Patapon is really ‘fun’; and it set me thinking about what makes it fun. The perception of fun is a moving target, and it’d be difficult to say X element in a game promotes fun, but I’m hazarding sharing my thoughts. We’ve all seen games that are visually appealing, contain numerous game elements and aren’t ‘fun’ to play at all. Then there are those games that don’t have sophisticated visual appeal, appear simple in mechanic but are still spell-binding and sap hour and hours of one’s time due to their fun and addictive game-play.

So these are – IMO, 9 essential elements in fun games:

1. The opportunities to allow for various types of game-play within a solid mechanic. For example, in a real-time strategy game, a player is able to formulate varied strategies depending on the challenges that face him/her. This response is targeted at a particular juncture in a particular situation that has formed as a result of player action within the game environment.
2. The game environment needs to provide the space, or rather a sense of space that prompts the player to explore. The game environment need not necessarily be a 3D high-fidelity representation of reality. As I saw in Patapon, a simple layered 2D approach can work very well.
3. The game mechanic needs to be solid and add infinite ‘replayability’. The rule set that defines the game structure must be logical, and allow for unique instantiation within the environment and the player’s interaction with it. If I look at Patapon as an example, the song/rhythm for an action mechanic is simple yet evocative and allows for a variety of interaction with the environment and non-player characters and elements.
4. Every game must necessarily include a range of challenges. This is perhaps the simplest observation, to be commonly found in most commercial games. On the other hand, I have found this to be quite rare in learning games.
5. Every game must target a range of abilities – the combination of abilities required to solve a game problem must progress incrementally. As the level of difficulty goes up, not one but a combination of abilities must be used to win. This sort of ‘ability scaffolding’ is important when players are expected to master the game as they play through levels.
6. Every game must require varied levels of skill when using the abilities that the game provides. So while I mentioned a combination of abilities previously, its equally important that game requires an increment in the level of skill for abilities within the game.
7. Rewards must be commensurate to the combination of abilities required and the appropriate skill level to solve a game problem/challenge. Too much reward for too little in relation the in-game demand abilities and skill levels vs. too little reward in relation to the in-game demand for abilities and skill levels. A balance has to be maintained and the player must find the reward fair when contrasted to the abilities and skills required to win in-game.
8. Failure should never be cheap or free. There must always be a cost associated with it. While this cost may not seem like much and a player will repeatedly pay that cost to learn. Pricing failure encourages players to try out different strategies (combination of ability/skills) in attempt to avoid the price of failing.
9. There must be multiple ways to win a game. Simple enough; this ties to the mechanic allowing for a variety of strategies to emerge during game-play. If there is typically a single and repeatable way to win, this would be more like a puzzle and not a game. Allowing for multiple win strategies or paths also provides good motivation for strategy exploration. “I can win using this combination, but can I win using another different combination?”

What other elements would you add to this list? Share your elements in the comments below!

The post 9 Essential Elements for Fun in Games first appeared on The Upside Learning Blog.

So what really makes a ‘serious’ game?
A lot of casual game solutions available in the elearning development market claim to be ‘serious’ games. Are they?

The game-play and mechanics are a combination and result of these elements. If you are evaluating a learning game ask if it contains all of these elements and how they interact with each other; the more complex the interaction the more the game veers from casual to serious. You can read more about casual games in our whitepaper. In follow-up posts I’ll be exploring more aspects of casual and serious games.

The post These Are NOT Serious Games! first appeared on The Upside Learning Blog.

Additionally, the application needed elements of randomization from a question bank and a timer based quiz.

Approach:
Typically, these sorts of requirements lend themselves for development in Objective C language (the native language for developing IPhone applications). But when considered we realized that it be difficult to develop an animated user interface in the given timeframe. At one point, given the timeframe, we even thought about abandoning the project as not feasible.

But several internal team meetings later we thought of developing it in HTML, while realizing with this approach would not take full advantage of iPhone’s rich user interface. Ultimately we determined that a blended approach of using HTML plus Objective C function calls to iPhone components.

So by blending traditional web development with native iPhone development we were able to develop a cost effective mobile application. Feel free to try our approach in an appropriate situation and comment here.

The post How to Develop Cost Effective Game Applications for the iPhone first appeared on The Upside Learning Blog.

The Upside Learning staff wanted a change from routine functional training which could be boring. So we decided to introduce a fun activity for this training day. But How?

Several options were considered before we decided we needed an exercise that would challenge our fellow team-members. We’ve been trying to inculcate a culture that’ll inculcate innovation in our creations, and in line with the buzz around learning games, we zeroed in on a game design exercise.

The idea was quite simple, set up teams, give them a limited set of physical resources and set out a task – design and build a board game in less than five hours.

Easy? Definitely not, as teams realized during day-long experience.

Started out at 10:00 AM, when I gave the teams a (very) brief talk about five fundamental elements to be found in most board games.

10:30 AM the resource kits were handed out to the six teams. They had till 3.30 PM to come up with their own board game. An evaluation team was also created, tasked with playing the games after they’d been created.

The teams broke off to their work areas. Over the next five hours we saw the teams make a concerted effort to design and develop the games.

Somewhere along the way, it seems teams found a way to have lunch – the sustenance – behind every design and development effort.

As 3.30 PM came around, some teams were sitting pretty having completely created their game and were play-testing it. While others were finishing their games, having play-tested them as prototypes. (As an aside, I noticed that teams that prototyped had more complex games than the other teams. Not that this complexity help any of them win) What followed was the presentation of the games created by each team.

The games were laid out on the floor, and team members demonstrated the game play, while the leader commented on what the players were doing and why. This presentation turned out to be quite interesting, as the early leaders emerged during this stage itself.

Once all six teams had presented, the floor was thrown open for all participants to play each other’s games. At the same time, the evaluation team also participated in game play – lots of fun.

Teams discovered some rules don’t work; that there are situations that they never accounted for in their designs. In one case, the team found out certain individuals played their games in ways that was not planned for – the players created a new game mechanic not intended by the game designers.

After playtime was done, the evaluation team met briefly to consider the best game. The winner was Sneha’s team with their strategy based board game “Reach Home First”. The evaluation team found this to be engaging, simple to understand and play. The key is SIMPLICITY, in all five elements of the game. The winning team seemed to have captured this in their board game; much credit to them

We were considering making the games available as PDFs; write us a comment if you’d download those.

The post Creating Board Games: An Upside Exercise first appeared on The Upside Learning Blog.

The sole purpose behind a digital learning game is just that, ‘learning’. The type of learning outcome desired most often than not will determine whether it calls for the use of a casual or serious game. Certain types of outcomes are better suited to casual games, while others are better suited to serious games. On the surface, it seems like casual games are suited for factual and conceptual knowledge, while serious games are better for analytical and softer skills. Having said that, I must mention that it’s possible to build games of either genre for a wide range of knowledge and skills. Procedural knowledge is best built into a simulation game, which can’t be classified as either casual or serious.

The technology used by either category of game also tends to vary considerably. Typically casual games are built on internet based technology platforms, predominantly Flash; whereas serious games tend to be custom developed for specific platforms to run as applications.
While the outcomes and technology differ, there is a link between the two. Quite simply, the need for sophisticated technology is proportional to the type of performance outcome the learning is aiming for.

Let’s look at some examples, ascending in sophistication of outcome and technology.

Cisco – The Binary Game Designed to teach conceptual knowledge and some use about the binary number system. While progressing through the game, players start to recognize patterns and develop strategies in order to increase their score and stay in the game. These same strategies are the very same cognitive skills identified in learning goals
Celebrity Calamity – Casual Financial Literacy Game Focused on teaching the key concepts in managing personal finances. It also attempts to influence behavior to avoid fees on cards and make good APR choices.
SaveAndInvest.org – Moneytopia A serious game designed to educate about financial concepts and to influence spending and saving behaviors. Helps players understand the issues that impact personal finances and how finances can be successfully managed. The goal of the game is for the player to manage money through his/her game life.

You’ll notice from these examples that it’s quite clear that you’d use serious games where the game-play is intended to progressively improve skills and influence long term behaviors. While casual games are often used for content that has a short shelf-life, tends to become obsolete quickly, or is changing rapidly. This relation of game category to outcomes is incidental and arises more from the fact that companies are ready to spend more time and money on content that provides long term performance improvements that analytical and soft skills provide. This availability of time and money lets developers put in far more effort into games for those types of outcomes.

Similarly, casual games are great for factual or conceptual content where training departments are not willing to expend the time and money required to create a full scale (serious) learning game. While it may be possible to create a serious game for factual and conceptual knowledge, it’s not practicable in proportion to the performance outcome derived; i.e., spending too much money on too little measurable performance.

Casual games also tend to have lower barriers to entry when compared to serious game. Casual games are easy to play and require few instructions. This contrasts with the substantial time and commitment required to play and learn from a serious game. Serious games typically include complex user interface and interaction options; as a result game-play is far more sophisticated leading to a steeper learning curve.

A casual game can be picked up in minutes and tends to have a short play time; this makes them ideal in an environment where the only chance an employee probably gets to play a learning game is during brief breaks in the workday. Casual games tend to re-playable several times and this only enhances the learning they deliver; on the other hand, serious games are not easily re-playable due to their episodic/level based nature.

Spend time to carefully consider instructional outcome, game type, technology and cost before setting out to develop a learning game, it’ll be well worth your time.

The post Casual and Serious Digital Games for Learning – Some Considerations first appeared on The Upside Learning Blog.

Where do they start? What do they start with? It’s evident that they do need to, an audience familiar with game-based metaphors and interfaces are starting to enter the workplace in force. This new audience will demand more engaging learning and the organization needs to provide it.

I’ve just finished writing a basic paper on adopting DGBL (digital game-based learning). It’s meant for organizations who want to get their feet wet with creating learning games. The paper gives background information on the imperative of using games in the workplace, for which audience, where to begin, what sort of games, for what purpose and also briefly touches upon the issues that are typically associated with game development.

It will also be serialized as HTM pages that can be accessed through the Upside Learning website. I’ll be adding that as a comment to this post as soon it’s up on the site.

I hope this paper will help organizations consider casual games as serious and appropriate learning tools. Please feel free to comment about and question/debate the paper here. If you liked this paper, please recommend it on your blog, twitter feed, and social bookmarking service.

The post Adopting Digital Game-based Learning: Why and How first appeared on The Upside Learning Blog.