01
A test, not a game.
ACE measured attention, working memory and goal management for research in schools. It was accurate, and it felt like homework.
The grant's goal: make it something a 12-year-old would choose to finish.
Before
After
02
Give it a story.
Players explore a jungle temple. Each crystal opens one of the tests as a mini-game, and finishing it lights the crystal up.
Light them all and a portal opens to a new world, where your scores are waiting. The world is different every time you play.
03
Give it a system.
I designed the UI kit in Illustrator so the Unity developer could import every piece: type, buttons, stars and progress bars, all in the temple's stone and glowing green.
Each test got its own symbol and answer buttons. I specced every screen as a clickable Axure prototype, so the game could be built without guesswork.
The numbers
"Kids seem much more engaged with this version of ACE."Session facilitator
"It's amazing what you have done with Axure, that saves us a lot of work and iterations, plus the game is looking great."Unity engineer, on my interactive specs
What didn't work
Some sounds and gestures didn't work.
Some sound effects didn't land, and kids couldn't hold an iPad steady enough to trace a shape. We changed both for the final build.
Outside our test sessions there would be no facilitator to explain things, so we rewrote the tutorials to do it.