Team Athena is developing Smash, a single-player iPad game that 8- to 11- year old boys with social-emotional challenges enjoy, that is engaging first and foremost, to be used during their reinforcement time with iPads at Colonial School. The game seeks to encourage problem-solving strategy and other enriching elements often absent from games geared toward this age group.
To our target audience, feeling engaged means a feeling of power and control. Too often, games about power go hand in hand with gratuitous violence and little interweaving of any academic standards.
Smash is a game all about being a powerful monster, stomping as many buildings as you can. Our game’s aim is to compete with off-the-shelf games for this age group. Our design pillars are deeply juicy sound and visuals, feeling powerful, and a pickup and play UI which is intuitive and “invisible” to all of our players, including non-readers.