WaterBusters!

Seattle Public Utilities’ Resource Management Group initiated a project to create a game that would help teach middle school-aged kids to conserve water. Working with the talented design firm, Smashing Ideas, we led the project to deliver this Flash game before summertime; the height of the water conservation season in the Seattle area. Skilled in the ability to communicate and understand business needs, in addition to an extensive background in application development, we were brought in as the liaison between the designers and the business group. To ensure the game was easy to understand and fun for the kids (encouraging them to come back and play again) we launched an extensive usability study and made sure that we received feedback from the kids that met our demographics. Learning from the players themselves, we adjusted the game, adding features, help screens, new challenges, and hints. A new version with more features was released in the summer of 2005, and then a new, supporting site, Saving Water Kids, was released in 2006.

Water Busters lets you play the role of Phil Dumpster who must lower his family’s water consumption and reduce his water bill. This game allows you to enter various rooms of a home, and do special tasks to save water You play the role of Phil Dumpster, whose mission is to lower his family’s consumption of water and reduce the water bill.. There’s four levels to the game which should takes about 20 minutes to play. As you walk by each room your task will be to collect items and tools you need to conserve water. In the first level, you tell your sister to use a waste basket instead of the toilet to save water. You give Phil’s dad a stopper for the sink, so the sink doesn’t have to run. You turn off the faucet and put washers between the hose of the sink to stop leaky sockets. You give another member of the house a broom to use instead of a hose to clean the sidewalk. You use a wrench to fix a dripping faucet to save water which could save you thousands of gallons every year. Play the next 3 levels to find out more.

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