Research and Inspiration
Prior to creating this skill, I performed research with children from the age of 5-11. I introduced them to skills currently available for kids and adults to see what lessons I could learn from their behaviour.
The primary learnings were:
- children need extra time to think of responses
- complex phrases led to being misunderstood
- rules need to be easy to understand
- simple, clear choices for responses
- best if the whole family can participate
It was clear from this testing that any skill for kids should have concise and clear choices that were easy to say. They should have simple rules, and the best responses were often where families were playing together.
What it does
In True, False or Trick! children are presented with a new set of facts every day from a wide range of subjects. Their goal is to identify not just which are true and false but which are actually tricks. A trick means there's something else wrong in the fact that isn't the question.
Here's an example: if I was to say "The USA and New Mexico are neighboring countries" that would be a trick because New Mexico is a state not a country. If I'd said "The USA and Australia are neighboring countries" that would be false because they're far away from each other.
This format really engages children's listening comprehension skills since they must not only figure out if the facts are true but also find inconsistencies in what they've heard.
Because of the simple format of answers: true, false or trick, the game is accessible for a large age range. Even when answering incorrectly, they will hear the explanation of not only why it's incorrect but also additional facts and trivia about the subject. It's a perfect game for families to play together, where parents can help out younger players and the rules are easy to learn.
What makes it interesting
In order to keep children interested and excited, the skill has music, sound effects and a wide variety of funny phrases that the host can read to keep the experience fresh and not repetitive.
To encourage replayability, each day players earn points which can help them level up. Leveling up gives the player a special title which they will be referred to from that point on.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.