What was the most important thing I learned this semester about game/simulation design?
Somewhere in the middle of this semester I had an epiphany. I can do this. I have spent a healthy portion of the last five or six years scoffing at the idea that I could - or even should - design games. When I first became interested in games for the higher ed classroom, I think I was intending to simply use other people’s scholarship and other designers’ games to help with engagement in an otherwise traditional lecture format. Or, you know, just keep showing whichever edition of Assassin’s Creed was relevant to the topic to show “hey, UbiSoft hires art historians!” My studies have blossomed – perhaps exploded? – from there. I’ve now published a short essay on CandyLand, I’ve published (accepted, edited, and waiting on proofs!) a micro TTRPG that teaches 14th-century primogeniture of all things. I’ve given papers at conferences and I’ve convinced a couple of Deans and a Provost that UMSL needs me to teach an Art & History of Games class in addition to my table top mechanics class. Who knew? But when I took this class, while I’ve accomplished certain academic things, I still didn’t feel qualified to design a digital game. In fact, when Dr. Larsen presented his case, I thought “well, that should be me – asking for help from real designers.” There are parts of me that will always struggle with imposter syndrome about game design, but this semester taught me that with deliberate practices, with a dedicated team, and with direction, I can do this. I don't have to be the expert in all areas of simulations, narratives, coding or other essential design duties, but I have contributions based on years of storytelling, educational work, and games scholarship. >>>> What am I most proud of from this semester? I’m exceptionally proud that I worked in a team. This was so hard – SO. HARD. As I’m sure it was for the other members, too. While I’ve collaborated with colleagues before in various ways, it’s always been in a “I’ll do my thing/You do your thing and our things will exist in parallel” way. It was eye opening to me to have to trust other people with essential elements of an assignment. I’m quite sympatico with my own students who do not love group work; however, I’ve learned to establish boundaries, to trust in others’ contributions, and to sometimes take a deep breath and get over myself and my preferred timeline or idea and just move forward. It seems like this realization shouldn’t feel as profound as it does, but Modules Four-Six may have fundamentally shifted how I teach and design. Beyond trust, I’m proud to say that I respect my colleague’s contributions. That their work, while perhaps not the work that I would have produced or conceived, made the game possible. >>>> What, if anything, will be most helpful for moving forward? Deliberate, iterative practices work for scholarship as much as they work for creation. While I’m still preaching more than I’m practicing, I do find practicing iteration + feedback helpful as I attempt to retrain decades of “just in time scholarship.” I tend to get stuck in brainstorming phase and can spiral through increasingly fascinating concepts. Requiring feedback means that you have to stop at some point, get someone else to provide input, and then move forward with something that scaffolds. Even considering the above, honestly what will be most helpful to me moving forward is the practice of playing more games. I encountered so many games in this class that I hadn’t heard of. It’s important to play more in order to understand more. I recently had another epiphany: playing games is a vocabulary builder for this discipline. And I have a lot of work to do before I’m fluent, but I can do this!
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Playtesting for a minimally viable product is difficult. I have run playtests for fairly well-completed board games several times and I think I wasn’t entirely prepared for managing expectations of the play testers.
I conducted three separate synchronous in-person tests. I prepared the questionnaire for the group based on previous tests and on Kathleen Mercury's model. Joshua turned the questionnaire into a google quiz, which allowed participants to privately respond to the questions. I followed up after the questionnaire with a casual "what did you think" session.the first was a bit of a wash. I admit that I didn’t run the first test well. At the end of a long workday and at an art opening, I planned with several staff members of my department to test the game. These people had served as playtesters for several board game events and had expectations of a relatively complete game. Because we got rained out - the weather in St. Louis has been quite a challenge! – only one person was able to participate and this person is probably the least experienced gamer of my group. They found the game almost unplayable. Without very clear in-game directions or context cues, they didn't know how to navigate the game. They chose not to participate in the online questionnaire, so I have not included their numbers in the results. The experience was important for me. I realized that as the facilitator, I must help create an environment of success for both the game and the people involved. I have a suspicion that my own exhaustion and the circumstances of the evening didn’t help. Too, without providing enough context for both the preliminary nature of the game and without managing the expectations of the playtester, the result was significant dissatisfaction, disengagement, and confusion on their part. This player never found the instructions, was confused by the “open world" aspect (my words based on other player feedback) and made their very first stop at Makeda, which meant that they completed the game before really starting. I switched things up for playtest two. Playtest number two involved two experienced gamers: one a 25+ female who identifies as a gamer, but who isn’t part of our target demographic (they are a woman in their 60s and expressed interest that our demographic categories for age were so limited), and one a 19-24 male who is a recent college graduate and a game designer. Their experience in playtesting (I’ve used them for several years as part of the board game process, too) helped in expectations. I also understood my role in preparing the ground for a successful game by better explaining the goal of the test, the state of the prototype, and our iterative process. The results are included in our questionnaire, but especially interesting was the conversation that followed. The female tester noted that she didn’t understand how the festival was unique to Lalibela and that she found it problematic that our character/sprites seemed to represent White individuals rather than Ethiopian/African ones, if our goal was to focus on a “real” location. The second player gave the game significant attention and experimented with the controls for quite some time. They were curious about the fact that the landscape doesn’t really act the way it says it does: i.e., the river isn’t different from the land and the land isn’t different from the path. This player mentioned specifically that this felt like an anthropology game and wasn’t sure how moving these temporary structures was Geography. Playtest number three also produced interesting results. Both identified as experienced players, the two testers were closest to our target demographic, one a 19-24 male and the other a 25+ female (“but I’m JUST 25!”). These players have significant digital experience as designers (not game) and coders. They engaged with the controls and the game in a way that showed their understanding of what was trying to be accomplished at the MVP level. One player responded that he *really* liked the concept, but couldn’t see how it was being played out in this particular scene, while the other player reported that she felt like the game was simple enough for a much younger demographic. Both were intrigued by the theme, but reported that they couldn’t see how the 2D space worked for the stated goals of interaction with the landscape. I have several takeaways from this process, some based on the game itself and others based on my role as facilitator. While I've read the scholarship on playtesting - and followed it to a certain extent with regard to board games - I failed my player and the game in the first playtest. At that time, I failed to provide enough context for what the playtest was meant to accomplish and player expectations were not met. That did allow me to adjust my approach in the second two rounds, so the experience was valuable. With regard to the game, I received helpful feedback that is maybe not unexpected at this early stage: provide more internal cues, connect the scenario of the festival to the story of a time-traveling student in Ethiopia, and really double down on the physical characteristics of the landscape. Since this is a learning game, these essential elements have to appear within the design, otherwise neither the game nor the learning objective can be "won." Summary of participants: Playtester 1 (first test) (who did not complete questionnaire): Female, 25+, irregular gamer, experienced playtester for board games, test ran for approximately 15 minutes in a university setting. Found the floating die (dice) to be the only interesting part of the game! Playtester 2 (second test): Female, 25+, regular gamer of RPGs, previously participated in Concept Testing, test ran for approximately 20 minutes in a private setting Playtester 3 (second test): Male 19-24, regular gamer of all kinds, works at board game restaurant, game designer, recent college graduate, previously participated in Concept Testing, test ran for approximately 20 minutes in a private setting Playtester 4 (third test): Male 19-24, regular gamer especially digital/online, graduate student, experienced coder, has never participated in a playtest, test ran for approximately 20 minutes in a university setting Playtester 5 (third test): Female 25+ (I'm "just" 25!), semi-regular gamer, graduate student, experienced coder, has never participated in a playtest, test ran for approximately 20 minutes in a university setting I thought I’d start with what I consider to be a truism. The process of working with a team, asynchronously and at a distance, is hard. It is also satisfying, challenging, thrilling, frustrating and several other sometimes-oppositional adjectives. As part of ShowMeGeo, I’ve had the joy of joining colleagues at their finest to try to create a game that fulfills the needs of a client, Dr. Larsen of the Geography Department at Mizzou.
As I’ve been considering my thoughts of our process, I was drawn back to one of our earliest interactions as a team: the sharing of our Creative Types. We are a Dreamer, a Dreamer, a Visionary, a Dreamer, and – yes, a Dreamer! While I tend to take psychological taxonomies with a grain of salt, I think there might be something to our early perceptions of practice. There have been points of elegant creativity, but also, in fairness, lack of direction and difference of working style and pacing. This is a self-reflection, though, and not a criticism of the team, so I’d like to work through what has been a wonderfully new experience for me. Level 4 began with a significant challenge for me. After four years, Covid-19 finally found me. I spent the first three weeks of the module in a bit of a fog, but it was also during this time that we were able to establish our ways of practice, meeting times, and proposals to move forward with our Storyboard, Concept Testing and Assessment plans. My contributions came early and I introduced player prototypes and the first story concepts that we’ve iterated from: CoMo Valley and 1000 Years of Here. While "Echoes of Lalibela" is most closely descended from these two concepts, there was an interesting moment before we consulted with Dr. Larsen when we moved to another idea (Cartoquest) meant to incorporate a broad stretch of Asian and African geography, which found its description in our Storyboard. It’s there that I found a bit of discomfort. While we’ve ended up iterating to a version of the story that I believe not only reflects the breadth of our teamwork and suits Dr. Larsen’s needs, I found working through the storyboard first to be difficult. Allowing the team to work through the process exercises on our own was challenging. I might have made the decision to work through the Concept Testing and Assessment before completing the Storyboard. I believe it’s because I’ve taught a class on visual storytelling, so I was envisioning a fully realized storyboard, complete with mechanics and a AAA storyline (!). My team helped me realize, though, that this was an early iteration and that by having a storyboard with objectives, we could work through the rest of the ideas separately. Even though we iterated past Cartoquest and back to original ideas, our work wasn’t wasted. Similarly, our process of moving next to the Assessments and lastly to the Concept Testing was out of synch with my personal working practice, but it seemed to inspire excellence among team members, so it worked well. I found it very helpful to type up and synthesize our Storyboard and Concept Testing assignments and then the Concept section of the design doc. When I get lost in my own process, it’s been important to be reminded of the work that my colleagues are doing. In person, this might have been mitigated a bit by a project management style like a Kanban board – and, in retrospect, we might have implemented something like this for our asynchronous work, too. As a designer, I’ve been grateful to have had the necessary reminders each week to consider the client’s needs and to rely upon the design process. I’m still working through the academically-removed acknowledgement that an iterative process is, in fact, the way to move forward through game design (and learning design, and writing a paper); but I’m also finding my learning curve to be fairly steep. Having trained myself to a diametrically opposed scholarly practice of both long-haul linear research and “just-in-time” teaching and learning practices, I’m finding implementing design practices to be satisfyingly productive. I’ve printed out a visual of Jesse Schell’s design loop and it is taped to my computer at work. Periodically checking that a process is moving in the right direction and correcting that path when it’s less productive is likely my greatest takeaway from these last six weeks. Name: Sue Learner (she/her)
Bio: College Freshman, currently Undecided. Graduated in top 25% of her high school class. From a small, rural community and attending a large public university. Follows van life influencers and is interested in building a tiny house. Age: 18 Race: mixed race Gender: female Motivation: Wants a job in “sustainability,” financial stability Key character traits: excited, self-motivated, positive, considers herself a Creative Key learning type: kinesthetic learner (learns by doing) Key challenges toward learning: does not like math, has trouble concentrating during lectures, requires highly structured instructions, wants all classes to be goal oriented. Games: Enjoys Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and Breath of the Wild, has a Twitch stream with 250 followers. Prefers solo games, but likes to chat with her followers while playing. So, who is Sue and how did I make her up? For this blog post, I went on an entirely too long tangent. Creating a Geography metaphor: I got lost in the woods. I spent a long time trying to understand personas better. I found several articles that specifically spoke to the idea of Learner Personas rather than User or Gamer personas. Because of our previous experience with Quantic, I felt that I had a good understanding of my own Player Type (Slayer!), but I didn’t really understand how to use that information for a learning context. I asked myself a couple of basic questions: what matters to me as a gamer and as a learner? How do I derive learning lessons from games? I came up with a basic response: 1. I value visuals that reflect real-world environments, even if fantastic or cartoonish. 2. I value an engaging story, historical or fantastic, in which I'm an active participant. 3. I like logic puzzles that check in with my wits and knowledge. 4. I'm constantly looking for Easter Eggs that make me feel like I'm learning something unique. I dove more deeply into two online essays that directly addressed Learner Personas in order to design a template that might suit our client's needs and arrive at some sort of ideal geography learner. https://www.td.org/atd-blog/how-to-develop-learner-personas-for-effective-training “How to develop learner personas for effective training.” Vanessa Alzate, posted Thursday, May 20, 2021 Accessed February 17, 2024 This essay is particularly practical in how it lays out the definition of a learner persona: “Like fictional characters, we create these personas with great detail: names,, photos, backgrounds, demographics, skill levels, training goals, and more.” The designer must consider who the ideal learner should be – and this is not a single individual, but possibly many. and https://www.growthengineering.co.uk/how-to-use-learner-personas-to-understand-your-audience/ “How to use Learner Personas to understand your audience” Harry Cloke May 23, 2023 Assessed February 17, 2024 This essay also established the need to work directly with the client on their goals, and to gather data toward that end. Once data has been assessed, a learner persona can be created. Because the fictional ideal learner is derived from data from real individuals – perhaps even using a real person as an archetype, the designer understands the unique needs that each different type of learner might require. This site also offers several YouTube videos that I found particularly helpful in understanding how to conceptualize AND realize learner personas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar_hjcYBRls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H_vigZwDKw Once I was more comfortable with how to build a persona, I revisited the Client's description of the problem. With Geography being a "hidden" major and its declining enrollments, I looked to the AAG (American Association of Geography) state of the field essays on demographics. The AAG “State of Geography” that we read proves an excellent resource for understanding an ideal geography student. With a link to this article on student perception of “geography”, the State of Geography report indicates that the term “geography” is part of the problem, since students indicated a lack of familiarity. Instead, terms such as “sustainability” and “environment” were looked on favorably. The AAG site on gender identifies a significant disproportion of between students who identify as male and female. In 2021, there were a total of 5332 undergraduate degrees in geography: 3185 were granted to men and 2147 to women. The study didn’t consider students who identified as non-binary or who preferred not to self-identify. AAG also formally adopted a strategic plan on Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in 2021 to address a significant underrepresentation of non-white students in undergraduate geography programs. At the time of adoption, students from underrepresented populations made up only approximately 30% of undergraduate majors, although that number shifted at masters and doctorate levels. When thinking specifically of a Learner Persona, though, it became important not just to think about Geography majors, but about learners in general. I found a very helpful questionnaire from University of Connecticut to help learners understand their “type” of learning: visual, kinesthetic, or auditory. I took this survey to inform my own type, mentioned above. I used a variation on Growth Engineering’s Learner Persona Template to produce the persona that this blog begins with, with the caveat that I have not yet done significant research into the data or conducted any interviews or surveys. I did, however, choose a persona who represents a desirable ideal student whose demographics increase the diversity - and possibly the numbers - of the Geography field. The key questions I identified are: Demographics: Name, Age, Race, Gender Specific Biography: story of how they got to this point, unique interests or accomplishments Motivations: What do you want to do for a career? What do you enjoy doing? What kind of lifestyle matters to you? Persona characteristics: descriptions of behaviors and psychological or cultural motivations Learner characteristics: Do you learn best by doing? Best by listening to a lecture or a podcast? Best by watching a video or powerpoint? Do you take a lot of detailed notes? Do you draw models or visualizations of the thing that you're learning? Learner challenges: Is there something that prevents learning or makes learning difficult for you? Games: What do you do in your pasttime? Do you play any games? Do you participate in social media? Finally, I realize that I identified more than three resources. Here I'm going to provide the three that helped me produce the questions/answers for Sue. I consider the AAG data linked above to be "one" source. This was important information about the demographics of Geography majors and graduates and helps identify underrepresented populations that might be targeted to increase numbers within the discipline. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/09/17/5-facts-about-americans-and-video-games/ Pew Research Center Perrin, A. published September 17, 2018, Accessed February 17, 2024 “5 facts about Americans and video games” This information updates a Pew Research study (linked above) from 2003 that identifies college students/learners as regular gamers, with demographic differences particularly with regard to age and gender. https://achieve.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/391/2013/12/What-Type-of-Learner-Are-You2.pdf University of Connecticut Academic Achievement Center “What Type of Learner Are You?” Accessed February 17, 2024 At the end of the day, information about learner types is a fundamental data point to help define the type of game that might appeal to the ideal learner. I found this process extremely interesting, but again, I'm aware I invested heavily in a path of inquiry prior to discussing the client's goals. While Sue will do for the moment, I think that our ideal learner persona will evolve. New posts for the Advanced Games for Learning class can be found by navigating to the Menu in the upper right of the title page.
1. I loved this.
2. This was hard. 3. I think I'm going to love this more as I go on. And it will be hard. I'm not sure what I was expecting at the start of this course. I had been reading about gamification and serious games for a few years - even presenting at a conference or two on the topic; however, I had never actually designed a game. It turns out that the whole idea of "theory into practice" is exponentially more difficult than I anticipated. At the start of the semester, I wrote "I think of [Serious Games] as a way to help people want to engage with big, sometimes challenging ideas or learn helpful behaviors through some kind of a designed "fun" process." I still agree with this idea, but I don't think it's quite as simple as I make it sound. This class was "fun," (games!) it was challenging (game design!) and it made me want to learn new skills (also game design!). Throughout the semester, the process of learning became more real to me as I encountered a NEW process of learning. I typically synthesize abstract ideas fairly easily, but it's clear that I have a lot of work to do on the iterative design process. I understand it and I understand its efficacy - but I find it actually quite difficult to practice. I don't have it yet as a habit of mind. Still, I think that this might be my biggest takeaway - that iteration, collaboration and critique have value beyond a professor's "approval" at the end of an assignment. Indeed, these things can be, essentially, fun themselves. I'm definitely taking away a more mature understanding of gamification even though the process of actually designing games was very, VERY challenging for me. When I think about the trajectory of learning from start to finish this semester, I'm reminded of Flow. While I didn't walk into the course with an entirely blank slate, I definitely had (and still have) a fairly large learning curve ahead of me - there was no straight diagonal line moving "up and to the right." I experienced the ebb and flow/pleasure and pain of the learning process - especially when real world commitments interfered with my desire to "play" the course. This was clear to me early on when I truly enjoyed the critique of Predynastic Egypt, but struggled with designing a board game based on Ludwig. It became extra clear to me when I embraced the process of thinking through my final digital game, but balked at the development of the game proper. There are layers to logic and I'm clearly embracing the "thinking" layer, but haven't yet arrived at the "practical" layer. I want to work on that practical layer. I fully intend to pursue a next level of game design experience. I am planning to sit down with Construct 3 at a more leisurely pace in the next several weeks and figure. it. out! I am hopeful to take further courses in game design to benefit from learning from experienced design thinkers and game makers. I'm especially looking forward to becoming that person, one day, for my own students. I've changed up the main mechanic of this game. While the platformer made perfect sense up to a point, the maze makes even MORE sense when I consider how long I've spent getting lost in museums! (minor claim to fame: I've been in every public room in the Louvre at least once!)
Scenario: An art student arrives at a museum. Their goal is to write a paper describing three famous works of art (one from painting, one from architecture, one from sculpture). They walk into a main room that has three works (for this storyboard: The Starry Night by Van Gogh) with exhibition labels that include three vocabulary terms each. In order to progress through the first gallery, the student must click on each vocabulary term (total of 9), which includes a pop-up definition of the term. This will move them to the next room. An unsuspecting student will be surprised – they likely think that the walkthrough is the game. But before they can leave the room, a Master Thief *poof* steals all of the vocabulary terms and hides them through the maze-like museum! The art student has a new task. They must traverse the maze, find the vocabulary terms and return them to the original room where they apply them to the appropriate artwork. The main mechanic is a maze + key + door. The “keys” will be three vocabulary terms hidden in the maze. The student must encounter all three keys in a room before moving on to the next maze. There will be a total of three mazes, each with three keys necessary before the door quiz will activate. At each door, before continuing to the next gallery, the player must apply the correct vocabulary terms in a “password”-type riddle. At the completion of the third room, the student will confront the Master Thief with the vocabulary terms and will apply the terms to the correct work of art, thereby defeating the Master Thief, who will be turned over to Interpol and the student will be named a Chief Curator. The playable prototype will focus on the maze + key + door mechanic of a single room. I will “hide” the keys in a maze and the player will be able to open the door having acquired the keys. I do not yet know if I’ll be able to incorporate the door riddle into the prototype. As I began to design the final game of the semester, I listened to some great advice from our last Zoom meeting: follow the format. Our format is Construct 3 and following our play through of two different tutorials in the last few weeks, I've chosen - for the moment - to design a platformer game.
VocabulArt Heist is a single-player vocabulary-builder game intended for a middle school art student. The player is, themselves, an art student visiting a Great Museum, hoping someday to become a Curator. While wandering the halls, they encounter a Master Thief who has stolen all of the vocabulary necessary to describe the works of art. By navigating galleries dedicated to painting, sculpture and architecture, the Student Hero gathers appropriate vocabulary associated with the different mediums so that the great works can be described once again! The end goal is to successfully gather correct vocabulary terms on each level so that artworks in the level galleries and final gallery can be described and the Master Thief defeated. What will players do during the game? Players will run/jump/hit/avoid vocabulary term icons that are thrown at them by the Master Thief. Each correct vocabulary term gathered (9 per level) will be added to their student satchel. The player will then use the vocabulary terms to describe a work of art in the gallery on each level. If, during play, they gather an incorrect vocabulary term, they must return to the start of the level. At the final gallery, they will have three works of art to describe - each work of art will have three associated vocabulary terms. The characters and other elements. Players will have the choice to name their character and choose an "art outfit" of black turtleneck, pashmina, chunky jewelry, and/or beret. Vocabulary icons will be placed within miniature ornate frames. The Master Thief will have a Snidely Whiplash appearance. Gameplay takes place in a gallery-type Great Museum that remains "still" in the background layer while the player navigates the screen from left to right. Basic interactions during gameplay. This will be a platformer game with the added presence of the Master Thief throwing the vocabulary terms at the Player. Players encounter vocabulary terms and must identify correct terms by jumping on top of them. They must avoid incorrect terms by jumping over them. Correct vocabulary terms will be applied within a descriptive sentence at the "boss" match at the end of each level. The Big Boss final gallery will require the player to identify one work from each medium in order to defeat the Mater Thief. Learning objectives. Upon completing game play, students will have recognized correct vocabulary terms associated with different artistic mediums. Players then apply knowledge by correctly using the vocabulary terms to describe works of art. The game is intended to reinforce classroom learning and likely requires prior encounter with the terms. Suggested player level: middle school. This could also be a quick and silly addition to a high school or college-level course instead of a quiz. What are the achievements within the game? At the successful completion of each level (including the gathering of nine correct vocabulary terms and then correctly applying the terms to artworks), players will be awarded medals from the Museum Director (Jr. Curator, Curator, Chief Curator). The Master Thief will be ultimately captured upon the completion upon the completion of three successful levels at which point the Student becomes a Chief Curator. A score board can provide the player with feedback on time of play, of success/error percentages in capturing the vocabulary and success/error percentages in description. How do these achievements relate to assessment of learning objectives? The game can be replayed until correct answers are achieved. The game replaces basic quizzing/matching for vocabulary acquisition. Successful achievement of the Chief Curator medal indicates a successful understanding of the vocabulary terms. Concerns about the design. I have conceived of a design that relies heavily on an aesthetic dynamic that will likely be under-realized through the development of the first prototype. Regardless, my strongest concern revolves around the platformer's reliance on manual dexterity and quick visual recognition as the chief game mechanics. I wouldn't want to discourage students for whom these are not easy skills. Likewise, I'm concerned that the level of the game (art vocabulary) is more typically appropriate for an AP/High School or College level and I'm not sure that a platformer/vocabulary builder is age and experience appropriate. It is possible that I need to design in a glossary function at some point, but I haven't figured out how/whether to do that. Construct is an online video game making software. On this venue, game developers can create simple versions of their games for quick play and, more importantly, early play tests. Over the course of just a few hours, I played five different games, ranging from Mario-esque jump & collect games (Key & Shield, Kiwi Story) to gorgeously evolved interactive narrative games (Revenge of the Dog) to a Doom/Hexen throwback (Demonoire), and to the most evolved: a hybrid of narrative/jump & collect/find the hidden mystery game (Guitar Hero). I spent the most time with two of the games, but chose Guitar Hero - I'll explain the misleading name below - for my playtest. The Play Matrix The Play Matrix presented by the Game Design Workshop (https://flylib.com/books/en/2.489.1/) chapter 8 has the premise that playtesters need a context in which to consider the game critique process. This simple tool puts a continuum of Mental Calculation and Physical Dexterity on the vertical axis; Skill and Chance are the continuum on the horizontal. Among the games I played, Guitar Hero involved the most complicated mechanics and play style. Ultimately, I believe it falls well into the Skill arena, but relies marginally more on Mental Calculation than the Physical Dexterity. Guitar Hero was designed by Manguía in response to a challenge from the Constructor2 Deception Jam. At first, I thought only the title of the game was the deception: obviously Guitar Hero is a well-known interactive game that has nothing to do with a flying yellow anthropomorphized guitar. In this game our hero has the job of finding the missing record for the old record player. The hero happily hops through a few rooms searching for keys and rewards that will lead to the record. The player has to use some manual dexterity to navigate the cartoon-like rooms in a Mario-esque timed jump system; however, the mental calculation comes into play with the search for keys, through darkened rooms and over obstacles. The real deception doesn't happen until the last room and then, the player doesn't even know that a deception is to be had. An experienced player will know that the sleeping safe with snoring Zs overhead needs to be moved. How to do that is the deception. In the description of the game, the designer tells a player to use the arrow keys for navigation and the X key to enter rooms. No other keys are mentioned. Of course, those Zs overhead are the clue. There is another key that the player can use - the Z key can push/pull the safe out of the way and the record is found! I thought at one point that this game would be just another jumping game like Key & Shield or Kiwi Story and I think it would be easy to move the game into the Physical (I'm interpreting this as Manual) Dexterity quadrant; however, what makes the game unique (beyond the absolutely charming graphics and musical score) is the need to search the rooms for the clues to move you forward toward the real deception. I don't consider Chance to be really a part of this game; however, if I'm honest, it was pretty much Chance and not really skilled extrapolation of the scene that led me to using the Z key to move the safe.
I'll end this post with a link to each of the games that I played. I can highly recommend Revenge of the Dog, which not only had the most sophisticated and beautiful graphics, but also had a wonderfully simple story to tell. Guitar Hero by Manguía: https://www.construct.net/en/free-online-games/guitar-hero-169/play Key & Shield: https://www.construct.net/en/free-online-games/key-shield-184/play?via=mh Kiwi Story: https://www.construct.net/en/free-online-games/kiwis-adventure-1/play Revenge of the Dog: https://www.construct.net/en/free-online-games/revenge-dog-2378/play?via=c5 Demonoire: https://www.construct.net/en/free-online-games/demonoire-2/play I just managed to write for around two hours into this Blog and it disappeared upon Posting. Lovely. Freshman error not to get this on Word first. Sigh. I've got 8 minutes left, so here goes without benefit of a charming narrative.
Learning Objectives After playing Ludwig, students will be able to: 1. Define and explain four different types of renewable energy sources: combustion, water, wind and solar. 2. Obtain and evaluate information through independent play. 3. Analyze clues and apply solutions in order to navigate the game. Mechanics of the Digital Game according to Boller and Kapp's "Play to Learn: Everything You Need to Know About Designing Effective Learning Games" (2017) Exploration, Collecting, Constructing and Solution. Analog Game Mechanics: Race to the Finish & Collecting, Escape & Solution Analog Game One: Board Game with Race to the Finish & Collecting Mechanics Based on Candyland. Assets: Board with four worlds: earth, air, fire, water. Cards to move you through the spaces. Cards with pieces of energy machines. Cards with renewable energy sources. Cards with natural disasters. Game pieces based on Ludwig the Robot. Goal: Complete the set of all four energy machines with at least one renewable energy source per machine. Avoid natural disasters (tornado, volcano, floor, solar flare) and arrive at the finish first. Learning: each card includes information about the renewable energy source, energy machines, natural disasters Analog Game Two: Escape Room with Escape & Solution Mechanics Based on Escape Room the Game Assets: 4-3D printed keys leading to 4-3D printed energy machines. Cards in Envelopes (box?) with puzzles, description of physics challenges. Hint Cards. Timer. Decoder based on physics solutions. Goal: Team of 4 collaborates to break the codes using physics-based solutions to find renewable energy machines. 60 minute time. It is possible to lose the game. Learning: Players not only encounter physics knowledge through experimentation and solution finding, but also learn the logical practices of analysis and application. |
Maureen the Gamer
Professor. Administrator. Gamer. Cat Lady. Not necessarily in that order. Blogging the game design process since 2020. Archives
January 2024
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