The document outlines a study conducted to design meaningful digital games for rural Indian children. Researchers observed both traditional and digital games played by children in 3 communities. They found traditional games focused more on physical skills while digital games emphasized character development and skills. The researchers then suggested modifications to existing digital games based on traditional game mechanics to make them more engaging. These included incorporating subgoals and challenge levels. The researchers proposed their own study targeting semi-rural 5-15 year olds would include business, driving, problem-solving and team-building games.

1. Ankit Agrawal
Harshvardhan

2. Outline
 Introduction and Target Users
 Games(Digital and Traditional)
 Observations
 Our Observations and Approach
 Our Target Users and Our Digital Games

3. Introduction
Objective : Designing meaningful digital games for
rural children .
Action :
• Facilitate rural children to play their digital games .
• Observe their traditional games.
• Observed & collected the experiences of the children.
• Comparative study and key points.

4. Target Users
The games were tested in the following three
communities :
1. Public School in a remote village of Mysore.
2. Private school in lucknow where the children enjoy
high parental income .
3. Public school in Lucknow near the above mentioned
where the parents income were not that much .

5. Digital Games
Some of the digital games employed were :
1. Crocodile rescue .
2. Dancer
3. Train Tracks
4. Frogger
There were total of 10 games that were used for testing
for a period of 17 weeks .

7. A total of 28 traditional games were used , some
of which are
 Halla Guli Maane
 Siya Satkana
 Cops and Robbers
 Trump Cards
 Pen-Pick
 Hide and Seek
 Gucchi Garam
 Kabaddi
 Giti Phod
 Kite Flying

9. Observations
The following observations were made :
 Character or team development has no central role
in traditional games , as required in video games
unlike video games .
 Traditional games do not have skill enhancing
objects , as they are mainly meant to be acquired
or moved around only .
 No pre-programmed logic so games advance only
when players act .
 Simple social interaction and engagement in
traditional games as compared to digital .

10. Improvements
After interpreting playable issues with the digital games
and the results from newly designed game(Tree - Tree)
, the following modifications to existing games are
suggested :
 Game has to be challenging , enjoyable without being
too difficult .
 Adavanced levels should have more subgoals
 Using same game mechanics that are there in
traditional games guarantees the success of digital
games.

11. SHORTCOMINGS
 The target users that they chose are not the true
representation of rural Indian children.
 Even their digital games are not much meaningful
skills enhancing.
 Number of schools are very less

12. STRENGTHS
 Their observation is true that Indian
traditional games are not much skill
enhancing.
• Most of the games require more physical
stamina rather than mind exercise .
• The suggestions to make digital games
more engrossing are really magnificent .
 Tree-Tree game is entertaining and at the
same time it is educative and easy to
implement on mobiles as well

13. TARGET USERS
 Our target users will be children between the age of
5-15 residing in villages closer to semi-developed
city

14. OUR GAMES
 Business(to teach the business skills )
 Driving In real world.
 Finding the cattle (To enhance logical and
mathematical reasoning) .
 Defenders(For enhancing team skills)
Our games have a wide range based on the age and
living environment of the children

15. Thank you
Questions??