“The first was the scientist’s expectation that extinct creatures from Earth’s past would be so intrinsically interesting that the players would be motivated to read and explore as much as possible.” That was probably one of my favorite quotes of the article. Who would have thought people would be unmotivated to read in a game? (probably game designers)
I found the whole article informative and fascinating. I think it would be fun to work as part of a team like that to build educational games. Making education fun isn’t hard, it’s just hard work. I find sometimes when I’m working on a game concept it’s hard to parse ideas down to make a narrative and good game mechanics. I end up doing a lot of (necessary) research in order to make sure I know what I’m talking about.
Collaboration is so important, and it makes games good. I’m not surprised that a group of different experts butt heads, and I think it’s awesome that it also lead to an amazing game.