Creating Full Gameplay Flow

Designing an Intuitive Gameplay Flow for Pippo Math

Creating a smooth and engaging gameplay flow for Pippo Math required a combination of structured learning and hands-on experimentation. From the landing page to the core gameplay, every transition needed to be intuitive, ensuring young users could navigate effortlessly. While workshops provided fundamental technical knowledge, self-study helped refine the interactions, optimize user experience, and tailor the game to its intended audience.

Structuring the Gameplay Flow

1. Landing Page: Setting the Tone with Motion

In a recent workshop, I delved into various types of animations in Unity, which included:

• Animator Controller (State Machine)

• Animation Clips (Predefined Animations)

• Scripting Animations (Using C#)

These animation techniques opened up many creative possibilities, particularly in adding life to user interfaces and characters.

When designing the first interaction for Pippo Math, I opted for a simple yet engaging logo animation. The goal was to create a sense of anticipation without overwhelming the young audience. I took into account how children typically respond to movement in UI elements and, as a result, explored animation libraries that would provide smooth, seamless transitions. By doing so, I was able to bring a lively and dynamic feel to the experience, ultimately leading to the use of scripted animations for a more polished effect.

Added animations:

2. Name Input: Creating a Personalized Experience

To establish a connection between the player and the game, users are prompted to enter their name. Implementing this feature required understanding how to capture and handle user input efficiently while maintaining a seamless flow to the next screen.

Workshops on capturing text dynamically helped structure this interaction, ensuring real-time updates without requiring page refreshes. Further self-study into form validation techniques ensured that input errors were minimized, enhancing accessibility and usability.

Exercise from workshop:

3. Introduction: Integrating Personalization with Narrative

Once the name is entered, the introduction dynamically incorporates it into the game’s dialogue, making the experience feel tailored to each player. Keeping instructions short and engaging was a key focus, as research into children’s learning patterns highlighted the importance of concise, segmented text for maintaining attention.

Here, the ability to update text dynamically—an approach reinforced through workshop exercises—helped create a more interactive and immersive introduction without disrupting the flow. This was further refined by studying how educational games present text-based interactions effectively.

Exercise from workshop:

4. Tutorial Page: Simplifying Instructions for Young Learners

Rather than overwhelming users with text-heavy explanations, the tutorial page presents a clear instructional image alongside a prominent Play button. Research into UX for children’s applications emphasized the importance of visual guidance over text, influencing this design choice.

Bringing It All Together

The development of Pippo Math was a blend of structured learning and independent exploration. Workshops provided a solid technical foundation, enabling real-time interactions and dynamic text handling, while self-study helped refine user experience and accessibility. This combination of guided learning and personal research ensured that the game not only functioned smoothly but also delivered an engaging and educational experience for young players.

By integrating both approaches, I was able to craft a gameplay flow that feels natural, intuitive, and fun—reinforcing the value of continuous learning in game development.