In Search of a Voice
One of the biggest challenges that we have is to drop the voice of an educational game. To that end we read some young adult books to study how the authors were able to leave their own adult voice behind and to get inside the point of view of the young characters. We read Mosquitoland by David Arnold (1) and This One Summer written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki (2). Both of these books are about divorce from a teen’s point of view.
This approach is akin to how visual art is taught in art schools. The master is studied and then internalized to see the path forward. What we learned from these two award winning authors is that the inner dialogue is really important to the development of the character and that how they express themselves is as important as what they wear. It has been a while since we have been teenagers ourselves so this has been a great reminder of what it was like to be a teen. Being a teen is an experience of trying to find yourself and problem solving the best way you know how. It is an experience of observance of what is going on around you and trying to problem solve without resources and information that the grown ups around you have. The teen or child does see and feel the problem and they will use their experiences and resources to solve these problems, or to make sense of what is going on, for themselves. A teen’s world is small and they yearn for it to be bigger.
This is Version 1 of the Prologue Mission. The voices of the characters aren’t developed. The story is there but the player is being pulled through it rather than joining in with the characters. This version understands the teens from the outside. It feels like window shopping.
Here is Version 2. The world of the characters is seen through their eyes. The characters’ voices are more distinct to their own personality. We are sure that this could be improved but this is the path forward.
(1) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18718848-mosquitoland
(2) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18465566-this-one-summer
