May 6How victory conditions frame play:Learning from games that go beyond races and points — There are two ways to win most games. Either reach a certain goal first (get a number of points, reach the last square, checkmate your opponent) or have the most ‘points’ of one kind or another when the end of the game is declared (e.g. the deck runs out of…Game Based Learning7 min read
Apr 20How learning emerges from a sandboxWhat we can learn from Crusader Kings III — Your mileage may vary, but I remember history at school as long, boring lists of kings and queens. I had no interest in it. My sole motivation in showing up to any of the lessons or handing in any assignments was to not fail. …Games7 min read
Apr 7The six levers of games-based learningWhat makes learning games effective? — That games are effective learning tools has been shown again and again, with great clusters of evidence collected by Karl Kapp and Jane McGonigal, among many others. But why do they work? The most important question may be: what do games do well? My favourite framing of the question is: what do games do, to help people engage, learn and get…Game Based Learning7 min read
Mar 30Designing for differenceAutism, neurodiversity and games-based learning — This is an edited transcript of a conversation between Terry Pearce, who works through his business ‘Untold Play’ to bring the power of play into learning environments, and Sam Warner, ‘The Autistic Interpreter’, who works with organisations to leverage the talents of Autistic people in their workforce and in the…Gamification7 min read
Mar 22Jesse Schell’s six questions for playtestingHow I playtested the Transform Deck — The Transform Deck is a deck of cards: 45 in five suits of nine cards each. Each card represents a way to take learning content and make it more interactive and engaging. For example, the ‘Apply in Stages’ card suggests that you break down your content into stages and ask…Game Based Learning7 min read
Mar 16Points, badges and achievements in learningEasy to reach for, challenging to master — The idea of points and achievements is a simple one. It’s easy to imagine spicing up any kind of learning activity, and adding motivation, by adding points, ‘badges’ and leaderboards. But because it’s so simple, it’s very easy to get wrong. The easiest way to get it wrong is to…Gamification5 min read
Jan 7A deceptively simple gameWhat Wordle can teach us about designing motivating experiences — It’s every game designer’s dream: a game that goes from 90 to 300,000 daily players in less than three months. It’s especially impressive from a side-project whose owner has no intention of monetising it. Wordle is a simple game: you have six tries to guess a five-letter word. Your first…Words5 min read
Jul 8, 2021Ten ways to balance your learning gameAdapted from Jesse Schell’s ‘The Art of Game Design’ — Most importantly, a learning game — or gamified learning experience — has to achieve its learning objectives. But to do that it needs to work well as a game, and that means having game balance. Jesse Schell, in his seminal book, ‘The Art of Game Design’, talks about many types…Game Based Learning6 min read
Jun 28, 2021Use the eight Play Personality Types to bring learning to lifeEverybody plays differently — use this to help them learn — Play and learning are intimately connected. For some — including those who’ve looked at the studies — this is obvious, but for many adults, this seems counterintuitive: play is for kids. It seems somehow frivolous to bring play into adult work and learning. If we follow this rabbit-hole to the…Learning7 min read
Jun 11, 2021One of these things is not the same, but that’s okayAsymmetry and balance in learning games — In Monopoly, and Chess, thousands of other games, every player starts in the same place, with the same options. They move in the same way, are allowed to do the same things, and have the same powers. Differences result only from luck or different decisions. It’s an easy way to…Game Based Learning4 min read
