The Heights: An Educational Social Work Virtual Community
The goal of this project was to re-design and transfer the client’s existing interactive digital training simulation - The Heights - as a more game-like training experience existing on a new platform.
This project was performed in collaboration with and for our client Wurzweiler School of Social Work at Yeshiva University.
In this project I acted as team lead, producer, lead designer, stand-in artist and worked directly with the faculty of Wurzweiler School of Social Work to determine the goals and outcomes of this project and see the project to completion.
The full paper can be found here
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Producer & Project Manager
I had setup the project management framework and worked with the client to first solidify project goals and outcomes, and then give regular updates and discuss any concern points immediately.
A Developer’s Blog to share progress with our clients and stakeholders
A Trello Board for agile task management
A Google Drive folder for asset management and documentation
Presentation, Agenda, and Design document templates for consistent note-taking and progress updates
A Discord channel for open and easy communication between team members
A Gamemaker file and Github repository
Timelines and calendars for milestone and meeting tracking
For this project, I had setup and maintained the following…
Lead Designer
As lead designer on this project, I worked closely with our client to determine the most important goals and desired results, including the learning goals of every individual case study found in this simulation to ensure it would be a great tool for the specific course in which it would be applied.
Design documents for each case study simulation including all essential characters and the learning goals of the cases
Flow charts representing the narrative and meaningful choices within each individual scene in all of the unique case study simulations along with the case outcome based on their actions throughout the simulation
Open dialogue with our client to ensure realism in the narrative and story of the re-designed case studies
Designed surveys for playtest data gathering to measure goal-hitting throughout the development of the project and case studies
Conducted and analyzed playtests and devised actionable steps to address data points gathered
Presented design pitches, prototypes, and regular updates to the clients
Drafted a Procedural Document of the team’s process to provide foundational documentation to future teams
For this project, I had setup and maintained the following…
One of the case study scenario flowcharts