In Operation Investigation players investigate animals, compare their traits, and use reasoning skills to find which animal matches a target. The game features characters from the PBS Kids TV series, Hero Elementary. Fur Blur the hamster needs an animal sidekick and its the player’s (or players’) job(s) to find the animal with the traits the Hero Elementary team is looking for. Each round, players can select the number of collaborators (up to five) and the animal traits each player wants to investigate. Then one-by-one players find out about four potential sidekicks. They get info on the animal’s texture, weight, habitat, diet, speed, and sleep schedule. Players compare what they know about the target animal’s traits with what they learn about the traits to identify an animal out of possible matches. If they get it right the animal gets added to their collection. In the Make section, students can also take a photo of any animal they want and enter its trait data. Go to the Collection section to revisit any of the animals.

Awards

Operation Investigation has won 2 Bronze Telly Awards; A Silver Award at the International Serious Play Competition; and the “Best Educational Kids Game: Elementary school” for the Gee Awards.

Interesting Problem

How do you meaningfully integrate user-generated content in an educational puzzle game?

From the initial design of Operation Investigation we knew that we wanted the game to be a deductive reasoning game where players would investigate animal traits to find the best match for a target animal. This approach had players simulate using the show’s Super Powers of science to make observations and collect data about animals. As a result, our back end had a bank of animal data that the game could pull from to create different puzzles for players to solve with at least one entry for every variation of Weight, Habitat, Diet, Speed, Texture and Sleep Schedule. Once we had the inital base set we thought about ways to continue to expand the game’s content. Initally we had planned thematic updates that corresponded with holidays, seasons, or new episodes of Hero Elementary. However, we also wanted a solution that would allow for more organic growth of the game’s content over time.

To solve this problem, we created a system that allowed players to contribute their own animal data to expand the game’s content. Using the device camera, players were able to take a photo of any animal they wanted and would then be asked to make observations about the animal’s traits (e.g. does the animal have fur or scales?). After the player finished answering the questions, the animal was added to the bank and would show up as a potential match in future rounds of the game. This approach increased player engagement by giving them a sense of ownership and contribution to the game world and made them actively engage in citizen science by documenting the animals around them.

Intitally, we were worried about privacy and safety concerns around allowing players to take photos within the app. To mitigate these concerns, we made sure that all photos taken within the app were stored locally on the player’s device and were not uploaded to any external servers. We also pitched a pilot program to have kids submit their animals through a moderated process where we would review the submissions and add popular animals to future releases. However, after discussing with our client, Twin Cities Public Television, we decided the local storage approach was sufficient for our goals and reduced the complexity of the project.

While the app was available, it held an average of 4.5 stars on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store with many players commenting positively about the ability to add their own animals to the game. Common Sense Media praised the feature for encouraging creativity and exploration giving the game a “Recommended” with 4 Stars. Read the review here.

Main Goal:

Help players practice classification and reasoning skills by investigating animal traits to find the best match for a target animal. Additionally, allow players to contribute their own animal data to expand the game’s content and enhance engagement.

Client:

Twin Cities Public Television