#developmentstage

A developmental stage that is full of excitement. A colorful world that awaits to be discovered.

On a very humid Sunday afternoon, October 6, 2024, I have the opportunity to interview the very jolly and curious Xia, a 9 years old child about her wonders and journey as she walks and experiences the path of middle childhood stage. 

Xia is currently in 3rd grade. She is curious and full of energy. She recently underwent weight, height and BMI check in their school. She is the tallest among her classmates and has a normal BMI, which surely makes her happy.  Xia is very much interested in dancing and singing as well as playing sports such as basketball and running highlighting how great her physical balance, strength and coordination at a very young age. Xia is very active and has a strong physical body.

When it comes to cognitive development, Xia is interested in Mathematics. She said that her most favorite subject in school is Mathematics as she enjoys and is interested in numbers. Xia likes addition as well as multiplication and they are currently in the process of memorizing the whole multiplication table which she really enjoys doing. Xia is also hardworking and motivated in doing her assignments, studying and memorizing the lesson materials her teachers gave them. Xia is just like any other child, she also has a least favorite subject which is science. Her reasoning is that the teacher is so strict that instead of learning, she felt pressured to learn the lesson, which she does not enjoy very much, however, she is a determined child and is finding a way to love and understand the subject. Other activities that Xia enjoys are drawing and coloring as she enjoys looking at colorful and pretty things.

Xia is raised by a hardworking single mother. She is mature and responsible for her age. She tried to help her mother and older sister with house chores and is very understanding when her mother is stressed and tired. She gave her mother massages and is currently learning how to cook with the help of her mother and older sister.  

Xia is also a social butterfly, having friends from different sections in her grade. She likes interacting and connecting with other children as well as playing with them during lunch break. As a social butterfly, there are also children that often fought with her due to misunderstanding; however, she understands that she cannot please everyone and just avoid those who fought with her to maintain peace. Xia lives with her mother and older sister and sometimes visits her father. Despite being fully raised with a single mother, she receives full support from the people around her. She was also taught to be open to her feelings and can easily form relationships with other people. 

As of the moment, Xia is looking forward to the future. She wanted to be a doctor and is very excited about her journey in life. She is very much satisfied and happy with how her life is. Xia is a child full of excitement on her journey as she discovers the beauty of the world.

I began development of the platformer by planning out the level layouts as well a throwing together a few buildings that I could use. To start this journey, I went searching for free assets to use for my game that matched each other. This involved browsing Itch.io (https://itch.io/game-assets/top-sellers) and Craftpix.net (https://craftpix.net/freebies/page/4/). Mainly to save time on creating my own assets as the whole creation process can be a very tedious and time consuming task. I prefered to work with GDevelop itself and learn its features, than spending time creating and animating characters other usable sprites. I stumbled upon an excellent sprite series created by the team at Craftpix.net (no artist name was mentioned on the webpage). It featured consistent sprites for knights, vikings, and samurai. Not only giving my game the perfect assets but making them extremely accessable and free.

Once the sprites had been secured for the ingame characters, the planning process could begin. I drew a quick run down of how I envisioned the game would be set out (See below). Moving through different time periods, with progressively harder enemies as you make your way through each game world.

I was planning to create a difficulty progression that felt intuitive to each level. As you made it further in each level the infrastructive grew with the size and difficulty of your enemies. For example in the Japanese samarai era, your enemies would progress from farmers with swords, to trained ninjas, finally arriving at well armoured and fearless samurai. Variations on each of these enemies would be found in each area so the game didn't seem repeatitive. However, before I could begin work on these elements I needed locations to play in. This was the next stage of the process, I started to work with some more assets I found online to create meaningful buildings.

Assets courtesy of: CraftPix.net team.

The move of #eCommerce to mobile devices, i.e. the move to m-Commerce, is neither new nor unexpected, but it's worth a closer look.

Dawdling Kids – Why Do They Dawdle And What Can You Do To Speed Them Up

Dawdling means wasting time or being slow especially while eating, changing clothes, dressing up or when asked to do a task. Nothing new, right? We always like to think that that’s how toddlers are and it’s a part of their growing years. The good news is, yes, it’s a phase but it can surely be exhausting.

Some quirky behaviors, like dawdling, are a part of children’s developmental stages.…