M1 Master Gradient Escape 2 The same misty forest. A whole new journey.

Gradient Escape 2.0 builds upon the original Gradient Escape, keeping its core goal of teaching gradient functions through an interactive journey in a mysterious forest.

Our focus is on didactic design: rather than simply presenting the correct concept, the game is structured to confront players with their own misconceptions about gradients through the level design itself. For example, many players see the gradient arrow and assume it shows them which direction to walk. In reality, the arrow shows the direction of steepest increase — it doesn’t tell you where to go, only how the value changes. By running into this problem directly in the game, players are pushed to reconsider and correct their understanding.

To support this, we added a competency model and an adaptive feedback system, so the game not only teaches the concept but also tracks how well each player understands it. Gameplay and the UI were also reworked to fix issues from the original.

Our team consists of six Master’s students, organized into a Product Team and a Programming Team. Both teams work in a coordinated weekly rhythm, meeting on separate days: the Product Team reviews design decisions and user feedback, while the Programming Team reviews implementation progress. Communication among us is maintained to ensure that design changes and technical constraints are addressed early rather than discovered late.

The Product Team is responsible for the game’s design and learning objectives, including game and level design, the didactic concept, project management, testing, and quality assurance.

The Programming Team is responsible for the technical implementation of the game, including software architecture, gameplay programming, UI/UX design, frontend development, and visual and audio effects. Each iteration is validated against the Product Team’s feedback and requirements before release, ensuring alignment between game design and technical implementation across builds.