game elements

Goals

-Game Goals -Instructional

Goals

Rules -Operational Rules-Describe

how the game is played.

-Foundational Rules-Underlying formal structures, like the mathematics involved

with dice.

-Behavior Rules-How players are expected to act toward

one another.

-Instructional Rules-What you want the learner to gain from

playing the instructional game.

Objectives -The introduction of an

objective or a goal is what differentiates a game from

play.

-It gives the players something to work toward.

-Objectives are either

obtained or not obtained and that is a quantifiable

outcome.

Stories provide, context, meaning and purpose

1. Characters

Story Elements

5. Conclusion

2. Plot (something has to happen).

3. Tension

4. Resolution

Write a story to match your game.

Feedback

Games like The Sims provide feedback on many dimensions which provide

opportunities to consider tradeoffs and higher level cognitive thinking.

The most helpful feedback provides specific comments about errors and suggestions for improvement. It also encourages learners to focus their attention thoughtfully on the task rather than on simply getting the right answer.

Shute, V. J., Ventura, M., Bauer, M. I., & Zapata-Rivera, D. (2009). Melding the power of serious games and embedded assessment to monitor and foster learning: Flow and grow. In U. Ritterfeld, M. J. Cody, & P. Vorderer (Eds.), Serious Games: Mechanisms and Effects. Philadelphia, PA: Routledge/LEA. 295-321.

Leaderboards provide opportunities for players to

receive feedback about their performance as compared to

others.

Recommendations • Provide authentic and realistic feedback.

• Feedback should be continuous through out

the learning. • Feedback should be instructional and provide

knowledge of learner’s performance.

• Allow learners to create their own social “leaderboard” of friends.

Time Motivator for player/learner

activity and action.

As a resource allocated during the

game-play.

A game can compress time to show consequences of actions more quickly than

real-time.

Curve of Interest

Monitor within the instruction. Track player movement,

time on task, level of activity.

Replayability

• Replay provides learners with a chance to try a different approach, explore different hypothesizes and reduces the “sting of failure”

Replay and exploration can be placed in games by providing

additional pathways through the content.

Achieving goals Collecting Items

Exploring Socializing Easter Eggs

Conflict, Competition and Cooperation

Conflict

Conflict-inflicting damage on other players

Competition

Competition-competing against other players

Cooperation

Cooperation-working with other players to achieve a goal.

Rewards, Incentives and Points, Achievements

Primarily use expected achievements so players can establish goals for themselves and understand the

purpose and progression of interactions.

Kapp, K. M. (2012) The Gamification of Learning and Instruction. New York: Pfeiffer. Chapter Ten. Pages 219-238.

Use coins, points and rewards to provide feedback on performance, updates on progress and level of

correctness.


The value, or size, of an anticipated reward influences the motivational signal sent to the brain only within

the contexts of the reward system.

Howard-Jones, P. A., & Demetriou, S. (2009) Uncertainty and engagement with learning games. Instructional Science. 37:519–536 DOI 10.1007/s11251-008-9073-6

Give players an opportunity to go over their earned achievements using some kind of visual stored list.


What can you do?

Use points, rewards and badges to convey meaning, achievement and progress.

http://www.coursehero.com/courses/

http://www.coursehero.com/courses/

2 weeks after launching Courses (powered by gamification), CourseHero received 350 suggested edits to existing courses and 122 requests for new courses. Another 68 people offered to augment existing courses by creating their own course to be hosted on coursehero.com.

Since the implementation of gamification elements, time on site overall has increased around 5 percent.

For Gamified courses, the time on site for the Courses are nearly three times as long as time onsite for all of coursehero.com. Social sharing of achievements increased nearly 400 percent in three months.

Aesthetics

• A large element of any game is how the game looks and the overall congruency of the artwork, interface and activities.

Artwork and the “look and feel” of the game plays a major role in the overall design and enjoyment of a

game.

Includes audio as well as visual.

Gaming uncertainty can transform the emotional experience of learning. This may improve engagement and improve encoding and later recall.

Howard-Jones, P. A., & Demetriou, S. (2009) Uncertainty and engagement with learning games. Instructional Science. 37:519–536 DOI 10.1007/s11251-008-9073-6

Experimental results reveal that uncertainty enhances learning and is positively associated with motivation.

As motivation increases, participants tend to spend more time answering questions and have higher accuracy.

Ozcelik, E., Cagiltay, N. E., & Ozcelik, N. S., (2013)The effect of uncertainty on learning in game-like environments. Computers & Education 67. 12–20

Uncertainty in a learning game can enhance players’ experience in several ways, including changes in brain chemistry and activity.

Robinson, S. (2012) Taking a chance: Introducing uncertainty into learning games. Proceedings of the Academy of Educational Leadership, Volume 17, Number 2, 2012

Chance or luck is a highly motivational element of games both of traditional

games of chance but in other video games like finding hidden treasures.

What can you do?

Allow chance, risk-taking and uncertainty into gamification efforts. 50% appears to be an optimal number.

Freedom to Fail

Recommendations

• Allow failure.

• Provide for multiple attempts. • Focus on learning from mistakes and failure.