Een Toontje Hoger

'Een Toontje Hoger' is my thesis project. It focussed on the lack of (time for) musical education in elementary schools and aimed to answer the question: "Can video games improve the musical creativity of children?"

Over the course of a year, I built a prototype of a digital board game for up to four players, designed to let children create a song together. The goal was to explore whether this interactive, game-based approach could kids engage more deeply with musical creativity than traditional lessons (which mostly involved signing).

Did it work? I tested the game a few times with the students of my former elementary school. They seemed to enjoy playing it, but much more research would be required to draw any meaningful conclusions. Still, the project taught me a lot about developing games for mobile devices (Android, in this case) and how to quickly test and iterate on a design to bettew fit the target audience.

You can download my thesis here. I's written in Dutch though.