Braizle Expo: Mobile Game

Ireen A. Barretto
Technological Institute of the Philippines th 165-2 15 Avenue, Cubao Quezon City (+63)9276620934 ireen_barretto23@yahoo.com

Mary Joy S. Bolina

Technological Institute of the Philippines Blk. 104 Lot 9 Phase 7c package 5 Bagong Silang, Caloocan City (+63)9166521870 bolina_mj@yahoo.com.ph

Daniel Joseph S. Daluz

Technological Institute of the Philippines Blk. 39 Mongot St., Tumana, Marikina City (+63)9053011210 danieldaluz_89@yahoo.com

Mrs. Melissa P. Juanillo

Technological Institute of the Philippines 938 Aurora Boulevard, Cubao, Quezon City

ABSTRACT
Braizle Expo is a game that mobilizes learning in terms of mobile gaming. Its goal is to present an interesting yet simply educational game that may help in developing a childs critical thinking and strategic skills. Its main goal is to enable kids to use their thinking capabilities in given situations and patterns bringing modern and enhancing the traditional way of playing toy blocks. Braizle Expo may not just supply enjoyment to kids but may instill values and knowledge that may help them improve their personality.

For kids directly involved in using mobile phones, the game aims to provide them with a useful resource for enjoyment and learning, including a playing environment relative to natural environment. By playing the game, kids will be provided a help in improving their critical thinking and strategic skills. They are aided in developing their visual perceptual skills which deals with their perception to what is seen by their naked eye.

1.3 Objectives
1.3.1 General Objective
The study aims to develop a mobile game that provides learning in such way that it will help kids to use their critical thinking skills in a strategy puzzle game.

1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Project Context

Due to the rapid developments invested in mobile technology, traditional ways of interaction and entertainment has been compromised with modernized and innovative mobile-based applications inhering with the day to day needs of people around the globe. The count of mobile phones in the market grows periodically. In this situation, consumers will have lots of phone choices having different features. In effect, even kids may be provoked to have their own featured phone. With this trend, a cause to instill the value of education in mobile phones especially for children of young ages directly involve in using mobile phones, Braizle Expo, a mobile game will manage learning in a playing environment that also shifts a traditional game of block into mobile. It will mobilize the users critical thinking through playing strategies and gaming style in puzzled problems and trivia. Braizle Expo may help kids especially of 4 to 10 years of age to develop their critical thinking and strategic abilities through mobile hands on learning. By enhancing the features of the old fashioned game of block, many kids may have better interest in playing the game. The game will provide enjoyable yet knowledgeable scenario in which trivia presented inside the game are the most relevant and fundamental things that a kid of young age may learn.

1.3.2 Specific Objective

The goal of this study is to: Develop a mobile educational game that will let the player especially those of ages ranging from 4-10 years old to play while improving their critical thinking, strategic and visual perceptual skills. Enhance the traditional game of block into an innovative and modernized way. Offer a simple alternative playing and learning material for kids owning mobile phones. Develop a game having trivia questions related to the main objective of the current stage.

1.4 Scope and Limitation

The study will focus on developing a mobile educational game providing different puzzle scenarios and trivia for learning while playing opportunities that innovates the traditional block game. Its aims to enhance the chance of learning for growing kids in an age range of 4 to 10 years old. The main objective of the game is to collect all needed puzzle piece on each stage in order to finish the game.

1.2 Purpose and Description

Braizle Expo is a game for kids ranging from 4 to 10 years old helping them to develop their critical thinking skills through arranging puzzled block pieces during the game. The games scenario will be an adventure like game, challenging the players to complete block puzzle pieces and learn new things from different types of trivia present in the game.

1.4.1 Features
The study contains the following features: 2D graphics is used in the development of the game. Stages having different levels of difficulty. Trivia about the main structure in the current game level Different scenarios of puzzle block activities.

 Graphics and object suitable for kids of young ages.

1.4.2 Limitations
The study contains the following limitations: Braizle Expo is a single player offline game which means no player may be able to meet in-game. Stages of the game will be limited with a minimum of 3 stages and maximum of 5 if possible.

2. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURES AND STUDIES

This chapter covers the related literature and studies to the study of the mobile game. This part will discuss the other uses of mobile computing in foreign and local regions and studies related to the study.

in regular EC, may change many things in our lives. The vignette also exemplifies pervasive computing, in which services are seamlessly blended into the environment without the user being aware of the technology behind the scenes. This application is also a part of mobile computing, a computing paradigm designed for workers who travel outside the boundaries of their organizations or for people on the move. Mobile computing and commerce are spreading rapidly, replacing or supplementing wired computing. Mobile computing involves mostly wireless infrastructure. Mobile computing may reshape the entire IT field. The technologies, applications, and limitations of mobile computing and mobile commerce are the main focus.[3]

2.2.1 Local literature 2.2.1.1 UC launched Mobile Library

Mobile Library Program is a mobile learning facility equipped with textbooks and reading materials for the elementary level. Teaching aids like building blocks and flash cards, dictionaries and thesaurus were the components of the "Library on Wheels" which shall tour around the different barangay's, even public parks in Baguio City and Benguet. The mobile will stay in one area for one week. During the said week, different activities will be facilitated by volunteer UC College of Teacher Education students, assigned librarian, together with the teachers in the area to promote that reading is fun to do through storytelling, reading sessions, drawing and coloring plus film showing. To make the mobilization possible, UC thru its Center for Social Responsibility (CSR) and the College of Teacher Education (CTE) partnered with ABS-CBN Regional Network Group Baguio.[4]

2.1 Review of Related Literature

Related literature includes research findings, published ideas, opinions of experts contained in books, and online internet.

2.1.1 Foreign literature 2.1.1.1 A discussion on security risks in mobile commerce

The advent of mobile computing facilitates the mobility to research, communicate, and purchase goods and services from anywhere at any time without being tied to a desktop. Using the Internet in conjunction with mobile computing opens up many more activities than merely online purchasing. For instance, mobile applications such as emails, weather reports, sport scores, flight and reservation information, navigational maps, and stock quotes are becoming common. While the dominance of these applications is expected to grow, innovative online applications such as location identification programs will further drive new areas of mobile commerce growth.[1]

2.2.1.2 APC: Intermec mobile computing and printing

APC is one of the pioneering users of mobile sales automation in the Philippines, which they launched successfully since July 2007 just after 10 months of development and trial, says Federez. Our salespeople now enjoy a more streamlined system whereby they can easily collect payments from retail customers at off-site locations and enter the payment information into their Intermec mobile computers, and then generate invoices immediately using the Intermec mobile printers. Retail customers get computergenerated legibly printed invoices, with little margin of error. Once back at the office, salespeople can synchronize their Intermec mobile computers with the office back-end system to off-load daily sales information for processing into reports easily.[5]

2.1.1.2 Mobile application for the next billion: A Social computing application and a Perspective to sustainability
The focus is on designing and deploying mobile social computing systems for delivering actionable information to next billions users in a sustainable way. Given that people are fundamentally social; their use of information and communications technologies cannot be understood separately from social considerations. Their approach is to use social computing techniques, such as recommendations based on shared participation in a social network, to extend existing social practices in a community and increase the visibility of local knowledge. They introduce the Picture Talk infrastructure that enables them to build mobile, information-sharing applications, such as Rice Talk, that supplement voice interaction with visual scaffolding and social computing techniques.[2]

2.2.1.3 Electronic Banking: Delivering Microfinance Services to the poor in the Philippines
The use of mobile phones is one such innovation that is gaining focus in the Philippines and is proving as an ideal channel for service delivery to microfinance clients, the poor and low-income sector. Banks are seeing that mobile phones could be used in purchases, payments, remittances and other related services. The main enabling factor for the success of this approach is the existing wide network of mobile phone users in the Philippines. Unlike the ATMs and the internet, it is estimated that 43% of Filipinos, or 36 million people, use cellular phones; and the penetration rate is expected to increase by year-end 2005. Several estimates show that market penetration will soon reach 50% of the total population of the country.

2.1.1.3 Mobile, Wireless and Pervasive Computing

The opening vignette is an example of location-based ecommerce, which is an application of mobile commerce, in which EC services are provided to customers located at specific places at the time they need services. This capability, which is not available

The volume of mobile phone usage specifically the short message service, more commonly called in the Philippines as texting, has reached a volume of nearly 300 million texts a day dubbing the Philippines as the texting capital of the world. Aside from the significant volume of mobile phone users, this technology has been one that has served all income groups. The mobile phone industry in the Philippines particularly supports the needs of the low income market because of some key industry characteristics and attributes particularly; (1) the calling party pays system; (2) pre-paid service; and (3) text messages.17 The calling party pays system ensures that the user will not get charged if no calls are made.[6]

mobile games by using different methods, theorems and formulas.[8]

2.2.2 Local Studies 2.2.2.1 Something Fishy: A Reef Simulation Game for Mobile Phones
Something Fishy is a mobile game that features a Philippine reef ecosystem, exhibits a variety of species of underwater species, and simulates their food chain process. The player takes on the role of a fish and tries to survive in the hazardous reef environment. He must identify predators and prey, avoid poisonous food, and conserve his energy. It serves as an educational tool for children to appreciate and learn more about the Philippine reef ecosystem and as another instrument to stimulate critical thinking. The target market of the game is grade school children, aged 9-12. The Basic Education Curriculum of the Philippines prescribes that sixth graders be able to construct food chains and food webs to illustrate feeding relationships among organisms. Something Fishy is an implementation of these interrelationships of animals, plants, and the environment. It was written in J2ME and runs on the new Series 60 cellular phones. Something Fishy has interesting features that will make users sharpen their observation skills, develop problem-solving strategies, create and test hypotheses, and learn about food chains, food webs and the reef community. Trivia Pop-up. When you pause the game, selectable items on the screen will be highlighted and you can fire/hit on an organism you want to learn more about. When they hit on a highlighted organism, a trivia about this organism is displayed.[9]

2.2 Review of Related Studies

Related Studies includes research findings, studies and proposals closely related to the study of mobile game.

2.2.1 Foreign Studies 2.2.1.1 Brain School: Am I Smarter Now?

Part of the delight of Brain School is not only that you can compete against up to ten other players on your device, but also you always compete against yourself, trying to improve your score. So, even when I earned an A+ in Heavier, Heaviest (rather quickly I might add), I played again and again to challenge myself to beat my Personal Best. However, it wasnt that easy with the infernal Plastic Puzzle game. To complete a year, you have to pass five different levels of five different puzzles and pass an exam. One of the things that keep Brain School interesting is the different types of games as well as the sheer number of games. Brain School has a whopping 20 different games, which is more than any brain training game Ive seen, and each game has multiple variations. Other games are purely achievement-based; they take more thoughtful concentration and have no time limits. You try them and try them and try them, until you accomplish the goal. Along the way, besides whatever brain gains you may get, you may also learn something about your own approach to problem solving and the level of your own perseverance.[7]

3. TECHNICAL BACKGROUND
Braizle Expo is a mobile game that will work in Nokia phones, the game will be created using different programming and designing platforms; image editing, graphic designing, animation simulation and other useful softwares benefiting with the accomplishment of the study. A simulator will be used in testing the mobile game each and every modifications, enhancements and improvements happen to the game. Listed below are the platforms to be used: Qt 4.7.1 is an open source cross platform mobile programming environment which uses a combination different programming language. It is the main platform used by the researcher in making the mobile game. It is a free C++ class library for platform independent software development. Adobe Photoshop CS5 is a graphics editor and is one of the most popular programs for image manipulation. It is used widely by graphics professionals for all sorts of tasks including website design. This application was used by this study in order to create templates that would enhance the appearance of the games interface and would also edit some graphics which are used in the documentation. Adobe Illustrator CS5 software helps Graphic designers create distinctive vector artwork for any project. Take advantage of the precision and power of sophisticated drawing tools, expressive natural brushes, and a host of time-savers.

2.2.1.2 Fire Smoke Simulation for Mobile Game

The fire simulation game is implemented on a WIPI(Wireless Internet Platform for Interoperability), which is the standard mobile platform in Korea and NF3d for the 3D programming API. They implemented fire and smoke animation interacting on a mobile game called Rupee Story. The game uses the computation method of stams stable navier-stokes solver. Stam described a stable numerical technique for interactive simulation of fluid motion; the fluid simulation solver is based on Stams algorithm, which is stable and prevents numerical dissipation. Stam's stable fluid simulation solver is based on the HelmholtzHodge decomposition theorem. They also used the method called alpha blending, the process of combining an image with background to create the appearance of partial transparency. The goal of the research is to establish a fire and smoke simulation on 3d mobile game, unlike other works, this study uses different types of methods and formulas to be able to produce a good quality graphic of the fire and smoke simulation. Compared to the study about Braizle Expo, this study focuses mainly in improving the appearance of fire and smoke in 3d

4. DESIGN DISCUSSION

AND

METHODOLOGY

Mechanics will display. This will show how the gamers will play the game. The Third Sub Menu is the Quit; it is the menu that lets the player end and leaves the game.

This part discusses the methods and procedures used to gather important facts and related topics concerning how to develop a Puzzle concept mobile game.

4.1 Research Methodology

To be able to understand the research project, the researchers used the necessary methods of research and data gathering tools. The study was developed through the use of the following methodologies: 4.1.1 Descriptive Method The researchers used the Descriptive Method of research to come up with comprehensive and reliable documentation about the research study on mobile game development. Descriptive Method is a type of research that includes many particular research methodologies and procedures, such as surveys, observations, self-reports and tests.

4.2 Research Instrumentation Techniques

The researchers use the following techniques to gather information in conducting the research study.

1-1. Hierarchical Input Process Output of Braizle Expo

4.4 Use Case Diagram

4.2.1 Library Research The Library research method is used to gather information and reference related to the research study. Articles, books and magazines available in the library serves as guide in documentation and provides relevant literature and studies relevant for the game conceptualization and development. 4.2.2 Web Browsing The primary source of information and reference of the study is the Internet. The researchers use the web for downloading e-books that discusses the advantages of playing toy blocks for children and how it can improve their mental skill abilities. 4.2.3 Observation Through observation technique the researchers observed that children should first learn the basic knowledge that they should learn such as shape recognition and analyzing solutions to given situations. Through reading articles in the web, the researchers were encouraged to develop a mobile game which is puzzle concept game that will replace the traditional way of playing toy blocks. The research used the Use Case Diagram to describe the functionality of the game, its dependencies and uses. 1-2. Use Case Diagram of Braizle Expo

4.3 HIPO (Hierarchical Input Process Output)

The project research is described with the use of HIPO (Hierarchical Input Process Output). HIPO (Hierarchical Input Process Output) discusses the hierarchical process of the game. It is the representation of the games main menu. This diagram starts by launching the game automatically; to start a game the players must need to Click Main Menu. The Main Menu are consists of three sub menus the New Game, How to Play and Quit. The First sub Menu is New Game, it is the menu in which players will start their task by playing the mini games to complete the figure in the main quest. To begin playing the game, the player must click the How to Play which is the Second Sub Menu; then Game

5. IMPLEMENTATION PLAN
The researchers find the most efficient applications that could provide all their needs during the Development phase of the mobile game. Braizle Expo is a touch screen concept game in which the user needs to tap the screen of the phone in order to manipulate the game. Qt Application is used as a means to develop the game and in later use it will be deployed in Nokia iPhone series. After the accomplishment of the game the users are now ready to explore and have the chance to grasp basic knowledge while having fun.

6. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 6.1 Conclusion

Braizle Expo is a knowledgeable game presenting different trivia which involves the enhancement of users critical thinking and visual-perceptual skills. The mobile game challenges the user to complete figures and answer questions related to the completed figure. With its difficulty set to different levels the user will become more focused on finding the right piece to fit at the right position.

International Journal of Software Engineering and Its Applications. Vol.2, No. 4.

www.sersc.org/journals/IJSEIA/vol2_no4_2008/1 .pdf.
[9] Cruz, Katrina Marie, et. al., 2005. Something Fishy: A reef simulation game for mobile phones.

www.recsam.edu.my/cosmed/cosmed05/.../files %5Csubtheme3%5CKMC.pdf.

6.2 Recommendations
The researchers recommend to future researchers to improve the difficulty of the game. Add more features and make the games design more attractive to users. The researchers also recommend that scoring may be implemented in the game.

7. REFERENCES
[1] Gururajan, Raj 2006. A Discussion on Security Risk in Mobile Commerce Business Review, 7(2).pp.9-39. ISSN 1229-6546. University of Southern Queen Land. [2] Danis, Catalina, Bailey, Mark, et. al. Mobile Applications for the next Billions: A Social Computing Application and a Perspective on Sustainability. IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. [3] C05.qxd, August 2004, Abhinav-09 PART II: The Web Revolution, CHAPTER 5: Mobile, Wireless, and Pervasive Computing.

http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/msabet/c05_ Turban_0471705225.pdf.
[4] January 17, 2011 UC launched Mobile Library. http://www.ucbcf.edu.ph/Home/News?Category=Community&NewsID=27 6 [5] Case Study: Ajinomoto Philippines Corporation (APC), Making waves on the road.

http://www.intermec.com/publicfiles/case/en/Ajinomoto_cs_web.pdf.
[6] Jimenez, Eduardo, Roman, Pia Bernadette Electronic Banking: Delivering Microfinance Services to the Poor in the Philippines. Case Study on Philippines. www.bwtp.org/pdfs/arcm/Jimenez.pdf. [7] Greer, Tyson, May 2008. Ambient Insights: Brain Now?(Directors cut). School Am I Smarter

www.ambientinsight.com/BrainSchool_GreerDir ectorsCut.pdf.
[8] Lee, DoHoon, October 2008.