So we kept brainstorming, how can we continue to inspire students to create creatively amidst new boundaries? With new boundaries come new opportunities. As our managing director, Catherine Khoo, puts it, “The pandemic has opened up opportunities for those willing to try new ideas. It’s a pretty exciting period!”
It is an exciting period indeed. After countless months of work and brainstorming, we are excited to share with you more about our newest creation, CREATE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE (CYOA)!
A completely online programme specially tailored for Unique English Classroom, CYOA guides students to create their own adventure, becoming the master of their own game. Regardless of where you are from, we invite you to join us in this exciting new journey of creativity!
We sit down with the developers of CYOA, Rafi and Gavin to find out what is in store for CYOA.
Before we proceed with the exciting details about CYOA, could both of you share with me your role in the creation of CYOA?
Rafi: I developed the curriculum for CYOA using parts of UEC’s story writing curriculum plus our (including Catherine’s) experience playing Dungeons and Dragons.
Gavin: I’m assisting Rafi on digitalising the content of CYOA.
Can you tell me more about what CYOA is?
Rafi: CYOA is planned to be in three Tiers. Students will have access to these tiers. Tier 1 is for character development, Tier 2 is for world development and Tier 3 is for testing the story they created.
As a teaser, Tier 1 discusses about the elements of a story, developing protagonists, antagonists, supporting characters, reviewing the best practices using YAA stories and creating jump off / branching points in a story to create a Create Your Own Adventure kind of book!
Gavin: Yes, through CYOA, students will be able to craft their own characters, compose interesting scenarios and create multiple outcomes of the story.
What inspired CYOA?
Rafi: The table top game, Dungeons and Dragons. Catherine and I played it and we thought it will be an exciting way of teaching students how to create their own story world.
How is CYOA different from past programmes in UEC?
Rafi: This program breaks out of the usual expectation for young authors to just publish a book. In CYOA, they will learn how to write a story, not just for a book but for a game. Which means, it is more complex, and more fun.
Gavin: CYOA will be a completely digitalised course, meaning it will be online and accessible from anywhere around the globe. Secondly it will allow students to write new types of stories – interactive branching story with multiple outcomes, instead of the traditional ‘linear’ story.
What are the aims that CYOA hope to achieve for the student?
Rafi: To expose students to the Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) narrative and its role in game development! But more importantly, to develop the student’s writing skills in terms of character and plot development through writing a story based on a selected topic and theme.
Gavin: Rafi says it all! The students will be able to write a complete, playable and exciting dungeon and dragon style kind of adventure.
What is the reason why students absolutely need to try out CYOA?
Rafi: Currently, many children play online games but only a few are inspired to create one. CYOA elevates the story writing experience from seeing their stories in black and white to the possibility of having other people be part of their story.
Gavin: Imagine you can have a dungeon and dragon game that’s completely designed and controlled by you. It will be a whole new experience for students of any age.
In developing CYOA, what were the obstacles that both of you encounter, and how you overcame it?
Rafi: For Tier 1, there is not many issues because Sophie Tan (a game writer) was there to help. I foresee that in Tier 2 and 3, we will have difficulty in executing the actual game testing if it is only limited to an online platform. To resolve that, I am looking into a simpler version of executing it.
Gavin: Because this is such a new format, the traditional online education system just weren’t designed to fit this purpose. Therefore we have to customise and tweak a lot on the system that we are going to use for CYOA. Getting it to work will be a challenge, but I believe we will make it work.
Thanks to Rafi and Gavin for taking the time to walk us through Create Your Own Adventure (CYOA)! We are very excited to see it in action soon.
Create Your Own Adventure will be released in stages starting from January 2022. Stay tuned for more updates!
