Teaching and Learning Outline

Focus Question / Probe Questions / Big Ideas/Content / Suggested Activities
What is a game? / What different types of games are there?
What different types of digital/computer games are there?
How is a game different from: a toy (or computer drawing program), a puzzle, a movie/story, a simulation, a classroom debate?
What are the fundamental features of a game? / Types of games: board games, card games, sports games, children’s (social-play) games, computer/digital games.
Types of digital games:
¡ skill and action (arcade, shooter, sport),
¡ simulation (flight and racing sims),
¡ strategy (war, puzzle, ‘god’, tycoon),
¡ adventure (point-and-click),
¡ role-playing (online RPGs; social),
¡ educational.
A toy (or computer drawing program) is at too extreme end of manipulability (no goal) and poses no challenges; a puzzle is not interactive; a movie/story is not interactive; a computer simulation attempts to represent reality objectively (not fantasy); a classroom debate is perhaps not ‘safe’ (too much competition; threat of losing face).
Fundamental features of a game:
¡ interactive (incorporates active decision-making and differential consequences),
¡ challenging (incorporates competition and/or conflict; has an explicit goal, sub-goals, constraints and rules),
¡ fantasy (subjective representation of reality),
¡ safe (reduced fear of failure). / ¡ Brainstorm different types of games; share, analyse and categorise results.
¡ Brainstorm different types of digital/computer games; share, analyse and categorise results.
¡ Think-pair-share how a game is different from a puzzle, a toy, a computer drawing program, a movie or story, a computer simulation, a classroom debate.
¡ In small groups, decide on 2-4 fundamental features that all games share and which make them different from other things (Hint: use results from second activity above).
Why do we play games? / What are the fundamental (deep) reasons we play games?
How could we investigate why people play games and why different people prefer certain games?
Why do different people play/prefer different types of digital/computer games? / Why we play games:
¡ to learn (fundamental adaptive motivation),
¡ to exercise (mentally or physically; to improve),
¡ to prove oneself (safely, free of ‘failure’),
¡ to be acknowledged/recognised (for ourselves/personality),
¡ for social lubrication,
¡ to explore fantasies (to escape from reality),
¡ to rebel (against social, legal, or other constraints; safely).
Students develop understandings about good survey design and interpreting survey results (e.g. looking for patterns, choosing appropriate variables such as age and sex to consider).
Students consider how the different genres of digital games might suit particular audiences; consider how individual games (even within genres) are designed for particular audiences. / ¡ Students could ‘jigsaw’ explanations for each of the given reasons (suggested by the research literature) for why we play games (see left) and give examples; students explore also how important they think each criterion is as a motivating factor. (Students share conclusions from Expert groups back in their Home groups and collaboratively rank the importance of each factor in their Home Groups).
¡ After brainstorming ideas for survey questions as a class, students design and conduct a survey in small groups, to investigate why people play games and why they prefer certain types of games (and certain types of digital games)
¡ Students collate and present results in small groups.
¡ Students share their analysis and interpretation of their findings in whole-class discussion; discuss possible cause-and-effect relationships between different variables.
How do digital games affect us? / How are digital games good for us?
How are digital games bad for us?
How can digital games help our learning? / Students develop critical understandings of the major issues regarding the good and bad effects of digital games, including: violence in games (bad influence or safe outlet), games in education (improved learning or just more fun), addiction to games (positive engagement or lifestyle problem), social effects (isolation vs distributed communities),
gender and racial stereotypes, health effects (mental and physical). / ¡ Provide materials for students to view as stimuli for small-group discussions (maybe as ‘jigsaw’ activity) about the good and bad effects of digital games (incl. First Person Shooter documentary, James Gee talk; see reference list).
¡ Students share conclusions in whole-class discussion.
¡ Students debate whether digital games are good or bad for us.
How do we design and make a good digital game? / What are the features of a good digital game design?
How do we design and make a digital game? / Features of good game design:
Challenge
¡ Difficulty ‘flow’: increasing difficulty, learning curve and ‘cycle of expertise’, difficulty levels vs ‘intelligent’ difficulty
¡ Clear goals & sub-goals, with clear feedback on progress
¡ Rewards for achieving goals and sub-goals
Interactivity (player feels ‘in control’)
¡ Real choices/decisions that make a balanced difference
¡ Fair: not punishing player for things out of their control
¡ Not confusing player with complicated controls
Immersion
¡ A good story (and interesting ‘topic’ or goal)
¡ Strong characters
¡ Appropriate setting (‘game world’) – graphics and music
¡ Special effects (not overdone) – sounds and graphics
The fundamental elements of Game Maker software are:
¡ rooms (where objects and events happen; game ‘levels’ or scenes),
¡ backgrounds (the background images in rooms; scenery),
¡ objects (the things in the game),
¡ instances (one particular occurrence of an object),
¡ sprites (images that are used to show the objects),
¡ sounds (background music or sound effects),
¡ events (interactions that happen in the game, e.g. a ball collides with a wall, or the player presses the left arrow key),
¡ actions (the responses to these interactions or events, e.g. the ball bounces back, or an object moves left).
Students problem-solve and develop practical ways to incorporate the ‘good game design’ into games made with Game Maker, with an emphasis on:
Challenge
¡ Maintaining difficulty ‘flow’ via gradually increasing difficulty (level design), or having difficulty levels or ‘intelligent difficulty’, optional sub-goals (e.g. gaining extra points, extra abilities, extra health/lives)
¡ Clear goals (hi-score…)
¡ Clear feedback (displaying scores, playing sounds…)
¡ Rewards (new abilities, extra lives/health, bonus scores, new level)
Interactivity
¡ Simple controls
¡ No unfair punishment
¡ Interesting choices/decisions with different outcomes (e.g. not arms-races but with balanced trade-offs)
Immersion
¡ Consistent visuals, sounds that fit the story
¡ Motivating front-end (graphics and theme music)
¡ No overdone special effects but meaningful effects
Level Design
Divide total levels equally by 3: easy, medium, and hard
¡ Easy: all players can complete
¡ Medium: most players complete (designer always can)
¡ Hard: good players eventually should complete
Introduce new features for player to use: abilities, equipment, characters, buildings
Introduce new features for player to overcome:
opponents (more of them, more powerful, with new abilities or equipment), obstacles (puzzles, traps, terrain), environments
A game design document should include information about:
¡ the genre
¡ the audience
¡ the game story or narrative (the setting, the characters, the storyline)
¡ the goal or objective of the game (including what the player has to do to achieve that goal)
¡ game mechanics: objects, main interactive events and actions, controls, sounds
¡ level design: new challenges, new choices, new background music, new background graphics
¡ front-end design: title page and functions; theme music
¡ social considerations (violence, gender and racial stereotypes, educational content) / Critical Gaming:
¡ Review the fundamental features of a game: esp. interactivity and challenge/conflict.
¡ Students play example games, evaluating the games’ designs in terms of interactivity and challenge but also considering any other features that contribute to either good or bad game design. Students could play the same game(s) and then share evaluations (e.g. games at www.gamelearning.net; www.gamemaker.nl)
¡ Students use think-pair-share to develop ideas about fundamental features of good game design (scaffold new concept of ‘immersion’ while examining ‘challenge’ and ‘interactivity’ in more detail)
¡ Students read examples of game reviews (e.g. http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/459841.asp)
¡ Students write own game review, considering the good and bad aspects of a game’s various design criteria. Review should be scaffolded, for example: “It must include information about the genre, the audience, the setting, the characters, the storyline, the goal or objective of the game, what the player has to do, interactivity, challenge/conflict, immersion (sound, graphics, special effects), social considerations (violence, gender and racial stereotypes, educational content), and any other reasons for it being good and/or bad as well as a recommendation to others about it”.
¡ Students discuss the importance of a good story in a digital game (game narrative). Students read authentic examples of game narratives in commercial game booklets and/or in game design documents and analyse. Discuss features such as the importance of developing an interesting complication, at which the narrative stops and which the game play is designed to resolve. Discuss how the player’s interactivity with the story facilitates their engagement with these texts. Students develop their ideas for game narratives and write their own.
Game Making:
¡ Students perform a series of structured tutorials using the Game Maker software to develop understandings about event-based programming (see ‘Fruits of the Forest’ and ‘Gobble Guts’ tutorials).
¡ Students read and reflect on the design document for the ‘Fruits of the Forest’ tutorial game to develop understandings about the design process and the importance of planning.
¡ Students respond to design challenges posed during the tutorial to further develop and practise applying their understandings about design features of good digital games.
¡ Students read and reflect on real commercial game design documents as examples of authentic practice.
¡ Students discuss evaluation criteria for their own digital games before designing (see ‘Big Ideas’ column below).
¡ Students write their own design documents (individually or in pairs) for their own digital game (this could initially be the modification of an existing tutorial game they have created).
¡ Students share designs, discuss and reflect.
¡ Students modify designs.
¡ Students develop own digital game (individually or in pairs) using Game Maker software. Students modify design document as appropriate during making.
How did we go? / Suggested evaluation criteria for students’ games:
¡ suiting the audience
¡ good game design (interactivity, challenge, immersion)
¡ social considerations (violence, gender and racial stereotypes, educational content)
¡ realisation of game design document / Critical Gaming:
¡ Students play and critically evaluate each other’s games.
¡ Students could organise and participate in a Game Festival, where students showcase their games and play each other’s games; students could evaluate and review their favourite games.

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