An Introduction to Educational Game Design

An Introduction to Educational Game Design

Presented by Michael Pinto | October 18th, 2016

What is a Game? Painting of Queen Nefertiti, c. 1320-1200 BCE

What is a Game?

“A game is a form of play with goals and structure”

This is my favorite definition:

Kevin J. Maroney

What Makes a Game a Game?

Sociologist Roger Caillois in his book Games and Men defines a game as an activity which must have:

Fun: an activity chosen for light-hearted character

Separate: in a circumscribed time and place

Uncertain: outcome of the activity is unforeseeable

Governed by Rules: which aren’t from everyday life

Fictitious: awareness of a different reality

Non-Productive: doesn’t accomplish anything useful I disagree

with this

last point

But How Can Games be Productive?

Learning Through Play!Learning through play is an education term which describes how a children can learn to make sense of the world around them: This allows children to develop social and cognitive skills.

Illustration by Carmen L. Browne

Game Design: Where to Start? Inside of a Pinball Machine Cabinet Photo by Miroslaw Adamczewski

Game Design: Where to Start?

First study different types of games, and learn about their history and evolutionIt’s very easy to get distracted by the bells-and-whistles of the latest technology, but if you really want to learn about game design the best place to start is with old school analog games. Pong

Prototype, 1972


Then look at the inside mechanics of games to understand how they workMany of the core mechanisms used in old school games can still be found in video games today.

In fact many video game designers often start with what’s known as “paper prototyping” to test their initial concepts for a video game.

A paper game prototype by Johanna Jacob


What are some of the core mechanisms that make a game work?• Avatars & Personalization • Easter Eggs • Goals • Hinting • Levels (and Leveling) • Medium and Genre • Number of Players

• Obfuscation • Randomness • Rewards & Achievements • Rules of the Game • Skill, Strategy, or Luck? • Timing • Tools

Note: Some

games have

mechanisms

that are

specific to a

game genre


Games also have soft qualities:

Ease of Use Playability Interactivity Fun Replayability

Some of these terms are overlapping and fuzzy, but that’s fine. Terms like this are good for critiquing a game design.

For example: Can we make the rewards in the game more fun?

Mario and Daisy cosplay photo by

NintendoStarKnight: Clearly there was

something fun about these characters

Game Design: A Reality Check Reminder

In the real world budgeting often drives game designThe complexity of a game will determine the cost of a game. On a board game this may not be a big deal, but in a video game factors like single player vs. live multiple players can have a huge impact.

A BuzzFeed quiz is a great example of a low budget driving game design. Shown above is the 2014 video game Destiny which had a $500 million dollar budget.

A Quick Survey of Games (and their mechanisms) Vintage Game Adverts and Catalog Pages

A Quick Survey of Games (and their mechanisms)

The Big Picture: What types of games are out there?

• Children’s Games • Sports Games • Tabletop Games • Mechanical Arcade Games • Roleplaying Games • Electronic and Video Games • Mixed Media Games

Note: It’s hard to do an exact taxonomy of games because many newer games evolved from older ones. Also many games overlap over several genres.


Children’s Games

• Apple Bobbing • Blind Man’s Buff • Duck, Duck, Goose • Hide-and-Go-Seek • Hopscotch • Hot Potato • Kick the Can

All of these games require more than one player and that the rules are very easy to understand. Also notice how the more simple games use obfuscation techniques like Blind Man’s Buff and Hide-and-Go-Seek.

• Musical Chairs • Peekaboo • Rock-Paper-Scissors • Simon Says • Tag Games • Tic-Tac-Toe • Truth or Dare?


Sports Games• Ball-over-Net Games (Tennis, Volleyball, etc.) • Basketball • Bat-and-Ball Games (Baseball, Cricket, etc.) • Catch Games (Dodgeball, etc.) • Cue Sports (Pool games like Eight-ball) • Equine Sports (Horse Racing, Polo, etc.) • Football (American Football, Rugby, Soccer, etc.) • Golf • Ice Sports (Hockey as an example) • Lawn Games (Horseshoes as an example) • Mixed Discipline (Triathlon as an example) • Motorized Racing (Cars, Aircraft, etc.) • Orienteering Games (Geocaching as an example) • Remote Control (Robot Combat as an example) • Shooting Sports (Clay Pigeon Shooting as an example) • Wrestling and Martial Arts

I’m mostly listing games that tend to have rules and may require strategy, rather than just brute skills.

Notice how games with solo players (vs. teams) like golf are based on turns.

21st Century Sports: Geocaching and Robot Combat


Sports GamesA Football Play Plan

Games with multiple team members like football may rely upon strategy to win a game.

Notice how how this diagram is a very reminiscent of a board game.


Tabletop Games• Board Games (Monopoly as an example)

• Card Games (Solitaire as an example)

• Collectable Card Games (Magic the Gathering as an example)

• Dexterity & Coordination Games (Jenga as an example)

• Dice Games

• Domino & Tile Games

• Guessing Games (Charades as an example)

• Pencil and Paper Games (Crossword Puzzles as an example)

Notice how card games are often driven by the inventory of which cards you hold.

While many board games, tile games, and pencil-and-paper games are about strategic real estate.

Thanks to KickStarter board games are hot again: Twenty Sided Store

in Williamsburg, Brooklyn


Mechanical Arcade and Carnival Games• Claw Crane Games • Fortune Telling Machines • Gambling Slot Machines • Shooting Games • Skeet Ball • Pinball & Pachinko Machines • Weight Guessing Booth • Whack-a-Mole


Mechanical Arcade and Carnival GamesThese sorts of games tend to fall into either games of chance or games of skill. An example of a game of chance would be a gambling slot machine, while a game that might involve skill would be a pinball machine.

Also notice how many of these games are really driven by the rewards of the game. And how the failure to get a reward inspires replayability.

A Vintage Kyoraku Pachinko Machine


Role Playing Games• Tabletop (example: Dungeons & Dragons)

• Live Action (known as LARP) • Single Player RPG Video Games • Multiple Player RPG Video Games (some can have massive numbers of players and be in real time)

What’s interesting about role playing games is that the ongoing storytelling can be a rewards mechanism. These games may also may also make use of inventory and group goals (like sports).

Dungeons & Dragons, IRL, in 2007 in Indianapolis. Photo by Ray Stubblebine


Role Playing GamesRole Playing Games don’t always have to be based on fantasy, The Oregon Trail is a great example of an educational game that’s based on history.


Electronic & Video Games: Mediums• Arcade • Console • Desktop • Web • Mobile/Handheld • Virtual Reality & Augmented RealityMobile games aren’t new:

The MicroVision from 1979

What’s nice about video games is that they have unique mechanisms that you don’t find in analog games like built-in-leveling, hinting, avatars, and easter eggs.

Yet no matter how far we come many of the basic mechanisms still remain the same like timing, rules, goals, and rewards.


Electronic & Video Games: Genres• Action Games • Adventure Games • Role-playing Games • Simulation Games • Strategy Games • Sports Games

Notice how many of these video games genres harken back to analog games?

Although something to keep in mind is that these games are very much multimedia in nature: So for example a sound effect can be used as a reward in a videogame.


Mixed Medium Games

Lord of Vermilion: This is a Japanese game that combines physical playing cards with an arcade video game.

There are some games that combine analog and digital elements. So for example in Japan there are collectible card games that work with arcade machines. There are also geo-location games like the recent Pokemon Augmented Reality (AR) game.

Educational Games Left: An 1870 card game used to teach English royal history Right: The Lewis chessmen from the 12th Century

Educational Games

A Noble History There’s an established history of games being used for education. An example of this is the ancient game of chess which was used to teach war strategies. In more recent time games like hangman (which dates from the Victorian era) have been used in classroom settings.

Royal Revels for Learning The History Of England, 1870: This game consists of hand colored cards which depicts all the Kings and Queens of England from William the Conqueror to Victoria and includes the most significant events of each reign.

Educational Games

How is game design different for educational games? The first step in designing any educational game is to first define the the educational goal of the game, followed by defining who the target audience will be (grade level, literacy, etc.). Then usually the game designer marries this to an existing known type of game.

How old is your audience?

Educational Games

Additional suggestions if you are interested in designing educational games for museums:

There’s a long tradition of educational games being sold in museum gift shops. Most of these are board games and puzzles, but they can be a great starting point for doing research.

There’s an annual educational games festival in NYC called Games for Change. This is a great place to see what’s going on in the field and for networking. You can also read up on the field at gamesforchange.org.

Bonus Suggestion: Join the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) chapter in NYC

Educational Games

Gamification for EducationThis is the concept of applying game design elements outside of game. A mundane example of this would be a retail “rewards card”. Gaming mechanisms like rewards and goals can be used for educational projects.

Activities like a Spelling Bee or a Science Fair are good examples of using rewards

in education.

Educational Games

Gamification for EducationA classic example of educational gamification would be the planetary weight scales at the Museum of Natural History: If you think about it this is a twist on the classic fortune telling scales that use to be found in drug stores.

Educational Games

Think of educational games as a key element of transmedia storytelling, rather than a peripheral activityOften I’m brought in to create a game as an after thought. But to get the best game results I recommend that game designers be brought into the early stages of any project. This way a game may serve as an integrated part of an educational experience (rather than being a rushed after thought).

An Introduction to Educational Game Design

Education

Transcript of An Introduction to Educational Game Design