PBS KIDS PROJECT

Project
Folklore Journey: Story-Restoring Language Game Prototype
A collaborative PBS KIDS internship project exploring how storytelling, sequencing, and spoken language can help children (ages 6–8) engage with bilingual vocabulary through global folklore.

Year
08/12/2025

Role
UI/UX designer, game mechanic developer, background/character designer

Goal
Following the PBS KIDS’ content guidelines, the design encourages children to connect images, words, and audio while practicing comprehension, executive-function skills, and social language use inside meaningful story moments.

Concept Framing

We began by examining children’s story-based games and bilingual learning tools, then reimagined the experience around problem-solving, exploration, and expressive communication rather than drills or repetition.

We incorporated ideas from Storyteller by adapting its visual sequencing and panel-based storytelling into our sentence-building mechanic, where children assemble narrative fragments and see their choices come to life in the scene.

From Miitopia, we drew on its character-driven progression across a world map to create a sense of journey and discovery, reinforcing narrative continuity as players move through each folktale.

The player travels through different cultures and folktales, repairing story fragments using context clues, sequencing, and vocabulary choices that shape how the narrative unfolds.

We selected the Bremen Town Musicians as a prototype episode, using its familiar characters and simple narrative structure to support vocabulary, emotion cues, and story sequencing.

UX Flow

Play → Choose → Speak → Sequence → Restore

Each episode guides kids through vocabulary preview, story-card selection, spoken language prompts, and panel sequencing, ending with a restored animated story outcome.

Our workflow moved from early concept sketches to digital explorations, feedback sessions with the design team, and illustrative prototype screens that tested tone, clarity, and accessibility.

Iteration

Low-Fidelity Prototype

For the low-fi prototype, we focused on testing the core drag-and-drop verb mechanic with a single character.

Low-Fidelity Character Design

The character design highlights four different animals from the Bremen Town Musicians story — a rooster, a cat, a dog, and a donkey — each illustrated with its own distinct shape, color, and personality so children can easily tell them apart.

High-Fidelity Prototype

Verbs are now used within a story moment, where actions influence what happens in the scene.

Verbal prompts support comprehension and reinforce vocabulary.

The “journal” reframes the word list as an in-world learning tool

High-Fidelity Character Design

Shapes are simplified and exaggerated, giving each animal a more readable silhouette.

Clean linework replaces rough sketch textures, reducing visual noise.

Color palettes are more unified and high-contrast.

Final Prototype

(Unmute for Sound Effects)

Vimeo Embed

Reflection

Working on this project reminded me how powerful language learning can be when it happens inside a story, rather than through drills or repetition. When kids get to use words to move characters forward and shape what happens next, the experience suddenly feels alive and meaningful. Collaborating with the PBS KIDS designers and game developers was a huge part of this journey; their insight into how children think, play, and learn helped transform early ideas into something more intentional and kid-centered.

In the future, I want to bring the prototypes into playtesting sessions with 6–8-year-olds to watch how they explore, what they notice, and how they retell the story in their own words.