Sport n Sort
Game DesignerCompany: TVO mPower
Target Audience: Grade 1
One of my key duties at TVO is to comb through our catalogue of games and identify titles that could use a little extra “oomph”. Sport n’ Sort was one of the first games we updated in last year’s round of game enhancements. It’s one of the top games played on mPower, so I had to be extra careful in how I managed the tweaks. It was also the first time I had gone into a game created by another team.
The mandate for SnS was to find better ways to align the gameplay with the methods taught by teachers in the classroom. Originally, the player was asked to sort a series of clothing items in a specific way. But in classrooms, teachers often ask students how they want to sort. So, we modified the gameplay to allow for multiple methods of sorting without dictating the method the player chooses. On top of the change in methodology, we also added in 3 new teams, 3 new colours and 2 new clothing types.
In addition to the changes on the first stage, we modified the second stage to be a better graph system AND make the experience feel a lot better (seriously, I just want to stamp things all the time in the second stage).
All told, it was a large effort. But overall I feel like changes are positive and have been met with increased play.