he calls it work!) to ensure that kids enjoy looking at every question screen.

Illustrating Questions – Richard (Eddie and Huy)

The Icing – Getting Kids Really Motivated
OK, so you research and create a huge amount of serious content. Now you’ve got to motivate a wide age-range of kids to enjoy coming to grips with it. A hard ask?
Enter Neil and Toby. Neil’s our graphic designer who loves modelling and quirky stuff …er…let’s re-phase that… “clay modelling” and “quirky design” – all the graphic stuff that kids are finding SO enjoyable in Numbers Up! Volcanic Panic. You’ll often see staff members congregating around Neil’s work station making “OOH, AHH”-type noises.
Toby, our programmer (and fanatical gamer) speaks the computer lingo that makes it all work smoothly. Come to think of it, there’s an uncanny resemblance between Toby and a certain playing piece….

How to make a Maths Dragon kids really want to tame

Neil sculpting. Clay becomes character.