Goobie and Shoob Travel the World

Main Menu
Columbia Dialogue
Egypt Selection
Antarctica Leaving Animation
Antarctica Dialogue
Paris Selection
Egypt Dialogue
China Dialogue

Inspiration

We wanted to create an educational immersive game with eye-catching artwork and animations to capture the interest of younger audiences. The topic of transportation allowed us to include learning experiences for users by including information about the costs and benefits associated with modes of travel all over the world.

What it does

Goobie and Shoob Travel the World is an interactive game showcasing locations around the globe and teaching children about methods of transportation. It is from the perspective of aliens who are also learning about the different ways you can travel. The game includes cutscenes, interactive buttons, animated characters, intuitive graphs, and colorful artwork to engage players.

How we built it

We built it using C## in game development software (Unity), AI picture-generating software (DALL E), pixel art software (pixilart.com), photo editor (photpea.com) and opensource audios (apmmusic.com).

Challenges we ran into

We ran into some challenges of linking scenes and including movable objects within the game. The choose-your-own-adventure style gameplay was a lofty goal to reach within 36 hours, and it was necessary to budget and allocate the team's time to ensure a complete and quality game was created.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud to have made a fun game for kids to enjoy and learn about the topic as well as combining a variety of software to create various interactive portions of the program.

What we learned

We learned how to use AI generated software and how to smoothly incorporate a variety of development tools within one project.

What's next for Goobie and Shoob Travel the World

We hope to use this experience to create more interactive games in the future, geared towards a wide variety of school-aged audiences. Utilizing many different software applications taught us about integrating software within our program, which is a skill we believe will transfer to our future projects.

Business plan

Product Title: Goobie and Shoob Travel the World

Product Description: This interactive educational game is geared toward children and intended to teach them about modes of travel and their unique attributes/costs. The target audience has minimal exposure to different methods of transportation, aiming to increase their knowledge of relevant topics such as budgeting and climate change. The game is designed to have no wrong answers, so children can learn however they choose. Goobie and Shoob create an encouraging virtual environment that utilizes positive reinforcement to make kids excited about learning.

Target Audience: School-aged children in educational environments, specifically ages 7-12, are the primary users of this product. However, the homeschool parents and educational professionals will make up the entirety of our customer base as they will be responsible for the subscription purchase. This game can be distributed directly through our company website, as well as licensed to educational institutions for an annual fee. Our main demographics will include homeschool families and private elementary schools as they have larger disposable funds and seek supplemental curriculum. We used statistics from the University of Oxford to calculate the cost of emissions per person by distance (Ritchie, 2020).

Relevant Competition: Companies such as IXL provide curriculum for more than 13 million students, on a subscription based model (2022). Subscription models for online educational content is a successful approach in this growing industry, with the E-Learning Market valued at higher than $315 billion in 2021 according to experts at Global Market Insights. Furthermore, online educational programs are expected to be worth more than $1 trillion by 2028 (Wadhwani & Gankar, 2022). These established companies create a difficult barrier to entry, however, our products will be introduced with an emphasis on community. Our first target market will be Columbia, Missouri where the characters crashland. This regional, community-based approach will allow our game-based learning to shine as homeschool families tell each other about the product and our team approaches private elementary schools with trial-first licensing offers.

Risk/Opportunity: Sunk development costs make up the majority of our financial risks. However, since this product was developed over a 36 hour period with free labor, that risk is obsolete. The company will incur costs from marketing and fixed overhead. There are some variable costs expected, which is tied to scaling our methods of distribution alongside the sale of our game. As more customers subscribe to our website and access our games, more servers will be needed to facilitate user access. Our approach includes a cloud based model, so scaling can be done dynamically. The only funding needed is for marketing and distribution as development costs are null. Since the contribution margin is high, stakeholders will see large profits as business scales.

Conclusions: Since costs scale with revenue predictably, the opportunity outweighs all foreseeable risks. Tigerhacks and MLH are our primary sources of funding, and our company needs $800 to successfully launch our start up according to our business plan (2022).

References IXL Learning. (2022). Enrich your homeschool experience with IXL. Retrieved November 5, 2022, from https://www.ixl.com/membership/family/homeschooling?gclid=Cj0KCQjwk5ibBhDqARIsACzmgLTmB7qIjpTW77-7EaDksz0m1LqQFzE7rVHPCAUGPREF7ABn1GiY4T4aAt5nEALw_wcB

MLH. (2022). Tigerhacks. TigerHacks. Retrieved November 5, 2022, from https://tigerhacks.com/

Ritchie, H. (2020, October 13). Which form of transport has the smallest carbon footprint? Our World in Data. Retrieved November 6, 2022, from https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint

Wadhwani, P., & Gankar, S. (2022, April). E-Learning Market Size By Technology (Online E-Learning, Learning Management System (LMS), Mobile E-Learning, Rapid E-Learning, Virtual Classroom), By Provider (Service, Content), By Application (Academic [K-12, Higher Education, Vocational Training], Corporate [SMBs, Large Enterprises], Government), COVID-19 Impact Analysis, Regional Outlook, Growth Potential, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2022 – 2028. E-Learning Market Trends 2022-2028, Global Forecast Report. Retrieved November 5, 2022, from https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/elearning-market-size