Story Scribblz
Web Design, Illustration & Sound Design
Story Scribblz is a hypothetical grammar app intended to help kids 8-9 years old (3-4th grade), achieve their US grammar standards. It helps overcome the generic learning look of most educational apps with visuals and design more reminiscent of modern and fun games. The games designed here mostly focused on helping kids identify and use parts of speech correctly.
All illustration and motion was created by me. Audio was designed in collaboration with Emily Philpot.
Prototype
Concepting
Interest in game design led me to this project. I was inspired by the classic games I played on the Iphone as a kid like Cut the Rope, Where’s My Water?, and Jetpack Joyride.
The game was designed to be visually striking, fun, and motivated by the narrative. Games with narrative to guide the viewer and short challenges on every level help keep the user engaged. This would also give the target audience (8-9yo) a sense of accomplishment and motivation to keep playing.
Storyline
The characters play off the classic saying ‘the early bird gets the worm’. In this world, Chirp the bird lives in the grammar tree which is being eaten by Wolf the Worm and his gang. To defeat him the player must complete grammar challenges and beat each of the 3 levels (only one level is illustrated here, but other ones are hinted at in the chapter screen).
Visual Design
A problem with how educational apps are made, is they look generic and in this age that quality can be the difference in engagement. The goal was then to make something bright, and fun to keep engagement up.
The characters and world are illustrated in a fun cartoonish doodle art style. The brush set used is uneven in stroke width adding a variation like a pencil would but much cleaner to maintain clarity on a small mobile device. The colors chosen are bright and fun, each color is paired with a darker and lighter tone for use as shadows and highlights. The overall illustration style is focused on keeping objects rounded, fluffy, and fun.
Audio Design
All audio was made in collaboration with Emily Philpot. We collaborated to create the intended feel but she created and assembled the tracks.
Since music is important to create the mood, custom music was created that is complementary to the illustration.
The wind instruments reflect the natural setting by using flute, harp, clarinet, oboe. Acoustic guitar is the base of most songs (excluding the electric accent for the worm introduction). These sounds together create lighthearted and fun sound that wasn’t too intense of jarring and would be pleasant to play along for extended periods of time.