Games for Resilience

Blake Kammermann is exploring the potential for games as Growth Mindset training. See the About for more information.

[gamesforresilience]

Game Progress: Basic Movement and Collisions

I’m very excited about this, although it did take much longer than expected. After attempting to write my own Character Controller I decided to bite the bullet and get one online. Starting with the character controller 2D script from Brackeys tutorials helped greatly. The downside is that it took extra time to add the additional mechanics in as I tried to navigate unfamiliar code.

After adding in the dash, hold to jump higher, and fast fall at the height of the jump the movement feels very snappy and responsive. It also has a nice hang time as a side effect of how the Rigidbody2D works in Unity.

This took up all my allocated time this week. However, this provides a great launching off point for adding more into the game bits and pieces at a time.

[gamesforresilience]

Player Character Controllers

Getting a perfect character controller setup can take many days of bug fixing and tweaking. Unfortunately, I don’t have that time. So I went looking online for tutorials on how to create a basic one that I could then extend to suit the game.

I found:

Brackeys (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwcT-Dch0bA)

Blackthornprod (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGDeafTx5ug)

and Unity Technologies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGI2e3Dzk_w&list=PLX2vGYjWbI0SUWwVPCERK88Qw8hpjEGd8)

Overall, I found the Brackeys tutorials more helpful.

[gamesforresilience]

Week 7 Meeting

Last week’s goals: 3/4 Completed

Write an initial GDD that captures the ideas that I have for the game and how they relate to each other

Design 10+ levels

Render at least one of those levels to get an artistic reference for the game

Continue game analysis for ideas on how to improve the game

I’m happy with this result. I underestimated how long it’d take to design levels for the GDD as well as give overviews on the new mechanics and objects.

I showed Dan the level concept art that I have thus far and he seemed pleased with it. No additional feedback was given about my game specifically. Just continue developing and iterating on the design.

Goals for this week:

Create a repository for the game

Get a basic movement system into the game

Layout one of the levels for the game

Continue game analysis

[gamesforresilience]

Rendering Levels/Concept art

A very important part of any game is getting the visual aesthetic established early on. Because I’m borrowing heavily from Thomas Was Alone this was relatively easy. I went into photoshop and worked on the background and foreground balance for a while. The primary issue wasn’t so much finding the colours but determining what values to use. After that, I picked several starting levels from the GDD and started designing what would be said in each of them, where platforms would go, what the message on the screen would be, etc.

Carol communicates in emojis and text bubbles

Jumping is a learned skill that must be developed through effort and patience.

Don’t take the easy route. 

Teaching players that some platforms can move

Moving platforms will literally set you back if you get trapped and pushed.

I think in the future I’m going explicitly state in the GDD what the purpose of each screen is. This will help with the visual design of the level. I’m also interested in changing the background colour every so often. Ideally, this would be linked to a Growth Mindset property.

[gamesforresilience]

Unreliable Narrator GDD Draft

The GDD has initially been broken down into 5 sections.

Summary

Characters

Objects

Mechanics

Levels

There is a small amount of overlap between the Mechanics and Objects sections. One describes the objects themselves and the other describes how interactions playout across those objects. The most useful section of them all has been the levels. At the end of this writing session, I had 14 levels planned. I based each set of levels off of a row from the Growth Mindset behaviour pattern table.

The game did change as I was writing the GDD and levels. I added in more characters to give the player the opportunity to learn from the success of others. I also realized how empty and boring the game was going to be. In response to this, I’ve added more movement options into the game including a dash and double-jump. I have also added hazards for the player to contend with.

[gamesforresilience]

Week 6 meeting

In the meeting this week all the present members of the team shared the progress they had made on their ideas. The general feedback was that we need to start getting down into the details of the designs and come back next week with something more than high-level concepts. I got received some valuable feedback on the Learning Simulator pitch. It seemed like the game was turning into a wellbeing game rather than a Growth Mindset game. Along with the same general feedback as the others.

I fully agreed with the Learning Simulator criticism. In hindsight, that’s exactly what I was trying to do without realizing it. For this reason, I’m going to move forward with the Unreliable Narrator game.

Goals for this week:

Write an initial GDD that captures the ideas that I have for the game and how they relate to each other

Design 10+ levels

Render at least one of those levels to get an artistic reference for the game

Continue game analysis for ideas on how to improve the game

[gamesforresilience]

Initial Paper Prototypes

Before continuing iterating on the designs I have chosen to do up some paper prototypes of their current forms to get additional feedback from Daniel in the meeting. I don’t want to split my time between two different projects as I’m likely to run out of time. After the week 6 meeting, I’ll have chosen which game I’m continuing forward with.

Unreliable Narrator

Not a great deal has changed about this one since the inception. You are still a cube with a fixed mindset and the gameplay is still a platformer. The hard part about this game is going to be generating enough levels that are both interesting to play and can be linked back to Growth Mindset.

Level 1: The player is introduced to the scaling mechanic that works as a Growth Mindset metaphor. As the player falls they grow larger. Eventually, they will be too big for the hole.

Level 2: The player is introduced to the shrinking mechanic. This may get removed. If the scaling up is a Growth Mindset metaphor then, logically, shrinking would be a bad thing. As you jump your scale decreases to fit through holes and tunnels.

Level 3: This was an attempt at combining the 2 mechanics. You’d have to fall down until you were too big for the lower hole and then shrink to fit through the tunnel, then fall down again and you’d be big enough to stop on the top lip.

Learning Simulator

This is the updated version of the game after the Week 5 meeting. This has a time cycle, a calendar that the character has events planned on. Most importantly, the character has additional bars representing his current state. Productivity is an average of the bars below it. Productivity also effects how beneficial actions are that increase the Ability or Understand bars. The player still selects and researches keywords but now time is sped up and the player is micromanaging the character’s status.

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Game Analysis - Destiny

Game Summary:

In Destiny, you play as the defender of earth. After falling in an ancient battle you are resurrected and guided through the game’s introduction by your in-game companion, Ghost. Destiny is an open-world shared-space multiplayer FPS with RPG elements. Despite being a mouthful this means that the player can interact with other people while playing. The gameplay is a standard FPS with class-based abilities where the player travels to planets in the solar system completing campaign and side quests. After the campaign, the player is incentivized to continue playing through endgame content like Raids and PvP.

The game can be found here: https://www.destinythegame.com/au/en/d1

Growth Mindset Analysis:

Summary: Destiny - 6/7

Destiny has scored quite high. It received half points on questions 1 and 3 with reasoning below. Question 1 was the hardest to determine because it brought up the idea of being motivated to learn in order to prove yourself later. To a certain extent, I feel like this is what the Growth Mindset behaviour pattern is about, active learning. The purpose of that learning may initially be for extrinsic reasons but the learning has still taken place and can be used in the future.

1. Is the player motivated to prove themselves or to learn from their experiences?

The game has a strong emphasis on social play. During the early and mid-game the players are still learning the character and enemy mechanics. Late game the players are introduced to Raids. These are very difficult and often social pressure will require players to know what’s happening beforehand. Thus, the player is incentivized to educate themselves online and try to prove to the team that they are useful to have around. Add on to this the leaderboards in PvP and the ability to compare yourself to others.

2. Does the player have the opportunity to do something more challenging if they choose?

Yes. Players can artificially place restrictions on themselves and still be able to succeed. In addition, throughout the early and mid-game, they are being introduced to new enemies and mechanics. Once players enter later-game they have the ability to do Raids, the most challenging activity in the game.

PvP has a matchmaking algorithm to pit players of similar skill against each-other meaning that if the player chooses to do PvP, in an ideal world, they are choosing to do something challenging.

3. Does the player experience setbacks, permanent or temporary?

A weak argument can be made for running out of ammo as a temporary setback as the player is required to pick some up off a random drop or exit the mission to get more. In addition, there are various debuffs that enemies cast. I don’t feel these are enough of a detriment to justify calling it a setback that the player must overcome. They do play a part though.

4. Does the game reference the character’s effort/s as the reason for progression or success?

Yes. The main character is regularly praised for their hard work. This may be because of the military-esque setting that the player finds themselves in. Due to the social nature of the game, it’s difficult to say whether a player’s experience will be the same. When someone does well it’s easier to chalk it up to “they’re a natural” rather than “they’ve spent a hundred hours in this game and have failed more times than I’ve tried”.

5. Is practical criticism of actions taken provided? and the opportunity to act on it?

Yes. A weak case can be made for the game providing this. For example, when the player is supposed to be protecting something and they’re not the game will alert them and tell them they need to protect it. Otherwise, the reason this applies to Destiny is that it supports in-game chat and voice chat. This means that players are able to receive immediate feedback from other players when they don’t do what is expected or required.

6. Are there other entities in the game that the player can be inspired by or learn from?

Yes. In general, other players in the game are just as capable of succeeding. In some cases, this is required to progress in team-based challenges.

7. Does the game strive to challenge the player?

This is questionable. I’m going to give Destiny the point on this one because I think the majority of the game is trying to challenge the player. However, I think there’s a point where the game stops trying to challenge the player and expects the player to seek out the challenges themselves. The end-game is a perfect example of this where the player logs in to do daily activities. The game isn’t trying to challenge them but provide a satisfactory level of difficulty to provide catharsis. The player can then opt-in to challenging activities like Raids and PvP.

Image 1: https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/p/destiny/c2jqrc2c49b0#activetab=pivot:overviewtab

Image 2: https://themindroom.com.au/2018/08/01/growing-great-mindsets/

image 3: https://www.windowscentral.com/destiny-2-story-so-far

Image 4: https://gameranx.com/updates/id/30061/article/lance-reddick-talks-about-reprising-his-role-in-destiny-the-taken-king/

[gamesforresilience]

Growth Mindset Analysis Questions Update

Based on the Skyrim analysis I’ve decided to update some of the questions for the Growth Mindset Analysis.

I found that the wording of questions 4 and 5 wasn’t clearly connected back to the behaviour pattern they were asking about. As such I’m making the following adjustments:

Question 4

Old: Is progression accredited to the effort of the character? 

New: Does the game reference the character’s effort/s as the reason for progression or success?

Question 5

Old: Is the player or character given critical feedback about their actions?

New: Is practical criticism of actions taken provided? and the opportunity to act on it?

I have reviewed the previous analyses and determined that there wouldn’t be a difference in the final scores and thus have chosen not to update them to the new questions.

[gamesforresilience]

Game Analysis - Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Game Summary:

Skyrim is an open-world RPG where the player takes control of a legendary character from the lore of the game. The story is delivered through a variety of methods including voice acted NPCs, written pickups, and environmental storytelling. The player can interact with the world through movement, speaking with NPCs, contextual interactions, and combat. The player has numerous combat options simplified down to one-handed, two-handed, ranged, and magic. This is on top of several defensive options including light armour, heavy armour, and shields to name a few. As the player takes actions they gain experience points towards a skill relevant to that action. As the skill increases, they gain experience points toward their character, and they unlock perks in that skill’s tree. When the character levels up they gain ‘perk points’ they can spend on any available perks and purchasing perks may also unlock more perks. Ultimately, the game is packed to the gills with quests, lore, and places to explore providing several hundred hours of content.

Game can be found here: [https://store.steampowered.com/app/489830 /The_Elder_Scrolls_V_Skyrim_Special_Edition/]

Growth Mindset Analysis

Summary: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - 5.5/7

Skyrim has scored high on promoting Growth Mindset behaviour patterns. It received half marks on questions 4, 5, and 6 with the reasoning below. Many of the reasons Skyrim has scored high are common in the open world RPG genre. I’d be interested to analyze other games with varying levels of open world and RPG to see if there’s a significant difference. This prompts the question of whether people are inclined to play in a Growth Mindset way when given the choice.

This analysis has also revealed that the analysis questions are somewhat flawed and should be clarified for future posts.

1. Is the player motivated to prove themselves or to learn from their experiences?

There is no social play in the Skyrim base game. There is no one for the player to prove themselves to other than themselves and the game. On the other hand, there are many opportunities where the player can learn from their experiences in a gameplay sense and metaphorically. In gameplay, there are artistically distinct dungeons that are littered with traps. The next time they enter another artistically similar dungeon they can be more alert for traps. From a metaphorical standpoint, as the player uses the same skills over and over again the character gets “better” at them.

2. Does the player have the opportunity to do something more challenging if they choose?

Yes, to a point. There can only be so much content in the game. Once the player has experience and feels proficient with all their skills they can only find challenge in the environment which is massive, but nonetheless limited. This is most definitely not a concern for new players or mid-game players though. Almost every combat encounter in the game can be approached however the player wants. There are some that unexpectedly force a combat style, but I feel the game would be less interesting if it didn’t. On top of that, the player can knowingly, or unknowingly, venture into challenging areas for their character level or equipment. Alternatively, they can purposefully equip poorer items or take limited resources when they go into a dungeon.

3. Does the player experience setbacks, permanent or temporary?

Yes, although some people actively seek these out for the thematic or challenge aspect to it. Regardless, these can take the player by surprise if they’re unfamiliar with the game. A good example is the vampirism syndrome. This causes the player to take damage from sunlight, be stigmatized by mortals, and have a thirst for blood to name a few. This is curable during the infection phase by a relatively simple potion. After 3 days it takes root and is still curable but with much greater effort. Contracting this unexpectedly can be a severe setback to the player’s goals.

4. Is progression accredited to the effort of the character?

Unclear. Narratively, the game makes it out as you having been born a hero and thus you are capable of these amazing feats. Gameplay wise, the player has struggled, died, learned, and improved themselves to get to where they are.

This question specifically relates to the player seeing ‘effort as the path to mastery’. I think the game delivers on that but then shoots itself in the foot by chalking up the character’s feats to them being "The Dragonborn”.

This brings up an interesting question of whether you can have a compelling hero character without the ‘born to win’ narrative. Another way to word that would be a success through failure/effort hero narrative. I’ll think about that... [5 minutes later] The movie Rocky comes to mind but I can’t think of a game that takes itself seriously and embraces the restarts/player failures in a narrative sense.

5. Is the player or character given critical feedback about their actions?

This one is hard. Because the question relates to receiving criticism the standard action feedback doesn’t count (i.e. enemy recoiling on hit). The feedback has to instruct on better behaviour in response to player action. I feel like an argument can be made for this. There are books in Skyrim that can inform the player of better practices, but this can be found before or after the player takes those actions. The same can be said for NPCs approaching the player and making comments.

6. Are there other entities in the game that the player can be inspired by or learn from?

Not really. A weak argument could be made for seeing a spellcaster, friend or for, combine 2 different spells (duel-wielded magic) and learning from that. A similar situation can be found when fighting Dragons. When you kill them you absorb their soul and can now use the “shout magic” they used against you in the fight. Ultimately, you are the most powerful thing in the game and you don’t really learn from the ‘Success of Others’ than you do experience.

7. Does the game strive to challenge the player?

This is very applicable to Skyrim. To the extent that they literally make getting from point A to B harder by spawning in enemies for the player to kill. On top of that, the world design is such that the player is unlikely to encounter enemies that have abilities they aren’t able to deal with until later into their play experience. Add to that the vast number of enemy types, behaviours, abilities, etc. and the game is constantly challenging the player to perform better or differently.

Image 1: https://gamerant.com/skyrim-xbox-one-backward-compatibility/

Image 2: https://themindroom.com.au/2018/08/01/growing-great-mindsets/

Image 3: https://www.pinterest.nz/pin/521432463076709176/

Image 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZSO6oOr3mU

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Game Analysis - Thomas Was Alone

Game Summary:

Thomas Was Alone (TWA) is a simple platformer that uses voice over and associated subtitles to convey narrative. It characterizes the rectangles that the player has control over by describing how they see the world and their reactions to it as if they had personalities. The player learns each of the rectangles personalities and becomes attached to them as the game progresses.

The initial gameplay is moving your rectangle and jumping between platforms. Shortly after, another rectangle is introduced and you’re able to switch between them. More rectangles are progressively introduced and puzzles become a question of how to utilize the rectangles to get all of them to the end of the level.

Game can be found here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/220780/Thomas_Was_Alone/

Growth Mindset Analysis:

Each of the following questions relates to Growth Mindset behaviour patterns in games. If a game encourages a Growth Mindset behaviour pattern it scores 1 point for that question. 1/2 points are awarded if a weak argument could be made.

1. Is the player motivated to prove themselves or to learn from their experiences?

The game provides very little in the form of praise or glory for finishing a level. The narrative is abstracted away from the gameplay and as such the game doesn’t encourage the need to prove themselves. A weak argument could be made for the respawning mechanic as an indicator of “Learning from their experiences”. I feel this is weak because once you learn that spikes or water kills you, there no more learning to be done from interactions with these hazards. The most that could be extrapolated would be the player understanding that they need to jump sooner or later off a particular ledge but the platforming is so forgiving in the game that it’s unlikely this would be much of a learning experience.

2. Does the player have the opportunity to do something in a more challenging way?

No. The levels in TWA are linear. There are situations where the player can choose what order to perform the actions but otherwise they are at the will of the designer.

3. Does the player experience setbacks, permanent or temporary?

There are no gameplay-related setbacks in TWA. All rectangles required for a level are spawned in. The player cannot put themselves in a position where the cannot continue.

4. Is progression accredited to the effort of the character?

A weak argument could be made for progression being attributed to the relationship that the rectangles are building with each other. Overall, the player may exert marginally more effort to figure out later puzzles but progression is not strongly linked to effort.

5. Is the player or character given critical feedback about their actions?

No. Minor audio feedback is given when the player resets. Narratively, the player is unable to fail and levels are lenient enough that the player is unlikely to get stuck.

6. Are there other entities in the game that succeed that the player can learn from?

No. All entities in the game are controlled by the player with the exception of an enemy cloud thing that appears during level transitions. The actions of the cloud have no impact on moment-to-moment gameplay.

7. Does the game strive to challenge the player?

The levels in TWA progressively get harder as the game goes on. However, the game does not appear to have any dynamic difficulty adjustment. This means that the player may plateau early. This is offset somewhat as rectangles are introduced into the game. These bring variety and new mechanics. In a worst case scenario, this would result in a stepped graph as the player plateaus, learns something new, and repeats. Ideally, this would be close to a smooth line as the game plays out.

Summary: Thomas Was Alone - 1/7

Overall, TWA does not encourage a Growth Mindset behaviour pattern from the player. Scoring 1/2 a point from question 1 and 1/2 from question 7. This is likely due to the narrative focus and short playtime of the experience. The puzzle platformer genre unlikely helped.

Image 1: http://thevitalounge.net/2013/04/23/thomas-was-alone/

Image 2: https://themindroom.com.au/2018/08/01/growing-great-mindsets/

Image 3: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/thomas-was-alone/id849095637?mt=8

[gamesforresilience]

Growth Mindset Analysis Template

This template will be used in game analysis posts to determine how much a game encourages a Growth Mindset pattern of behavior. The questions beneath are a result of taking the Growth Mindset behavior and forming it into a question that one would ask of a game.

1. Is the player motivated to prove themselves or to learn from their experiences?

2. Does the player have the opportunity to do something more challenging if they choose?

3. Does the player experience setbacks, permanent or temporary?

4. Is progression accredited to the effort of the character?

5. Is the player or character given critical feedback about their actions?

6. Are there other entities in the game that the player can be inspired by or learn from?

7. Does the game strive to challenge the player?

Image Links: https://themindroom.com.au/2018/08/01/growing-great-mindsets/

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Week 5 Workshop

In the workshop this week we undertook some activities to try and evaluate and validate how innovative our solutions are. We started by forming a hypothesis. This required us to analyze the context of the brief, who is involved, and what problem or opportunity is being presented or needs to be addressed. This generates a question and a related testable hypothesis statement.

Context:

Growth Mindset helps build mental resilience and by extension better mental wellbeing. Mental wellbeing is important and 18-25 year-olds (young adults) are the target audience.

Problem/Opportunity:

Games use Growth Mindset principals to challenge players and encourage them to overcome problems.

Question:

Can games be used to promote a Growth Mindset beyond the context of the game?

Hypothesis Statement:

An enjoyable game can deliver Growth Mindset strategies that have a measurable difference in a player’s general mindset after 1 month.

Is this testable?

Yes. There are multiple surveys that are commonly used to determine a person’s general mindset. It has also been adapted for domain-specific purposes, like gaming. Having a participant complete this, play the game, and then complete it again after a period of time should provide measurable results.

Stakeholder discussion:

This is then presented to the project mentors and questions should be asked with regard to the problem and hypothesis. The goal is to find out more about the problem space so as to develop design considerations for the solution.

The Games for Resilience project is very open to interpretation. The key points are that it needs to be an enjoyable game that doesn’t “play itself”, and it needs to deliver Growth Mindset techniques. This can be done in any way the project members determine is best based on research.

Solution Validation:

Come up with a solution based on the discussion. Map your solution on a 2 axis graph to determine how innovative it is and compare to other members of your group. Each axis should represent what you’re testing.

In our case, we know that an explicit application of mindset techniques can shift a person toward a Growth Mindset. We can map this on the ‘X’ axis as explicit vs implicit message. The other element is that the game needs to be enjoyable and not “play itself”. The project members decided that ‘enjoyable’ was too vague and that any game done well can be ‘enjoyable’ to some. So we used the latter requirement and mapped it on the ‘Y’ axis as a passive or active game. A passive game is one where progress can be made by leaving the game alone or is based heavily on randomness. Active gameplay is where the game requires near-constant non-random input or engagement in order to progress. Ideally, solutions to the brief will fall somewhere in the top right quadrant.

Within the top right quadrant, the solutions presented are on opposite ends of the spectrum. The Narrator proposal has a lot of active puzzle-solving gameplay with a layer of Growth Mindset narrative placed on top. The Learning Simulator idea has less active gameplay but it’s more explicit in the message. It tries to teach players wellbeing practices in the game they can use in real life.

In terms of innovation, according to the Project Mentor, due to the lack of game related Growth Mindset strategies, any attempt in this field will be innovative, on the condition that the attempt is in good faith. A poorly designed game that makes no attempt at delivering a Growth Mindset is insufficient.

Based on the graph I seem to be on the right track.

[gamesforresilience]

Week 5 Meeting

The team met with Daniel Johnson to discuss our proposals. I pitched the Learning Simulator game idea and the feedback was concern about moment to moment gameplay. If the player is going to be sitting and waiting for the game to play itself majority of the time or if they’ll be able to interact with it at some level in order to change the outcome. This was flagged as one of the considerations in the post. 

In response to this feedback, the Learning Simulator idea is turning into more of a micro-management game where you have to keep your student on track and healthy. With the addition of social standing, productivity, alertness, hunger/thirst, and wellbeing meters if you want to succeed you need a balanced life. In addition, there’ll also be a time system that affects the rates at which each meter decays. After 8 hours your hunger and drink are going to start negatively impacting your productivity at a polynomial rate. If you work for more than 12 hours without a break your alertness decreases which impacts how many keywords you find during research. If you don’t maintain social standing your wellbeing decreases and your character is more likely to procrastinate when you try to get them to do things. The rates that each system affects the other systems will be difficult to balance, but I think it’ll make the game more enjoyable. This gives the player more interesting choices to make during the game e.g. Do I keep researching this, or stop to eat? Can my productivity hold out for another hour or should I go to bed and pick it up again in the morning? How do I balance this workload so I can go to the birthday party on the 8th?

Whenever I mention my two game proposals to people, Unreliable Narrator, and Learning Simulator, people really connect with the first one. I think continuing to design it will be beneficial. Learning Simulator will be the primary focus but having something to fall back on seems like a good idea.

I will also spend some time analyzing other games this week to determine if there are mechanics or systems that lean into Growth Mindset principals. If there’s already an established good practice, applying it and bringing out those principals explicitly could be enough.

[gamesforresilience]

Game Idea #2: Learning Simulator

Summary:

A 2D game where you play as a university student trying to pass all their classes. In order to pass a class, you need to develop an understanding of the content and increase your ability to perform the tasks. To do this you must use a variety of strategies to research the problem space and then practice to improve. Keywords are generated to use on research strategies which then increase understanding and generate new keywords depending on the strategy used. Sometimes a strategy will fail and will not produce any new keywords or increase understanding and the player must re-evaluate the options available or wait and try again later. The core loop of the game is:

Generate strategies

Evaluate strategies

Execute the best strategy

Some classes will require a strong understanding of the content whereas others will place more emphasis on practised ability. Sometimes

Inspiration:

A lot of the research I’ve been looking through have emphasized the importance of learning and seeing failure as another step toward a goal. I interpreted this to mean that failure was a way to understand a problem space. E.g. an immediate success is like treating a symptom rather than failing multiple times and ruling out things it isn’t to uncover the disease.

I also have the idea that people would be more likely to implement the Growth Mindset they develop in-game to out-of-game situations if they have an example to follow.

I imagine a game interface similar to that of Clicker Heroes where the majority of the game is set out in the HUD and menus and a portion of the screen acts as feedback for actions taken.

[https://www.pcgamesn.com/clicker-heroes/why-on-earth-is-half-the-planet-playing-clicker-heroes]

Considerations:

The game is intended to be made for smartphones so I’ll need to be cautious of how the interface translates to a small screen.

The art style would need to be simplistic due to my current skills.

The game might not be ‘fun’. Currently, there’s a lot of dead time, waiting for things to complete. I need to add ways for the player to interact more with the game while the character is executing a strategy.

The game requires a hefty amount of design work be done in relation to what strategies are good for what, when do they fail, is there anything the player can do to influence that.

Being a systems game it’s harder to scope as there’s a high bar to get the MVP working

Relation to the Brief:

As mentioned earlier, failure being seen as a learning opportunity is core to the Growth Mindset model. On top of that, having a healthy thirst for knowledge, and taking on challenges are promoted in the game themes and are also aspects of the Growth Mindset.

[gamesforresilience]

Brain Points

Brain Points is a research paper that implemented a Growth Mindset incentive and narrative structure and measured the results against a neutral mindset control version of the same game. The results suggested that video games were a valid form of Growth Mindset training delivery. O’Rourke et. al. found:

Through a study of 15,000 children, we show that the “brain points” system encourages more low-performing students to persist in the educational game Refraction when compared to a control, and increases overall time played, strategy use, and perseverance after challenge.

http://eleanorourke.com/papers/brainpoints_chi.pdf

This is incredibly encouraging to find. This directly relates back to brief, provides a break down of mechanics and systems, and results suggest an increase in Growth Mindset. The incentive structure they chose is very interesting in that it’s unpredictable to the player by design. This was to discourage cheating but it also resulted in a sort of variable ratio reward schedule. Essentially, the player had to complete 2 different tasks before they were rewarded, and they couldn’t repeat the same combination of 2 tasks twice in a row. They were also never explicitly told what constituted a task but could infer by the name that displayed when they got points.

I’m not sure how I feel about this as, on one hand, having immediate feedback is a cornerstone of interaction design. On the other hand, rewards should encourage the behaviour you want and without this relatively complex structure, the behaviour would be different and potentially unwanted.

I want to try and incorporate some of the reward system design principals into my project. Like rewarding players when they try a new strategy to overcome a problem. The narrative structure worked well for a children’s game but I’m concerned that it would come off as patronizing for my older audience. That said, framing or visually representing progress as it’s own struggle, like climbing a hill, is a neat way of subtly working in Growth Mindset.

*All images were taken from the research paper listed above

[gamesforresilience]

Continued Research

I’ve been struggling to find research that specifically addresses young adults, or even just not-children, in relation to Growth Mindset. Which meant that when I found a literature review specifically dedicated to this topic I was rather delighted (http://newprairiepress.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4062&context=aerc). I opened ~20 of the referenced articles. After removing faulty links and non-mindset papers, ~5 of them were relevant. The long and short of it was that the benefits of having a Growth Mindset are also found in adults. Despite being a little disappointed I didn’t learn more, I did find 2 things of interest during all of it.

1.

Domain-specific mindset measurements are more likely to predict domain-specific variables. For example, there were insignificant differences in predicting in-game performance when comparing Fixed vs Growth Mindset for general talent or intelligence. However, When you account for a Fixed vs Growth Mindset specific to gaming ability there’s a significant difference in performance. (https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/cyber.2011.0328)

2.

Having strong social support is more likely to result in developing and maintaining a Growth Mindset and having a higher life satisfaction. (https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1148938.pdf)

Both of these appear to support the information gathered from The Mind Room that says people can shift mindsets depending on their context and environment.

I feel like I’ve gotten as much as I can from this kind of general mindset research. Any further research I do will be done on Growth Mindset training techniques, strategies, etc.