Game Play

The Interface
The interface was designed to be as simple and intuitive as possible. It's composed of three main areas.

The control panel (right): contains a list of items you're carrying around with you, shows you how many crystal and treasure pieces you've found and gives you access to the game controls.

The message panel (bottom): is where all written messages are displayed. All text in this box is read aloud.

The location panel (centre): is where all of the action takes place. The location in which you're currently standing is displayed here and allows you to interact with the environment using 'hotspot' areas and clickable keywords.

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The First Land
The map that you found shows one of the lands where two of the crystal pieces are hidden. Your task is to find them.

The land has six distinct places you can visit - the lake, the castle, the cave, the well, the witch’s house and the shed.

Each location consists of a number of interconnecting pictures with each picture having several ‘hotspot’ areas. When the player moves his or her mouse over one of these areas, a word appears in the centre of that area describing what the player is seeing.

For example, the castle may contain the words ‘Dungeon’, ‘Courtyard’ and ‘Spade’. If the player clicks one of these words, one of a number of things will happen:

• The player moves to another location and a different picture is shown (clicking the ‘Courtyard’ link).
• The player receives a description of the word he clicked on - "The dungeon door is locked" (clicking the ‘Dungeon’ link).
• If a word describes an object that the player can take, the word and the image of the object disappear from the picture as the player picks the object up - "You take the spade."

There is a limit to the number of objects that the player can take. Reasoned decisions must be made at all times as to which objects need not necessarily be carried around.

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The Second Land
The Shattered Crystal is divided into two parts. The first part is short and relatively simple. Its simplicity allows children to become familiar with the gaming interface and concept and at the same time allows them to be successful relatively quickly.

The second part is longer and more complex and has a larger number of puzzles in it. This part builds on the concepts found in the preceding part.

Travelling back in time, your quest now is to find the remaining three pieces of the Crystal of Light. From the castle, through the caves, the town and the mansion house there are around eighty different locations for the children to explore, about thirty objects to pick up and use and a few colourful local people to meet.

The familiar 'Towers of Hanoi' puzzle and a subtle water related puzzle involving litres and millilitres are but two of the puzzles the children will need to solve to progress further into the game.

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Secondary Objectives
In order to maintain interest and increase longevity, secondary goals have been introduced in the form of a simple treasure hunt. The second part of The Shattered Crystal contains six pieces of treasure carefully hidden in various places - in a chest partially visible under a bed for example.

While it is not vital to the outcome of the game that the player finds all six of the pieces of treasure, they provide an interesting and motivating temporary diversion from the main game goals.

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Learning Outcomes
The graphics and involving story immerse the player in a computer generated world upon which many teaching topics can be based. The game can be used to promote cross-curricular themes to include literacy, stories, report writing, maths and science.

Presented with realistic motivating problems with defined attainable goals, the puzzles offer children working in pairs or small groups, opportunities for a great deal of discussion and are an excellent way in which to develop team working and PSE skills and to encourage cross-curricular thinking.

A teacher option tab within the game allows a whole group to focus at any time on one of the large puzzles, to discuss the concept and then return to the game.

Those children with specific learning difficulties in Literacy have found the structure of the program especially useful in developing their ability to sequence events. For those with reading difficulties, all on-screen text is read aloud by semi- professional actors. In addition, carefully chosen sound effects and music all add to the atmosphere of the environment.

Each game also allows children to meet the ICT curriculum guidelines - "children should be given opportunities to explore a virtual world."

With a load and save facility allowing an infinite number of opportunities to save their position, children can play for short periods of time whenever this fits in with the class teacher.