Document Type

Dissertation

Rights

Available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International Licence

Disciplines

Media and socio-cultural communication

Publication Details

Dissertation submitted to the Dublin Institute of Technology in part fulfilment of the requirements for award of MA in Digital media Technologies, 2006

Abstract

The major project is about the design, development and implementation of an educational game which focuses on the Irish legal system. The written report describes how the idea for the game came about, how the project was managed and implemented, and how it works to provide the user with information about principal areas of law in Ireland. The project involved four phases across a fifteen week calendar schedule. Each phase was broken down into separate steps to enable easier management. Milestones were used to indicate progress and best practices were followed throughout each stage of the project. Research material and content was gathered and analysed. The information was used to determine the application’s visual metaphor and user gameplay experience. The two games within the application relate to conveyancing and tort. Land Law is an action maze game and Law of Torts is a game show based on legal knowledge.

Once the application’s graphical user interface was designed it was used to build the ‘look and feel’ prototype which was redesigned and retested based on feedback from user testing. ActionScript, the authoring language built into Macromedia Flash, was used to programme the prototype. Each line of code was tested to its limits as it was authored to ensure clean execution. Sound was integrated into the application to enhance interactivity and user gameplay experience. The application was rigorously playtested to ensure that everything worked as intended. The files relating to the application were then uploaded to the web server for online distribution. The major project report describes the four phases of the project’s lifecycle in detail and evaluates the application and the reasoning behind all design and management decisions made during development.


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