This workshop will be defined a bit more by the paper which will be presented tomorrow.
Clara Fernandez Vara (MIT) & Scot Osterweil (MIT)
The presenters proposed a 3 - 4 hour workshop, but were allocated 1 hour. Had planned more hands on, but to facilitate time, much of it has been removed.
Focus is on puzzle solving and its application in learning.
Zoombinis was used to show a coordinate puzzle game. The game teaches using a coordinate model, but that is never defined. Basically, the players form hypothesis to figure out what the puzzle is, then they start experimenting.
The choose a level in Zoombinis starts at "Not so easy", then progresses to "Very, Very Hard". doesn't degrade trying the easier levels.
Puzzles in a sense are the only true solitaire game. The rules are consistent and fair, and it's up to the player to solve it. What you can do with a computer that you can't do with a tactile puzzle is "feedback". This is a critical component to digital puzzle games.
From what I've seen, this would be an amazingly fun little game that Nathaniel would really enjoy...and me for that matter.
Insight is what is needed to figure out puzzles. It's not something magical. The insight is in the person, not in the puzzle.
Book show: The Canterbury Puzzles; Captivating Lateral Thinking Puzzles
If you want the puzzle to be clear, you have to make sure that the language is concise and clear to state the expectations. Fog is not good. All the clues should be in clear sight, but difficult.
Most bad educational puzzles/games are just quizzes.
It seems to be important to make sure that all the information is there. However, there could be the inclusion of information outside the "game environment"...for instance a puzzle that relies on specific knowledge of content (puzzle about water pressure).
What is the role of "flow" in a game. Can you have flow when you are totally stumped by a puzzle? There is also a flow from puzzle to puzzle.
Speaker: I think we under sell the role of observation in learning.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Design, Learning, and Experience
Keynote by James Paul Gee. Thursday October 21, 2010 9:00
(I'll try to keep up on this, but he moves quickly.)
Gee thinks in the United States, taht we are asleep, and games have the capacity to wake us up to think for themselves, and learning...and lieing.
Years ago, Chomsky said there are two major intellectual problems. Plato's problem is that students seem to know way more than they should no. Look at children and the way that language is learned.
Chomsky also said there is another problem, there are many cases where humans tend to be more stupid than they should be (Orwell's problem). Gee begins using the real estate, toxic assets, credit default swaps as an example of how people couldn't have known the problem.
Chomsky says that people are smart, but they are duped by the institutions they belong to. Glenn Beck is third most resected man in the United States--THAT is Orwell's problem.
There are conditions in which humans operate intelligently, and those that they operate stupidly. If people are given a problem, where something is at stake, and they emotionally care, they are smart, but if they don't care, they are stupid. Humans are especially smart at catching cheaters.
So if we wanted to create a better school, we need to give the learners something that they care about. Don't ask for a "right" answer, but give them the opportunity to ACT. We think well when we have to act, but not if there is nothing that matters.
Demon's Soul is a great game, but it punishes you if you make a mistake. What is it that is a life enhancing experience about something that is so difficult. If you can get to the end it is life enhancing [question: from a learning perspective, or a content perspective?]
Old people have "experience" because we rely on what we have learned, and what others have learned, unfortunately, some of those are lies. Relying on lies. But when old people have to learn something totally different, they are just like a 6-year-old. The idea that I was an agent in my own learning was something that I had not experienced since grad school.
what I think is significant about games from a scholarly perspective, video games are a much better model of the human mind than just a computer. When you are playing a video game, you are doing what humans do best, but they do it externally (the game).
Games give you the opportunity to rediscover that you are an agent.
GAmes sweet spot, is to teach you that you can think, and that you don't have to rely on others to facilitate learning. Empowered.
Games say to you that you have a soul, and you are as smart as everybody. With the whole credit default swap thing, you would have figured it out, you would have learned that it was bad, and would have held people accountable.
I have a right...imagine discovering from a video game that you have a right...maybe they would learn that if they had a right they would excercise it.
Questions:
I'm saying that a game like Demon's Soul teach you that you are a learning agent, you are as smart as the experts. Is there a danger that a game has an ideology, yes, but the real danger is that you only play one game. I don't want to make a game to teach math. I want a game that will teach you that you need to rely on yourself (and your fellow games) to learn.
The cognitive sciences know that if you are not emotionally committed to an issue that you won't care. Game designers know that if you do not care in the first few minutes, you won't continue playing.
If you want people to collaborate you have to give them something that they care about, but they have to be problems that can't be solved on their own...only through the collaboration can the problem be solved.
Mentioned the Sims, and the way that the Sims created opportunities for interaction. Expertise resides in the community, not in individuals.
The only colleges that can truly innovate, are those without any status, cuz they have nothing to lose. If you are going to implement around games, don't just do it one way, do it all ways, digital games, community, collaboration, virtual worlds, . . .
Since publishing my first book, what has changed, is that games have become this phenomenon that games come along with a community...a discussion on the meta game. Games give tacit knowledge, but the community gives explicit knowledge.
Every one of my books I've written when something is brand new to me and it is exciting. Now I've learned too much about games to say anything intelligent about them.
(I'll try to keep up on this, but he moves quickly.)
Gee thinks in the United States, taht we are asleep, and games have the capacity to wake us up to think for themselves, and learning...and lieing.
Years ago, Chomsky said there are two major intellectual problems. Plato's problem is that students seem to know way more than they should no. Look at children and the way that language is learned.
Chomsky also said there is another problem, there are many cases where humans tend to be more stupid than they should be (Orwell's problem). Gee begins using the real estate, toxic assets, credit default swaps as an example of how people couldn't have known the problem.
Chomsky says that people are smart, but they are duped by the institutions they belong to. Glenn Beck is third most resected man in the United States--THAT is Orwell's problem.
There are conditions in which humans operate intelligently, and those that they operate stupidly. If people are given a problem, where something is at stake, and they emotionally care, they are smart, but if they don't care, they are stupid. Humans are especially smart at catching cheaters.
So if we wanted to create a better school, we need to give the learners something that they care about. Don't ask for a "right" answer, but give them the opportunity to ACT. We think well when we have to act, but not if there is nothing that matters.
Demon's Soul is a great game, but it punishes you if you make a mistake. What is it that is a life enhancing experience about something that is so difficult. If you can get to the end it is life enhancing [question: from a learning perspective, or a content perspective?]
Old people have "experience" because we rely on what we have learned, and what others have learned, unfortunately, some of those are lies. Relying on lies. But when old people have to learn something totally different, they are just like a 6-year-old. The idea that I was an agent in my own learning was something that I had not experienced since grad school.
what I think is significant about games from a scholarly perspective, video games are a much better model of the human mind than just a computer. When you are playing a video game, you are doing what humans do best, but they do it externally (the game).
Games give you the opportunity to rediscover that you are an agent.
GAmes sweet spot, is to teach you that you can think, and that you don't have to rely on others to facilitate learning. Empowered.
Games say to you that you have a soul, and you are as smart as everybody. With the whole credit default swap thing, you would have figured it out, you would have learned that it was bad, and would have held people accountable.
I have a right...imagine discovering from a video game that you have a right...maybe they would learn that if they had a right they would excercise it.
Questions:
I'm saying that a game like Demon's Soul teach you that you are a learning agent, you are as smart as the experts. Is there a danger that a game has an ideology, yes, but the real danger is that you only play one game. I don't want to make a game to teach math. I want a game that will teach you that you need to rely on yourself (and your fellow games) to learn.
The cognitive sciences know that if you are not emotionally committed to an issue that you won't care. Game designers know that if you do not care in the first few minutes, you won't continue playing.
If you want people to collaborate you have to give them something that they care about, but they have to be problems that can't be solved on their own...only through the collaboration can the problem be solved.
Mentioned the Sims, and the way that the Sims created opportunities for interaction. Expertise resides in the community, not in individuals.
The only colleges that can truly innovate, are those without any status, cuz they have nothing to lose. If you are going to implement around games, don't just do it one way, do it all ways, digital games, community, collaboration, virtual worlds, . . .
Since publishing my first book, what has changed, is that games have become this phenomenon that games come along with a community...a discussion on the meta game. Games give tacit knowledge, but the community gives explicit knowledge.
Every one of my books I've written when something is brand new to me and it is exciting. Now I've learned too much about games to say anything intelligent about them.
Meaningful Play 2010 Starts Today
I'm sitting in the ballroom waiting for the second Meaningful Play Conference to begin. I'll be blogging my notes, just like last time. I'll try to watch comments and reply if needed, but if experience from last time is any indication, I'll probably be lost in all the content.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
The Great White Whale of Meaningful Play
Keynote by Tracy Fullerton
http://meaningfulplay.msu.edu/program.php?session=53
Like the meaningful game play that we strive to create, in Moby Dick, Melville takes the story around themes of loss...and so on.
If you take the themes out of Moby Dick, then it would not have been as lasting as it has been.
Mighty Themes are important to meaningful play.
Games
The majority of people drawn to these games are probably drawn, not becasue it is a game, but because of the topic, and a game was made from it.
Huizinga: All play means something.
heresy of the zone defense gives an excellent discussion on...something the speaker wants us to read about...Urgh!
Gravitation
Braid is a game of love and loss, and time...
The expressive act...Alexander Galloway, Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture
Warren Robinett points out every verb in the dictionary suggests and idea for a simulation.
These create truly touch design challenges, focusing on the radical simplifcation and stylization of the expressive act.
A discussion on the Night Journey.
What is the "mechanic" of enlightenment? How can the aesthetic of a game touch the traditions of spiritual media (enlightened manuscripts and the sort)?
How can we abstract and systematize something that is as intensely personal as spiritual journey?
Conclusions about the mechanic:
Creating "expressive geography"
Fullerton then showed us the game, a little sneak peak. This excited everyone. You would not believe how quiet the ballroom is right now. No one is talking, everyone is fixated on the screen, the visual and audio is very meditative.
New Challenges:
Walden a Game
CPG History and Civics Intiative to teach contstitutional history to HS students
Walden, a game.
Game would encourage players to live simply: work to live, but not live to work, balance between mind, body, and spirit.
envisioned it as a game for short reflective visits, not addictive play. Play periodically in short bursts.
I think I have a new hero. Time to revisit her book and I can't wait to see Walden, A Game and Night Journey.
http://meaningfulplay.msu.edu/program.php?session=53
Like the meaningful game play that we strive to create, in Moby Dick, Melville takes the story around themes of loss...and so on.
If you take the themes out of Moby Dick, then it would not have been as lasting as it has been.
Mighty Themes are important to meaningful play.
Games
The majority of people drawn to these games are probably drawn, not becasue it is a game, but because of the topic, and a game was made from it.
Huizinga: All play means something.
heresy of the zone defense gives an excellent discussion on...something the speaker wants us to read about...Urgh!
Gravitation
Braid is a game of love and loss, and time...
The expressive act...Alexander Galloway, Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture
Warren Robinett points out every verb in the dictionary suggests and idea for a simulation.
These create truly touch design challenges, focusing on the radical simplifcation and stylization of the expressive act.
A discussion on the Night Journey.
What is the "mechanic" of enlightenment? How can the aesthetic of a game touch the traditions of spiritual media (enlightened manuscripts and the sort)?
How can we abstract and systematize something that is as intensely personal as spiritual journey?
Conclusions about the mechanic:
- Exploration
- Slowing the player down (the virtual speed of human on foot...very slow) The terrain becomes an obstacle in and of itself.
- Environment is visually complex
- Rewards for looking deeply.
- Reflection and Transformation (The transformation gives an immediate visual reward, and a longterm "leveling up" that is not apparent until you need to use it and you then realize it.
- The cycle of loss and rebirth.
- Eventaully, night will fall--in an elongated period of "loss." (but loss is not always a bad thing, and can be good, transfromational and even happy)
- The player "falls asleep" and "dreams"
- Dreams are procedurally created based on individual exporation and reflection
- After dreaming, the player is dropped back into the environemtn.
Creating "expressive geography"
Fullerton then showed us the game, a little sneak peak. This excited everyone. You would not believe how quiet the ballroom is right now. No one is talking, everyone is fixated on the screen, the visual and audio is very meditative.
New Challenges:
Walden a Game
CPG History and Civics Intiative to teach contstitutional history to HS students
Walden, a game.
Game would encourage players to live simply: work to live, but not live to work, balance between mind, body, and spirit.
envisioned it as a game for short reflective visits, not addictive play. Play periodically in short bursts.
I think I have a new hero. Time to revisit her book and I can't wait to see Walden, A Game and Night Journey.
A Question of Resposibility & Tangential Learning.
James Portnow, formerly of Activision, is the CCO and founder of Divide by Zero Games. Besides his work as a designer, James Portnow is a recognized design theorist and prominent industry journalist, having been published worldwide and being a regular columnist for such sites as Edge-Online and Game Career Guide.
Program was changed from "Bringing Tangential Learning to Games". He changed his topic based on the presentation earlier on Serious Games.
Propagandic Games
How do we do it?
The greatest danger does not come from the propaganda games. It is from the regular every day games that we have to worry about. We will indoctrinate without purpose, and we need to be aware of what we are doing.
Tangential Learning
A brief musing on Engagement
"I am always ready to learn, although I do not always want to be taught".
Egagement: is directly related to learning and life long retention
Engagement is outside the class room, but video games can do it for us.
Tangential learning is about exposing people knowledge, with out teaching them. If an audience is engaged, your audience will self educate.
300 was not history, however, how many people know about Leonidas today than used to?
Its easier for people to learn something if they know its worth investigating
How do we do it now?
Tangential learning is not limited to theming
Tangential learning as a whole different set of ideas can be taught through mechanics
We already often teach very valuable ideas via mechanics (see wired article.
Program was changed from "Bringing Tangential Learning to Games". He changed his topic based on the presentation earlier on Serious Games.
Propagandic Games
- Harpooned
- America's Army
- Special Force (Hezbollah game that's like America's Army)
- Hunt for Saddam
- Hunt for Bush
- Anti-Japan war onward
- Zogs Nightmare
How do we do it?
- Discover what queswions your mechanics inherently present
- consider the questions raised by the situation or scenario you are placing the player in
- Design interactions around the intersection between mechanics and storyline
- don't mask problems as choices?
The greatest danger does not come from the propaganda games. It is from the regular every day games that we have to worry about. We will indoctrinate without purpose, and we need to be aware of what we are doing.
Tangential Learning
A brief musing on Engagement
"I am always ready to learn, although I do not always want to be taught".
Egagement: is directly related to learning and life long retention
Engagement is outside the class room, but video games can do it for us.
Tangential learning is about exposing people knowledge, with out teaching them. If an audience is engaged, your audience will self educate.
300 was not history, however, how many people know about Leonidas today than used to?
Its easier for people to learn something if they know its worth investigating
How do we do it now?
- Random words
- highlighting
- Association
- Civilopedia
Tangential learning is not limited to theming
Tangential learning as a whole different set of ideas can be taught through mechanics
We already often teach very valuable ideas via mechanics (see wired article.
From Keyboard to Gameboard.
A Transmedia Comparison of Digital and Tabletop Board Games
By: Brian Magerko
Compare board games to computer games
Survey highly rated modern ames form BGG
What are the main game mechanics...
Games
Ra
- 2-4 Competative.
- Players draw a random tile to add to tiles on board
- Start an auction for tiles on boaqrd (voluntarily or involuntarily via a specail drawn tile)
- Spend a god tile to hand ick a tile
- Decide wch peronsla tile to discard
- Table talke /goad other into decision
- Points are based on personal tile values after three rounds.
- Bid decision making involves many factors
- values and probabilities change within a round and as the game gets closer to the end
- competative auction
- Auctioning of currency for non-replenishing resources with the value of both the currency and the resources changing over time has no obvious..(slide changed)
- Flip cards to kick down a dungeon door
- fight monsters and get treasure for succes or run away
- Play curse/special cards on self or others
- Play weapon/armor/class cards on self.
- Humor
- adaptation of other game types
- Rules are'n even serious
- Asynchronous competition/collaboration
- Humor rarely seen in digital games (self-referential and breaking the 4th wall
Lost Cities
- Turn-based 2 players
- Players maintain hand of 8 cards from 4 suits
- Play expedition, number cards
- draw a card
- cars aare unique --> randomness is big
- Information game: trying to map opponents actions & game state to opponent's hand & Intentions
- Strategic choice of playing investor cards/when to play number cards
- Concept of drawing random, unique resources from the same limited, fixed pool
- Tech tree developmentin in strategy games, online one player can go down a specific tree (civ)
Contrasting Player Conflicts in Digital Games and Board Games
By: Ben Medler
Defines game as conflict. Previous looked into Conflict Theory (How Humans begin, maintain, and resolve Conflict) and also Imartiality Spectrum (Game mechanics as neutral moderators between players.)
Going to look at Socai conflicts today: Anonymous Conflict in digital games, and how Tacit Conflicts in board games.
Anonymous Conflicts
- Artificial intelligence
- Strcit Rules
- Single Player Experience
- Player realtionshipos
- Bendable rules
- Flow between competititve, cooperative, and collaborative.
Board games the Players provide balance, and use indfferent mechanics (like randomness and luck)
Rules: Digital games have set rules and set win conditions. Baord games have bendable rules, builtiple rules sets (Expansions) and hosue rules.
Conflict Play Styles: Digital Games: Cheating, Grief play, Community Policies. Baord games Information Aggregation (you can see cheaters) you can experience groupthink, and accepted griefing.
Implications: Digital Games could implement bendable rules and provide dissemination of information. Board games, the next step is going Digital. (MS play surface table.)
Pigs in the Poke: The Dynamics of Traditional Village Life, Games of Chance and Strategy
By: Brian Hayden
Comparison of Monopoly vs. Pigs in the Poke
- Common element: Self-interest
- Difference:
- Capitalism vs. Tribal subsistence economy
- 'Individual vs. Social Strategies
- Familiar Culure vs unfamiliar
- "Serious Play" vs. "Fun Social Play"
Lessons Learned From Building Board Games
By: Francisco Ortega-Grimaldo
The Ethnography of Collectible Miniature Game Storyworlds
By: Ethan Watrall and Patrick Shaw
Some concepts to lay out:
- An era of entertainment media convergence-narrative unfold across multiple media channels and rpoducts
- Audiences have become information hurnters and gatherers, tracking down cahracter information and plot-points
- Making connections across mutlipel texts within the same storyworld.
- Multiple media channels are an opportunity to chreate holistic storytelling realities in which many different stories can be told.
- Stories are bound together in a fictional reality that is designed (and evolved) with continuity and canon in mind.
- The reality connects the stories together, and is not only fed by the stories, but in turn feeds the stories.
Question: Do story products that exist within a rich and compelling storyworld provide greater enjoyment for the audience than story products that do not?
Research Focus: Tabletop RPG's, with Miniatures.
- RPG materials - significant space is dedicated to in-depth information that defines the games world.
- Researchers focused study on HeroClix
- Tabletop miature RPG produced by Wizkids Inc.
Ethnographic portion
- Phase 1 Interviews with gatekeepers (store owners and WizKids judges)
- Phase 2: Participant observation at two local game/comic stores (GS1 and GS2)
- Phase 3: limited open ended interview with players
- game store
- competition
- figures
- game play
- other
- personal
- rule clarifications
- strategy
- Storyworld
- teams
GS2 had much lower storyworld discussion
Very little cross pollination between the two venues.
Games in Libraries: Past, Present, and Future
By: Scott Nicholson
The Anti-Immersive Theatre of Role-Playing Games
By: Michael Ryan Skolnik
Those presentations without notes are papers I missed due to going to a different session.
The Play of Persuasion: Why "Serious" isn't the Opposite of Fun
Keynote Presentation by
Nick Fortugno, Co-founder and President of Rebel Monkey
A lesson about games, Warcraft, Poker, Tag, Midnight Club, Halo, Legend of Zelda, Pac-Man Football...
What do these have in common
Is there a sense of mutual exclusivity between fun and serious issues? Many other media to to convice people of things. Works that influenced society:
Point: If your main goal is to distribute a message, and the form is a game, then we need to recognize that games are a part of culture. If you want to send a message through a game...MAKE IT A GAME...and why not make it fun? Include sentimentalism, and action, and intrigue...
At this point there is no Uncle Tom's Cabin for games. No Citizen Caine. No Hamlet for games. There are games as awesome as these, but there are none that have shaped culture/society the way these others have.
Some examples of games that persuade:
When making Ayiti, they wanted to make an educational game about conditions in Haiti, but they couldn't make it happen. However, what they could do is make a statement about poverty and how it is bad.
What motivates people in games is play.
In order get you message out, then, you need to create various games for different audiences: Gay marriage first person shooter, gay marriage MMO, gay marriage sims. Lots of laughter on the idea of first person shooter propaganda about gay marriage.
To say that fun and engagement are mutually exclusive. Think about Tag, Halo, Mario...is the fun the "same" in each game? No. Are you engaged and having fun? yes.
Little kids really really really like to learn. Then we put them in school, and they stop.
Play every game you can. Play everyone: card, board, casual...play every single one, the farther away from what you like the better. It will help you better understand how each genre works.
He was incredibly engaging.
Nick Fortugno, Co-founder and President of Rebel Monkey
- Designed Diner Dash,
- Currently working on a MMO for Casual gamers.
- Designed Ayiti: the Cost of Life
- Teacher of Game design at Parsons
A lesson about games, Warcraft, Poker, Tag, Midnight Club, Halo, Legend of Zelda, Pac-Man Football...
What do these have in common
- All have rules
- all have goals
- All has players/agency
- and one more obvious one...Fun...or maybe not.
Is there a sense of mutual exclusivity between fun and serious issues? Many other media to to convice people of things. Works that influenced society:
- Uncle Tom's Cabin
- Telenovela
- The Jungle
- Erin Brokavihc
- Will & Grace
- Cartoons about global warming
- Eminem's song about getting out the vote
Point: If your main goal is to distribute a message, and the form is a game, then we need to recognize that games are a part of culture. If you want to send a message through a game...MAKE IT A GAME...and why not make it fun? Include sentimentalism, and action, and intrigue...
At this point there is no Uncle Tom's Cabin for games. No Citizen Caine. No Hamlet for games. There are games as awesome as these, but there are none that have shaped culture/society the way these others have.
Some examples of games that persuade:
- First an Art Game: Shadow of the colossus. It's a tragic story. Your tasked with killing colossi, because a woman you love died, and you are trying to bring her back to life. Ride out through vast wastelands of nothing until you come to a field where a colossus is. Killing the colossus is a typical boss mechanic: figure the puzzle, kill the boss. After killing the colossus, there is a melodramatic slow motion, orchestrated death. Killing the colossus is fun, however it all leads to a tragic ending. However, the fun of killing the colossus is balanced against the tragedy of the death.
- Peacemaker: The goal of the game is to make peace. The narrative is the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Turn based. Program your turn, then see what happens. Gaming the approval meters of Israeli's and Palestinians. When you do something Israeli's like, the Palestinians HATE it. How do you balance these things. What you leave with is realizing how complex the issue is. The goals of the game motivate play, which demonstrates the point.
- Propaganda game: The McDonald's Game . You run McDonald's grow the cows, process the cows, sell the burgers...there are like 4 mini games, click to resolve, and the play continues. Not compelling. The game makes a statement about practices, goal is to maximize profit, while doing incredibly disgusting things (like feeding cows, other cow parts.)
- There's a long tradition of political art following popular media
- Not all games should be pop culture-games can pursue all types of effects.
- But to persuade regular players, entertainment is a good way to go.
- So serious games can and should be fun as well.
When making Ayiti, they wanted to make an educational game about conditions in Haiti, but they couldn't make it happen. However, what they could do is make a statement about poverty and how it is bad.
What motivates people in games is play.
In order get you message out, then, you need to create various games for different audiences: Gay marriage first person shooter, gay marriage MMO, gay marriage sims. Lots of laughter on the idea of first person shooter propaganda about gay marriage.
To say that fun and engagement are mutually exclusive. Think about Tag, Halo, Mario...is the fun the "same" in each game? No. Are you engaged and having fun? yes.
Little kids really really really like to learn. Then we put them in school, and they stop.
Play every game you can. Play everyone: card, board, casual...play every single one, the farther away from what you like the better. It will help you better understand how each genre works.
He was incredibly engaging.
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