Reflecting on Development


How my development practices have evolved

Previously I was only involved with development in the story-creation and asset-creation, but now I am the sole developer of the complete games. My approach now is to develop things in small pieces that will let me learn what I need to in order to develop what I have next prioritized.


Past development practices

Previously in my work as a Redshift product developer, I wrote the narratives of the Spanish learning video games. That is, I authored the Spanish-language dialogues characters would have with the learners, then created and edited the voiceovers with AI. I also developed some of the UI assets to be put into Unity, the game engine used to develop the products.

Before ITMA, I didn’t have the technical knowledge to contribute significantly to the Unity game development, but I did attempt to solve that by having the developers on the team at the time create no-code tools for me to interface with. I also sat in on developer meetings so I could start to learn how the technical systems behind our games worked.


Current development practices

Now, though, I am very proud to say I am directly involved in the Unity technical development of the Redshift games as the sole game developer on the team. The most central way that the ITMA program affected me is it gave me opportunities in classes like Applied Theories of Instructional Design and Project & Report to learn how to develop instructional games in Unity. Being able to develop the results of my own designs is incredibly fulfilling personally, and it also helps make my business sustainable long-term as a venture I can run myself.

Recent successes in development include saving student data from a Redshift game’s play session to be loaded into a new scene or play session later,optimizing the graphics of Redshift games to improve load time, developing new tasks for learners to complete, and developing a cupcake mini-game that teaches new Spanish vocabulary in an upcoming product.

Not only can I create functional learning games now, but I also am creating functional learning games that align with educational psychology and how learning happens. I am confident in developing graphics, interfaces, and presentations that manage cognitive load and support learning.

I still face challenges in development today. For instance, I often run into development goals I would like to meet but that I do not know how to implement. To solve this, I turn to YouTube tutorials and Unity documentation online to learn new skills as I need them.