Indie game combines role-playing elements with education

MANILA, Philippines – During the Philippine Game Dev Expo (PGDX) last month, a popular independent game called “High Chance of Misadventures” caught the attention of most of the attendees. Developed by university students, the game combines two unlikely things — a role-playing game (RPG) with arguably one of the toughest mathematical concepts to grasp, probability.

"It is essentially a rock-paper-scissors game where you don’t have full control but instead shift your chances. We decided to create this type of game because we wanted to see the effectiveness of games in learning. Since games are becoming more popular, we wanted to see how they would help in learning or teaching," said Ricielle Singian, one of the game’s designers.

Following in the footsteps of their seniors who presented their projects in last year’s PGDX, the team decided to do the same and was overjoyed to connect with gamers and fellow developers.

"The attendees were more curious because they saw the word ‘mathematics’. There were some that were intimidated because it’s math but after explaining to them [that] it's simple mathematics, they decided to give it a try. Most found it fun and interesting and could be a good thing for the education system here. Some we’re willing to give suggestions as to how to improve the game and we took them into account," added Singian.

The game is still under development and is part of the students' research, but the team hopes it can be used as an effective learning aid for schools to include in their curriculum in the future.

For more information on High Chance of Misadventures, please visit their Facebook page.

PGDX has hosted many student developed games that have a driving purpose as it is part of the students' capstone project for their Bachelor of Science in Interactive Entertainment Major in Game Development course as offered by the De La Salle University.

Speaking to Philstar.com, Associate Professor Neil Patrick Del Gallego explained that the capstone project is a one-year program that begins during a student's fourth year with the course and tasks them to develop a game with a faculty adviser.

Games like High Chance of Misadventures and?SEAker, a 3D