By Monica McGuire
Breakout EDU’s wildly popular Breakout+ games recently surpassed 1 million plays, just a month before the games’ first anniversary. The Breakout+ games have sparked the imaginations of teachers and students around the world and many have wondered if they might be able to create their own Breakout+ game on our platform someday.
I sat down with Ann Brucker to answer this question and to get the inside scoop behind the making of these captivating games.
Dreaming Big
The basic concept of Breakout+ is actually rooted in the past. Breakout EDU CEO, Adam Bellow, grew up playing every point-and-click game he could. He loved exploring new worlds and wanted to find a way to bring the magic of these games to today’s students.
Adam first revealed this dream to the Breakout EDU Games Team about three and a half years ago. He wanted to know what they thought and if they saw a path to bringing this idea to life.
Ann remembers thinking, “That’s really cool, but we can’t do that with our platform.” As a person who has little interest in video games, she didn’t envision herself having a role in the game’s creation.
As time passed, Adam kept asking questions. What did they need to know to develop a new type of game? Who would create it? How would it work on the current platform?
Breakout EDU’s Co-Directors of Games, Patti Harju and Ann, met in October of 2022 to brainstorm ideas for the game. They came up with a story, added images to an Adobe Illustrator file, and handed it over to Adam. Still, they couldn’t comprehend how these assets might morph into a playable game.
Discovering the Tools
By January of 2023, the team had a list of 46 questions about the game. Around that same time, UI/UX designer, Derek Hubbard, joined the staff at Breakout EDU.
Derek introduced the team to a program called Figma. This product allowed them to separate, rearrange, and connect parts of images. For the first time, Ann understood how she might be able to make an image do an action in a game.
Then Derek introduced the group to a game development platform called Unity. He shared a tutorial with them and showed them a simple animation he had created. A few months later, in April of 2023, Ann and Patti got together to tackle the tutorial themselves.
Ann remembers thinking, “I don’t get this at all.” But as she watched and built alongside the presenter she began to understand how Unity worked. She must have watched the 2-hour video 15 times. Once she figured out how to add something to inventory and get it to react the way she wanted, she was amazed. She gives a self-deprecating laugh as she recalls a video of herself celebrating her success and shouting over and over again, “I did it! I did it!”
Jumping In
Looking back, that accomplishment was a tiny victory on the road to an actual Breakout+ game. But that didn’t diminish its impact.
Going from feeling like the instructor was speaking another language to having a scene that did what she programmed it to do, was an incredible accomplishment. “I felt so smart,” she recalls.
That breakthrough feeling, and the chance to put her new graphic design certificate skills to work, fueled Ann to commit to working on Breakout+.
At first, Ann and Patti set out to create the game together. However, they quickly realized that the Adventure Creator plug-in didn’t allow for collaborative work. This issue, combined with the fact that Breakout+ wasn’t the only game Breakout EDU created, meant Ann and Patti needed to figure out a way to divide the work.
Ann took the lead in building Breakout+ and soon found that doing so was more than a full-time job. This left Patti to create each month’s Locks of the Day and new kit-based and digital games. Soon Patti and Ann were both working around the clock to bring new, fresh content to Breakout EDU.
Even with Ann’s determination to create this new game, she still had no idea how she would make it. How would she add the objects? How would she make them do the things she wanted them to do? She had a big learning curve ahead of her.
Collaboration is Key
While Ann is the main designer and builder of each Breakout+ game, the games don’t travel from idea to platform without significant collaboration. The story and puzzles for each game are generated through discussion among the games team. As are the solutions for the many bumps along the way.
Most games have a puzzle or two that require Ann to learn new skills to build them. And although she is relatively new to Unity, she is the Unity expert at Breakout. So when issues arise, it is up to Ann to find a solution and make things work.
When problems arise, she has to dig deep into Unity to find them. This means searching through layer upon layer of menus for each scene, trying different solutions, and implementing final fixes.
Pictured above is one small part of the connected objects, images, layers, and logic needed for the box-pushing puzzle in the Time Travel Trouble Breakout+ Game.
Once a full build of the game is ready, testing begins. When all the glitches have been found and the tweaks have been made, the head of our development team, Trevor LeVieux, works his magic to bring the game to life on the Breakout EDU platform.
From Zero to One Million
The first Breakout+ game took about 4.5 months to create. It was released in September 2023. After that, Ann began creating a new game every month. Eleven months later, the Breakout+ games hit a major milestone. When I asked Ann about it she beamed.
“We are over a million plays . . . Not only have we made it [Breakout+], but it works, and a million times someone has gone, “Ooh, what’s this? — That’s awesome! I love that.”
One of the interesting things about Ann’s experience creating Breakout+ is how it mirrors the experience we hope students have when they play a Breakout EDU game.
We want students to think in new ways and persevere when their first answer doesn’t work. We want the frustration of not knowing the answer to propel students to dig deeper, ask questions, talk with one another, and reinvestigate their resources. We hope that when students work a little harder for an answer that the answer is a bit sweeter too — that they feel a sense of elation when they break out of a game.
Advice from a Creator
If you’ve read this far, you won’t be surprised to hear that the complexity of Breakout+ game creation prevents it from being available in the Breakout EDU Game Design Studio. Still, Ann encourages teachers and students to find projects that excite them.
If embarking on a project you know little about, she recommends finding a person that can teach you about your topic. If you can’t find a person to talk to, watch a video, take a class, read a book, or search for information online. Do whatever you can to educate yourself.
Ann believes students and teachers love our games because they challenge our brains. So why not create challenges of your own by pushing your limits and trying something new.
Problems provide opportunities to build new skills, learn new things, and grow a set of tools that can help us solve future problems.
Building our skills as we try new things can help us develop a growth-mindset and to stay calm when we face unexpected challenges. If we stop and think about how we solved problems in the past, we can use those experiences to figure out how to move forward now.
Thinking back on the last year and a half, Ann is excited, and a little stunned, that she went from knowing nothing about creating point-and-click games to creating a new Breakout+ game every month. She feels empowered and wants Breakout EDU teachers and students to feel the same way. She invites you to dream big and take chances. She believes in you.
A Dream Come True
When Adam talks about Breakout+ he lights up. He is so proud of the team's accomplishments. He is thrilled that point-and-click games have been brought to life for Breakout EDU customers; that we are offering story-driven games that combine exploration and education. He hopes these games add to the engagement teachers and students experience in their classrooms.
If you haven’t already played a Breakout+ game, you can find this month’s game in your Breakout EDU account in the game carousel to the right of the search bar.
Students can access Breakout+ directly from their Breakout EDU accounts.
Don’t have a Breakout EDU account yet? Sign up and enjoy a 14-day free trial!
Questions? We’d love to hear from you at info@breakoutedu.com.
Game On!