- what learning games have you played? can you categorize them by the theory of learning types: behaviorism, constructivism, constructivism or social nature? if you played more than one which was the most effective?
I have played a lot of learning games – they might be my favorite type of games actually, especially when it comes to language learning these days – Duolingo, Mango, Busuu, Mavis Beacon (in middle school), kahoot, fact-matching/quizlet sort of things, I also played a lot that I can no longer remember the names of pretty much from pre-school throughout high school- I would say most games were behaviorist in nature; learning through a game-like atmosphere but still focused around the actual learning of material but a little more fun (like what Amy Bruckman was talking about – a few were social nature too I would say – I think behaviorism is the most effective in actually learning material for me at least - is gamification bullshit, what is ian bogost’s argument and do you agree? where have you encountered it outside of class and what was your experience?
Ian argues that companies often use “games”, but really just superficial game elements to different products/sights, as marketing strategies and they are really not effective, meaningful , and motivating as games can be. I think I do agree with this logic – I don’t think that every single games has to be this whole thought-out experiential and designed masterpiece, but really stupid or badly designed games shouldn’t be slapped together to gain viewership/sales, etc. I have definitely experienced these sort of “bullshit” games that really aren’t effective and make you more annoyed than engaged. In school, we used to play free games online that were often sponsored or education based and they were mostly super dumb, we played them anyways because of boredom but really they were not really effective or that fun. - What is a serious game and why aren’t they chocolate covered broccoli?
Serious games are more than serious topics disguised as fun games (or “chocolate covered broccoli”), they are generally for education, training, or raising awareness rather than simply fun and entertainment. Good serious games integrate the education into the gameplay – if the serious part is disguised users can generally tell, so incorporating it fully makes it more intentional and meaningful and if done well, it won’t taste like chocolate covered broccoli.
Week 7 Questions
Spoon Buffet
Keep Talking and No One Explodes
- I love a puzzle game and like high stakes competition games so this was something I really enjoyed, the learning curve compared to the time given seems difficult to overcome. Especially for people who have never used VR and have to get used to the mechanics, and it seems like having time to familiarize yourself with the different modules and puzzles would help immensely for this game.
- You are trying to keep yourself from exploding, so there is a countdown timer which is a fairly effective motivator for the right people, and there are also additional markers, like flashing red lights in the room, or strikes being counted on the bomb itself.
- I don’t know if it’s necessarily meant to be persuasive towards anything in particular. It feels more like an instructional, collaborative, team-building kind of game rather than persuasive. A game meant to test how you perform under pressure and take directions from others.
- To keep calm under pressure, and maybe make you more of aware of how you interact with others in a team setting, or how you react when taking directions from someone else. I haven’t really done a lot of VR gaming so a lot of the mechanics kind of stood out for me. It was a learning curve to figure out how to interact with the graphics themselves and then the objects inside the game, learning how to pick the bomb up and move it around, and then how to interact with the different modules.
- I was excited about the gameplay because I like games like that and puzzles, I wasn’t like tense or as stressed about the time limit as maybe the designers would want you to be, but I definitely still felt a sense of wanting to get the challenge done in time. I think I actually felt the most empathy for the people who had to give the instructions that seemed like the most stressful job.
- It doesn’t feel much like an activist game to me.
- Try not to blow up.
Be quick. Time is running out.
5,4,3,2,1.
5 game simulation ideas.
-Some sort of restaurant industry simulation, where you get to experience either being in the kitchen or a server, and get to deal with timed pressure scenarios, chaotic and dangerous surroundings, maybe intense authority figures, and a range of customers experiences that simulate real-life scenarios.
-A media literacy simulation where you are in charge of running a social media page, or like entertainment/news site. You are given options for things to post that could be light-hearted, humorous, feel good, real news, fake news, propaganda, or ads. So you can choose a specific vibe to curate on your site, or you could branch out and post a variety of things. But every time you post you get feedback, ratings, and an influence score from “viewers”. So it would track engagement, fact checks, and your growth.
-A game that highlights sensory issues with neurodivergence Players complete simple tasks but some players receive overwhelming instructions, some get conflicting rule, some can’t speak, or some must follow very rigid constraints. There could also be obstacles like amplified ambient sounds and noise, lights flicker, or NPC speech overlaps.
– A game that highlights how people of different genders, races, disabilities experience public spaces. Switch between perspectives within a populated city area during the day or maybe navigating city streets at night.
– A simulation that portrays either how certain people with privilege or influence can affect things. Or maybe its about the power of speaking out but when words are spoken certain avatars experience their words. Words expand into architecture, building bridges and pathways to move you forward and for other avatars words dissolve mid-air, echo but don’t land, build things much slower, or unstable architecture, make certain obstacles appear. - Fragment into static.
Cat Rush- Final Game Documentation
My game is similar to Pokémon, but if it were all cats. The goal is to attack other players and be the last cat standing. It is a mix of luck and skill to use powerups to your advantage and heal using the limited supply of food available. In version 2 of my game, I made the rules a lot more clear surrounding each character’s abilities and how the powerups work. Along with this, I also cut the amount of food cards in half. The first playtest showed me that I was too unclear on some aspects, such as being able to use the base attack by itself. The most helpful comments were about the food supply as well as questions surrounding some of the rules. For version 3, I would make everything into whole numbers and attempt to fix the health sliders again. Along with this, I would add different colored backs for the character and heart cards to keep them better separated from the deck.
Version 2:
Version 1 (I didn’t take photographs of it last week, so this is it set up without the old rule sheet.)
Extra Steps Final Documentation
Please view the attached documents:
Version 1:
Version 2:
Playtest 2 for: Battle of the Suits, Skyjo, One/Evil UNO, Rainbow Dash, Magic Circle
Battle of the Suits
1. Other players teamed up against me to eliminate me
2. Eliminating other players was fun
3. No
4. Experience improved, HP and Shield trackers helped
5. Improve the physical quality of trackers, game still takes long
6. Clarity, easy tracking
7. Yes, simple and not much needed to play
Skyjo
1. Not frustrating, quite enjoyable
2. Column rule was fun
3. I wish I could match columns AND rows
4. N/A – Didn’t play last time
5. See 3
6. See 4
7. Yes, very cute art and easy to learn
One (Evil UNO)
1. Drawing cards was most frustrating, yet fun
2. Using action cards
3. No
4. N/A – Didn’t play last time
5. Card quality
6. See 4
7. Yes! I would genuinely buy a set of these cards.
Rainbow Dash
1. Limited moves on the last row
2. Climbing ladders to get ahead
3. No
4. N/A – Didn’t play last time
5. Bigger board
6. See 4
7. Yes, simple, beautiful, and easy to learn
Magic Circle
1. Missing pieces during playtest (but can be played without them)
2. Gambling my earnings was fun
3. No
4. N/A – Didn’t play last time
5. Rule clarity could be improved, increase win requirements
6. See 4
7. Not really, not much engagement/interaction. Game is very short.
Rainbow Dash Playtest 2
This game is a really fun adaptation of Chutes and Ladders! I loved when I landed on the ladders and got to move up a lot. The main critique I have is that I wish the board was either bigger or the pieces were smaller. It was a little bit clunky to try and move around a small board with such large characters. The mechanics worked very well and I enjoyed the clover spots! This was a very enjoyable experience that I would absolutely play again. Even though I was losing, I found myself cheering for Saomi to get the win. I enjoyed the luck required for the last row!
Evil Uno Playtest 2
This game is SO good. It truly is Uno from hell. I hated having to draw 10+ cards, but that just added to the experience. All of the added cards were so fun and made it a dreadful experience (which is a good thing). The main critique I have about this game is that the cards were too thick. Drawing large amounts was hard and I was constantly having to recount them. The thickness made them harder to shuffle as well. Other than that this game was a wonderfully terrible experience that I enjoyed every second of! I wish this was a real version of Uno. It is perfection.
Battle of the Suits Playtest 2
This is a very enjoyable game, but trying to play it with a group of 4 was not as enjoyable as when it was played with a group of 2. It was fun to gang up on players and get them out, but once I discovered that always keeping a health card on me meant I was essentially immortal, it became very long. The revive system is very overpowered. I loved the addition of the trackers for health and shields. It made the game so much easier to follow and was a lot more enjoyable than trying to do math and remember it. This version was a lot clearer than the last!
“Rainbow Dash”
No version 1 Picture:
Version 2:
- Chutes and ladders with a small rainbow twist. Draw a card to move your pieces farther up the board. Try to avoid Slides and Clovers but try to get on a ladder space to move farther.
- We changed the character pieces, more spaces, size of the board, added clover pieces, and added more slides and ladders.
- That we needed a bigger board and needed to change the color of the spots.
- Character pieces are too big and the board is still too small
People who worked on this: Gavin Raabe, Lily Clifford, Toni Valeri
Magic Circle Playtest 2
I found the risk aspect to be way too powerful as someone in my group won just by winning on risk twice in a row. The game ended very fast. I really enjoyed the aspect of luck/chance in this game. It made for a very fun experience to not be able to control who wins. One thing I wish we could have done was steal other player’s chips. In my opinion, the risk should give less chips or the number of chips needed to win should be more. This game was a fun way to pass time, but it was missing pieces when we attempted to play. We definitely weren’t able to play it to its full potential.
SkyJo Playtest 2
Overall a very fun and enjoyable game to play! I really enjoyed the card flipping system and I found it very fun to not know everything you have on the board. This created some very fun moments while playing! One thing I wish I could have done was steal other people’s cards. The only crit I still have after playing is just that the deck was hard to shuffle, so less cards would be better in my opinion.
Project #2
Gabriella Thomas
Janga remastered
- Nothing that made the game game difficult
- I loved the different cards while you were playing the game. It made Janga more interesting and interactive with your opponent.
- Nope
- I didn’t get to play the original version.
- For the next version I would make more cards. It would make you add more words to more Jenga blocks, but it would make it more interactive.
- Child filled fun
- I would 100% play this game again. it brought back so many memories from when i was a child and now its even more fun.
Shoots and ladders remastered
- Nothing.
- Being able to go up the ladder.
- Nothing.
- I didn’t get to play the original.
- Make the characters smaller so they fit on the board.
- candy rainbow madness.
- Yes, very easy to understand.
One
- Learning the new cards. Does white mean you refer back to the colored card?
- making someone draw 6. seeing a card with Mr. beast face on it.
- Nothing
- Last time there wasn’t enough cards. now there’s plenty of cards.
- Make the type less drippy. Had a hard time identifying the 7 and 1.
- Dark drippy crazy
- Yes, this game was like a crazy version of UNO. All the new cards added a very fun twist to the game.
Personal document
- The game we made is based off of SKYJO an early 2000’s card game. Instead of just numbers we made it with cartoon animals. game can be played with ages 10 and up.
- From the first version the designs were sloppy and inconsistent. We removed an animal and fixed the lines.
- Make rules more understandable.
- Add more constancy in the artwork.
Games Feedback 2 – Sara Krim/Chrystian Kozak Pirates
My game in 3 sentences: Pirates is a DND inspired game where you roleplay as pirates. It’s a game for 6 people to play including a dungeon master who is the storyteller/narrator of the game. Its an adventure full of roleplay and dice deciding your fate.
Changes and improvements in version 2: We condensed the game’s rules and details to make it more easy to consume the information. We received feedback on how it was hard to understand.
What we learned from the game’s play testing and feedback: We learned that just because all of the information is there, it doesn’t mean it’s consumable and everybody understands it differently.
What to change for version 3: We would condense the information even more and incorporate more art and style into our sheets.
I wasn’t able to find a photo from last week on the instagram and I didn’t know to take one, so here’s a photo of this weeks.
