Design Games to Learn: a New Approach to Playful Learning Through
Digital Games.
Emanuela Marchetti,
Aalborg University, Department of Learning and Philosophy, Denmark
Andrea Valente
Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute, University of Southern Denmark
How do children play? We worked with pupils (primary schools)
digital tangibles
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How do children play?
• 2 previous projects:
– MicroCulture
– Prime Slaughter
• In both cases participatory workshops showed different ways of play: digital VS paper/low-tech
• We observed: complex forms of play (e.g. playful play) happen more spontaneously in low-tech contexts
Pupils learn when desigining games
• Research in games based learning (Kafai 2006) shows that learning through the design of digital games elicits a richer experience than learning through play
• How to enable primary school pupils to design their own digital games? – difficult: it requires programming skills (or very good editors)
• But: when looking at traditional forms of play (supported by tangibles, cards, drawing and modelling materials) children DO ENGAGE in: – designerly and playful play (Marchetti & Petersson 2013, Sutton-Smith 1997)
– designerly ways of thinking and learning (Cross 2006) -> reflect on their new artefacts and the subject they are supposed to learn; social aspects support critical thinking
• Our approach: seek for a middle ground between traditional tangible games, (card or tabletop), and digital games
• So: the activity of designing a new digital game (or altering an existing one) is re-conceptualized as designing (or altering) a trading-card game
Altering games: digital VS tangible Consider the difference between the 2 domains when...
social agreement: easy to re-define rules, add/change pieces
changing rules -> coding!
(some) Existing ”programming” environments for children
Typical solutions to alter digital games are:
1. provide menu/editor (reduced options, easy to use)
2. programming or modding (universal, but complex skills required)
(1.) (2.)
Our vision: a middle ground
edit Program- ming
Our experiment Uni students as experts of both TCG and programming!
changes + suggestions
play/design
Suppa Merio
• How was Super Mario transposed to a TCG?
• following PlayDT (Playful Domain Transposition)
– structuralist analysis of elements and operations in the source and target domain
cards
transposition
• Mario, enemies, obstacles • move left/right, jump, ...
actions
state modifiers
enemies
Example of game play
Player ”Merio”
”board master”
”Enemy Manager”
Board
”b.m.” hand
”Enemy” hand
M
”Merio” hand
M
Merio’s next move
next move
next move
Merio’s lives Merio’s state
Player ”Merio”
”board master”
”Enemy Manager”
Board
”b.m.” hand
”Enemy” hand
M
”Merio” hand
M
Merio’s next move
next move
next move
Merio’s lives Merio’s state
turn
Player ”Merio”
”board master”
”Enemy Manager”
Board
”b.m.” hand
”Enemy” hand
M
”Merio” hand
M
Merio’s next move
next move
next move
Merio’s lives Merio’s state
turn
Player ”Merio”
”board master”
”Enemy Manager”
Board
”b.m.” hand
”Enemy” hand
M
”Merio” hand
M
Merio’s next move
next move
next move
Merio’s lives Merio’s state
turn
Player ”Merio”
”board master”
”Enemy Manager”
Board
”b.m.” hand
”Enemy” hand
M
”Merio” hand
M
Merio’s next move
next move
next move
Merio’s lives Merio’s state
turn
Reflection
• two fold contribution: – a new games based learning scenario in which children and their
educators engage in game design as part of their lecture
– a proof of concept of an alternative model for game programming in which digital games are re-conceptualised as card-based games.
• Side effect: – We were (also) looking for an activity to explain programming, that is
non-technical
– And our cycle shows an alternative way to programming, through low-fi/tangibles
– The main problem (to investigate further) is how to close the cycle in a semi-automatic, natural way
– A kind of language to describe games (as in Fowler’s DSL)
On going work
• Testing game(s) with pupils in local schools
– transpose more games (related to school subjects)
• Find out how children prefer to represent TCG rules
– basis of our DSL
• How to ”close the loop” automatically? Digital -> tangible -> re-design -> Digital
• More technical question: Is there a minimal game that works as universal
language to define interaction in the others?
