Overview
The brilliant and empathetic protagonist Meena loves to learn, is kind, and stands up for what is right. Meena’s courage in reforming society has inspired millions growing up in the 90s in South Asia. The cartoon nonetheless continues to be popular even today. To better connect with present audience, UNICEF Bangladesh has transformed the classic into two engaging game adaptations. Developed by Riseup Labs, these games are the Meena Game and Meena Game 2. This case study focuses on Meena Game 2, which offers an immersive 3D gameplay experience that brings Meena’s stories and adventures to life.
The Vision
Meena Game 2 explores the story of Meena’s parents welcoming Raani, the newest addition to their family. The game emphasizes the roles and responsibilities of family members in caring for a newborn while providing essential insights into nutrition, health, gender equality, education, emergency preparedness, and child protection. The game also aims to authentically portray rural life through its art, missions, characters, and stories.
The Challenge
A primary challenge has been fleshing out a 3D game without losing the original feel and ambiance. This would require close collaboration of artists, design experts, and developers to keep the original touch in the new creation. Moreover, an expert team had to balance the creative vision with the technical requirements, ensuring elements like educational content, size constraints, and the number of levels were seamlessly integrated.
The following points capture the main challenges with Meena Game 2:
- Authentic portrayal of Meena’s characters and original cartoon environment in the 3D format.
- Conveying key educational messages for young players.
- Promoting awareness of nutrition, health, gender equality, education, and child protection.
- Enabling offline gameplay for children in rural areas.
- Equipping gameplay with 10 levels, 50+ mini-games, 50+ characters, and 500+ animations with low-end device support.
- Optimizing game size to under 200 MB with quality graphics.
- Showing diverse environments featuring village, underwater, and fantasy world settings.
- Implementing dynamic weather effects (storms, rain, wind).
The Solution
Riseup Labs implemented comprehensive solution strategies, each tackling more than one challenge as mentioned above. These involved game rendering optimization, enhancing the immersive experience, and supporting dynamic scenarios with scriptable animation.
Below is an outline of the solutions:
- Dynamic scriptable animations for handling scenarios and weather.
- Cross-platform engine with Unity for an enhanced, immersive experience.
- Render optimization with custom shaders for performance improvement.
- Relatable gameplay with real-life popular mechanics for easy message delivery.
- Dynamic environments using scripted lighting for smooth performance.
- Conducting user testing with 100 kids to evaluate the game.
The Impact
Meena Game 2, a 3D rendition of the cartoon and the first game has garnered impressive responses from fans all over South Asia. From earning the first ‘Teacher Approved’ badge on Google Play as a Bangladeshi game to surpassing 500,000 downloads, Meena Game 2 embodies the power of edutainment to inspire and empower youth.
Below is a summary of the impactful achievements of Menna Game 2:
- Awarded the “Teacher Approved” Badge on Google Play Store for engaging, educational content.
- Featured by Google for its immersive gameplay and impactful learning value.
- Recognized as a Top Trending App on Google Play.
- Delivers a 99.9% Crash-Free Experience for seamless performance.
- Drives awareness on nutrition, health, gender equality, education, emergency preparedness, and child protection.
- Achieved 5M+ Downloads, 4.3+ Ratings, 10K+ Reviews, and 500K+ Monthly Active Users.
This page was last edited on 19 December 2024, at 11:37 am
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