gogo brain:
game or product ?
what are we making?
GoGo Brain was a game portal I worked on for TestingMom.com. It was aimed to be a subscription service that parents and schools could buy for kids to help for early childhood development. Initially, I was brought on to help balance the game in terms of levels and difficulties. Overtime, I determined that GoGo Brain needed more product-based work.
identifying the problem
Testingmom.com presented an interesting problem for me at the time of hiring me. They initially wanted someone with Game Design experience to come in to balance their games, but I began to see that the real issue was that the games just weren’t engaging enough.
They had a ton of content for their games, but it wasn’t really enough to keep kids invested. There wasn’t a sense of progress or accomplishment, so we needed to develop a Core Loop and create aesthetics that could bring the kids back.
who is it for?
The GoGo Brain platform would have its users consist of children, teachers, and adults. The platform consisted of a frontend and a Backend. The frontend design was gear more towards the children where they’d be playing games and running through the Core Loop. The backend design was more for the parents and teachers. It was designed with the ability to assign lessons and track progress of children.
The backend was important as it gave parents, teachers, and schools a sense that they could teach without teaching and see progress without hovering.
who are we working with?
This role had me interacting with different people. Each requiring me to develop a new understanding of their roles relative to the project as well as their capacities.
Leadership had me fleshing their initial vision of a Game Portal that could host their content. It also needed to be within the framework of their budget
Developers were given by giving them low fidelity wireframes and documentation for interaction deign on the Frontend and Backend of the platform.
Project Manager was a point of contact that kept the timeline on track when it came to delegating task to other internal stakeholders
Narrative Designers worked to further flesh out narratives that I developed to tie together the Core Loop. Each game was given a story that the kids could follow along as they played through the platform.
Graphic Designers were given graphic design documents that reimagined and repurposed prior assets that TestingMom.com had on hand from other projects. This helped keep things within budget by not creating anything too new.
Creating a solution
Creating a more engaging experience came primarily through. The game’s Core Loop primarily involved kids playing mini-games which gave them in-game currency. In-game currency could be used to buy things to decorate their space ship/home base.
What was the result?
GoGo Brain was delivered and after putting it through QA, it was released with a great reception!
42% Student performance improvement using our Digital Tutor test prep tool.
96% Parent satisfaction rate of their children's performance.