Progression and Pre-Production

The last month has seen some very good news for us in terms of development and production. The NHS has finally come through, and we now have a full validated IQ test for our game. This development has seen the start of our puzzle design come together and as a team we have been able to push through several parts of our pre-production concepts. Although this is an ongoing process, the morale of the team seems to have been boosted with the combined efforts and success of our research, allowing us to continue with added vigour.

We were also granted permission to use the Cambridge University's CAST system, which helps determine If a child could have Asperger's Syndrome. With both the CAST system and the IQ test secured, we feel that our research has provided us with the best possible chance of creating a valid game that could help with diagnosis.

With our research nailed down we have been able to concentrate on the game and its aesthetic design. This is still in progress at the moment, as we try to determine what fits well within the game and what can realistically be implemented into our flash programming.

As the game is being designed for a very specific audience, we have been incredibly lucky to have received help from a local family who is dealing with AS Syndrome. The boy who fits our targeted age, has been advising us on the impact of our concept designs, who himself is diagnosed with AS. It has been interesting to view how the information on screen is received by someone like himself against someone who didn't have AS. It has forced us to re-examine a whole list of concepts, which has set us back in terms of progression, but has ultimately pushed us forward knowing that what we have done and checked off, will be hopefully well received by our target audience.

As we have decided to make some realistic choices surrounding what we want to achieve by the end of the year, we have decided that we would concentrate on building the two sections of our game, concentrating on the IQ & the CAST test system as these were the heavily researched sections.

Below is an image which details the level layout of the 'Hold'