The Treasure of Atlantis – Story as Game Mechanic
I was 12 when I first read about the lost city of Atlantis. The possibility of a whole continent, a whole civilization swallowed by the mighty ocean blew my mind and made me research for […]
Article Tag: game mechanisms
The Lens of the Story Machine
Some time ago, I was busy designing a game which was going to support learning objectives around entrepreneurship, financial decision-making and strategic and operation decisions. As many of us do, when designing, I turned to […]
Five Ways to Design Collaborative Games
In a previous article for Ludogogy, I explored why it’s important that not all learning games are competitive, especially when teambuilding is a key aim. But If we don’t have that simple crutch to reach […]
Musings on Developing Games Featuring Teamwork
For as long as games have been played, having to work with others as part of a team in order to win has been a well-established norm when it comes to games and as someone […]
Legacy Games and Tipping Points
One of the much-vaunted advantages of using games to facilitate learning is the idea of the ‘safe environment’. The premise is, that players and teams can experiment with taking actions, and, because there are no […]
The Resource Management Mechanic in Sustainability Learning
The process of designing learning games should always start with the learning. Games, although they are at the heart of all we do, are just a tool for implementing the outcomes we have already designed. […]
Why games are definitely not (just) for children
Educators (and indeed most other people) seem to be quite happy with the idea that children, and other young animals, learn from play. Felines learn hunting skills by being given food to play with by […]
Motivating learning through meaningful choice
Nearly all the business learning games I have come across have involved teams competing by doing exactly the same thing as each other. By that I mean that they start in the same position and […]
Keeping the Player Smart
“Your game should be a journey full of thinking of solutions and keeping the player smart.” -Tim Eckert, How Games Motivate Players ‘Keeping the player smart’ is a great way to think about learning as […]
KPI’s – keeping score
Whilst most companies use measures, key performance indicators and dashboards, they may work against the overall company goals. KPI’s work in a similar way to a score track or health points etc in a game […]
How games do feedback better than your boss
For most people there is a clear delineation between ‘Work’ and ‘Play’, and with it the sad assumption that ‘Play’ is enjoyable and voluntary, and that ‘Work’, being its polar opposite, is unpleasant, and an […]