#koorevaar

[zenzizenzicblog-blog]

Update 9: Zenzizenzic - Gameplay Trailer: Level 3 [GAMEPLAY SPOILERS!] · Zenzizenzic - Final stretch for this pure passion project!

Every Thursday during the Kickstarter campaign I will share a gameplay video of a level (level 1 up to 4, level 5 will remain hidden!) and share some of the things you may encounter in that level. 

This week level 3, where things start to chase you down quite frantically! Do note that if you do not want to get spoiled on the gameplay, then do not watch the video. 

[zenzizenzicblog-blog]

Update 6: Zenzizenzic - Gameplay Trailer: Level 2 [GAMEPLAY SPOILERS!] · Zenzizenzic - Final stretch for this pure passion project!

Every Thursday during the Kickstarter campaign I will share a gameplay video of a level (level 1 up to 4, level 5 will remain hidden!) and share some of the things you may encounter in that level. This week level 2, where things get a little bit more heated as enemies actively work on making survival quite the challenge! 

[engagementdesign-blog]

Gamification: where did the games go?

[engagementdesign-blog]

Taking World of Warcraft into the classroom

I recently spoke to a teacher about his wish to add a touch of gamification to his classes, just to make it that little bit more interesting for his 15 years old-ish students. It immediately got me thinking about the possibilities. I think there is something to learn from World of Warcraft. Here’s why.

The specific case of the teacher I talked to was a bit limited; he only had the same group of students for 2 hours every week. This is something to consider for every case: what are the limitations? Realize the boundaries of your specific context. In this case the teacher taught a group of 25 students two hours of physics on a weekly basis. Finally, of course, you have to work with the existing educational system. This is a rigid system which can’t be changed in a few weeks time. This means that the approach you have to take concerns adding a layer of engaging game elements over an existing structure. You can’t go and revisit the entire structure just like that. These constraints determine the base you have to work with.

I came up with the idea of building something around creating skill sets and appealing to the different interests and needs of the students. Most of us are familiar with the phenomenon of World of Warcraft. After all, it’s no stranger even to the US Senate. But besides hitting the news, WoW also offered a basis to structure educational skill sets on: the skill trees (or talent trees). And I have to say ‘offered’, because as of the latest game expansion, Mists of Pandaria, the skill tree system was overhauled in something more simplistic which denies some forms of diversity and progression, which is what we are actually interested in.

There are other games which use similar skill tree systems (try the one below here), but the public familiarity with WoW helps to visualize the general idea.

When you play WoW you gradually level up as you kill monsters, do quests and all that. From level 1 to level 10, 20 to 50 and so on. As you level up you gain skill points which you can spend in different skill trees. The more skill points you spend in a single tree, the more specialized you become in that specific tree. For example, a warrior can spend his points in a tree which revolves around two-handed weapons, or in a tree that focuses on dual wielding weapons, or sword and shield. What skill tree he specializes in defines his skill set. We can take this to the classroom – not the weapons, the skill trees!

Following the regular system of progression through course material you could structure this in the way of a tree. At the foot of the tree you have the base where the most basic, introductory material is placed and going up the tree you go through more advanced material until you reach the top, which indicates the final exam you have to pass. Different trees could focus on different aspects of the course material. For instance, one tree could focus on the base and another on more advanced material, both still leading towards the same final exam (creating different but equally difficult exams based on different skill trees might be too much to ask and is much harder to standardize). The challenge then is to offer different paths which are supplemental to a student’s interests and needs which lead to the final goal: passing the exam. But, you can also offer more than this single final goal.

In an attempt to appeal to the curiosity of the students you can also offer smaller side branches at different sections of the tree. These can indicate small nuggets of knowledge, interesting bits and facts, which the students (or at this point ‘players’) can unlock, earning them some form of reward or prestige and driving the innate completionist and explorative behavior. These are not relevant to the final goal, but help to share knowledge and avoid a linear path of progression.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of what you can do with an existing educational structure. It is not a complete change of the educational system, but instead proposes to build up from an existing context. Gamification should be carefully applied when you attempt to create new behavior or supplement existing behavior. Does it fit the purpose you have in mind? Have you taken in the constraints of the context? What are the characteristics of your audience? These and many other questions should be asked and answered first. But when you answer them, you might find some room to add a little something which makes certain activities more engaging.

[engagementdesign-blog]

Players vs Users

Text blurbs through Twitter, videos over YouTube, images on Pinterest; the three media – text, video and image – are always standing strong, even in the social network hubbub of today. We use them every single day to tell stories to each other, share information or entertain (be it about showing what we had for lunch, or discussing the consequences of finding the Higgs boson particle). But, the way we use these media has shifted.

Audiences were once thought of as were mere passive consumers who watched the latest Tell Sell commercials, while unwillingly being convinced to purchase that revolutionary juice mixer. It then became evident we had our own voice to speak up and express ourselves as active participants. One example of this is the massive influx of blogs over the past years.  

Today, we can recognize another shift in the ways we appropriate media. This is the movement towards playful interactivity. We can identify three developments indicating the growing significance of this shift in our daily life. First, there is a growth of social and casual games, like Angry Birds and FarmVille. Second, highly popular social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, facilitate playful behavior. Third, mobile technology, such as smartphones, and gadgets, as for example the Fuelband, allow interaction - a condition for play - at all times.

Gamification is a term that is often associated with this shift.

In order to be able to fully express ourselves in this changing environment, we need to develop along with it. To achieve this we should reconsider our own position towards media. We call ourselves users, but defining ourselves as such (or as audiences, consumers, producers, and so on) might mean we limit ourselves in our increasingly playful environment. With this shifting paradigm towards playful interactivity, we should actually define ourselves as players.

For instance, we don’t just watch video content and debate about it via discussion platforms; we "revision" it through our own experiences, resulting in content as the parodies on Bruno Ganz’s performance as Hitler in the movie Downfall. Jesse Zuurmond uses this case in his MA Thesis to exemplify how YouTube invites playability and provokes playfulness. On news channels, as well, we’re not just reading, but rather we are creating rankings of most popular news items based on how we share the content. Whether we like it or not, we have become players in the various networks of interactivity. Being stuck in a different mode of consumption or participation might limit our own potential.

Seeing ourselves as players in today’s hubs of activity might open up our eyes to new ways of interaction with media, which for instance can aid our exploration of engagement design here. Of course, not everything is a game we need to play, but as renowned Dutch philosopher Johan Huizinga stated in 1938, “we find no reason to abandon the notion of play as a distinct and highly important factor in the world’s life and doings”. Now, more than 70 years later, we might find more truth in this statement than ever before.

[engagementdesign-blog]

Jane McGonigal: The Science Behind SuperBetter

Earlier on we talked about SuperBetter as a means to beat stress. Today, Jane McGonigal’s talk on TED about the foundation of SuperBetter was released to the public.

Relying on scientific literature she explains how she came to the foundation of her game, or better said ‘tool’, SuperBetter. Enticingly, she promises that as we watch her talk we will actually extend our lives for about 7.5 seconds. Which is nothing to sneeze at, as it can add up to a total of 10 years additional life time. So, what does it take?

Raise your hands for 5 seconds, snap your fingers 50 times, Google image search for baby animals and shake someone’s hand for 6 seconds. These activities, and many other ones, build up your physical, mental, emotional and social resilience. Based on science, regular attention to build up these types of resilience could eventually add up to a bonus of 10 years.

Of course, this in and of itself requires time and you won’t magically become superbetter or win 10 years. As was concluded in a previous post, you still have to do it yourself. However, McGonigal is able to wrap the science in an appealing package. The talk is inspirational and it feels like she made a conscious effort to not degrade the talk into a shameless promo talk for SuperBetter. Rather, she focuses on exemplifing the value of games to serve a social good.

[engagementdesign-blog]

IBM Tests AR Shopping App

Augmented reality is not exactly a new thing. We have seen dragons emerge from concrete walls, the galaxy expanding over a blue sky and navigation has been made easy with digital road signs casually floating in the air. As a continuation of the merging of the physical and digital, IBM announced today that they are testing a new app to augment our shopping experience.

IBM aims to provide consumers with a means to summon online information while they push their trolley through the aisles of the local supermarket. In an attempt to close the gap between online information and in-store shopping, this app enables consumers to take a picture of products with the camera on their mobile device. The app then recognizes the product and displays a digital overlay with information, such as highlighted ingredients, prices, reviews and the most recent discounts. Tired of having to manually look over ingredient lists to circumvent near death experiences due to allergies? This app could prove to be an easy fix as a ‘cheat sheet for shopping’.

IBM’s app wants to appeal to both consumer and retailer. It offers retailers a platform for marketing purposes, as well as a way of gaining valuable customer insights. However, crucial to the app’s success will be the extent to which it invades consumers' shopping habits. The key trick to making such a service a success, is to build upon already existing behavior, and enhance this behavior without actually obstructing it. Questions as ‘are you willing to whip out your phone to scan the shelves in front of you?’ and ‘how much time does it take to call up the desired information?’ have without doubt troubled IBM, and it’ll be interesting to see how they have answered them.

[engagementdesign-blog]

Pearson Announces Education Platform Zeos

Making education more engaging is no easy task, but it’s a highly regarded feat. I remember the educational games used in the classroom during my early childhood. Simplicity marked them all; they merely consisted of book assignments in digital form. No context outside the basic lesson, no level of persistence and no real enticement other than getting points to up your grade.

Since then, game-based learning has improved a lot, with examples such as Dreambox and Spongelab paving the way. Pearson’s launch of Zeos at the ISTE 2012 in San Diego this week is to be seen in line with this development. This platform, designed to span from grade 3 to 10 (around ages 8 to 15) in the US schools, provides an immersive environment to young students. They can power up their knowledge in comprehensive reading, arts and mathematics and prepare themselves for state high-stakes tests.

Compared to my childhood memories of educational games, Zeos appears to be not just a game designed to tackle a single problem. Rather, it’s designed to offer a practice environment that spans over a longer course of a student's learning career, offering context, persistence and enticing mechanics. Zeos applies lessons learned in social networks and games to create something that could very well offer students a more engaging learning experience, compared to traditional methods. It will be interesting to see how this program will be integrated in the education of young students across the US.

Pearson’s bold explanatory statement that says Zeos “lets you extend the school day with a [...] program students are motivated to use at home” might leave sceptics wondering who on earth would ever want to extend their school day at home. At the same time: if students become more motivated and effective at school, this would already be an important achievement.