learning games design

On Agency

Murray (1997) seems to have been the first to coin the phrase and to define a gaming process known as ‘agency’. Murray describes agency as the ‘satisfying power to take meaningful action and then see the results of these decisions and choices’. This meaningful interactivity and sense of freedom and choice separates digital games from other media experiences.

In a game, a sense of agency is achieved when players, by virtue of their actions, change the world in which they inhabit, altering the storyline or sequence of events accordingly. In a ‘complex game’ (Gee calls good games complex games), gamers rarely get from A to B using the same route or the same powers, tools or weapons.

Agency means that players feel responsible for the circumstances at hand. A sense of agency comes when a player has an individualised experience, that’s dependent on their actions, choices and patterns of play; when they feel as though they are calling the shots and are in control of the game.

This is not just about what happens in-game and on-screen – i.e. what the game designer intends or hopes to happen when a player plays their game - but also what happens in the mind of the player whist they play. Agency is about an approach players take and the time they take to make it. Using a real-world game analogy, playing chess is not limited to the actions on the board but includes the thought processes required to decide on what moves to make.

According to Murray (1997) it’s an aesthetic pleasure in its own right. Taking action and seeing the consequences of your actions is a central part of digital gameplay and of games in general. For example, a fundamental propriety of chess, is that there are a set of given rules (pieces movement), with an objective to accomplish (pin the King) and the game is down to what action and strategy each player decides to use.

James Paul Gee (2004) talks about players as active agents, producers or ‘co-creators’ (alongside the game developers), directing the flow and action of a game, not simply consuming it as a passive experience. Moreover, taking on a role and identifying with the player-character triggers what Gee calls ‘deep investment’. The deeper the investment, the greater number of game hours a player is willing to commit. Agency is therefore a crucial element of RPG gameplay.

More on RPG game mechanics to follow.

Murray, Janet H. (1997) Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace (MIT Press)

Gee, James Paul (2004) Learning by design: Games as learning machines in Interactive Educational Multimedia, number 8 (April 2004), pp.15-23 www.ub.es/multimedia/iem

Labels: agency, RPG

Creating an Illusion of freedom on a budget

Given that the illusion of freedom (agency) is an expensive business to create, (for the record, entertainment games get 'considerably' more development budgets than learning games - not whingeing, just stating) how could learning designers create a similar illusion of freedom (or a personalised learning experience) on a more modest budget?

I'll take a edugame ('edugames' are what we call games designed to work in the classroom or in formal education settings) we made called Science Supremo as possible way forward.

In the game (about what scientists do, in this case running clinical trials in drug development) teachers can choose to present information about the content of the game (the clinical trial process) and direct learners in what to do and how to play. Alternatively, they can broadly introduce the game/simulation (FYI the game is based on the management sim genre) and let learners decide on a strategy they think will work.

Basically this model means that the gameplay strategy, intervention and rules setting is done by the teacher, rather than by the game. The game wouldn't work outside the classroom as a player directed experience - it's not designed to; but, set in a classroom, with a teacher setting the scene, providing (differentiated) resources and information as well as setting competitive strategies for learners (in groups) to play the game, the game creates a sense of agency and control as learners play out their chosen strategy, seeing its effects on the candidates in a clinical trial. The more the teacher gives choices to learners, the more agency they will experience.

Clearly this is not a universal model for teaching all - nothing is, or ever will be - but it is a powerful learning model, based on the complex gaming models that digital games like management sims exhibit. I guess that learners may remember the learning experience as much as the issue they faced - but I don’t think this is a problem. Surely education is as much about creating meaningful and memorable experiences as it is about achieving statistically valid results? IMHO, these are not mutually exclusive.

I would argue that passive consumption generally means you slow your brain down - you don't 'need' to think, so you don't, you let things wash over you, then when you do need to come back, you're lost! Giving learners a choice of strategy, resources and time (as well as the acceptance to fail) will create a deeper learning experience. In games, agency means you are alert and alive to the circumstances at hand, thinking on your feet. Be great to see this translates to the learning process.

Labels: agency, learning game design, science

The Illusion of Freedom

Despite achieving a feeling of agency (control, self-direction, choice) when you play a game, you are in fact playing out the prescribed vision of a game designer. Carefully considered illusions of freedom are created in good games to give the player a sense of control and a unique, personalised experience. There are no truly open-ended worlds in games.

‘Branching’ (Spector, 1999) is a games development technique used to create this illusion of freedom– the freedom to roam at will in a world, by creating a number of options a player can take, with a number of different outcomes depending on the choices they make, the paths they follow and the weaponry/skills they employ.

Taking different routes offer players meaningful choices that affect their progress in some way, even when they end up coming to the same event or challenge. Forks in paths are laid out in game worlds, sometimes knowingly taken, sometimes unknowingly – by turning left you battle with X, or by turning right, you meet character Y. Either way, the game’s designer has created these branches and interconnected outcomes with the game’s overall goal or narrative in mind.

It’s a bit like walking around a seemingly open-ended space, when in fact you’re walking through a series of interconnecting transparent tubes; you can see around you and you get a sense of space and openness (you feel like you can go where you like), but to progress in the game you have to follow the direction the transparent tube takes you. BTW, the more games you play the easier it is to spot where there is a fork in the road, a doorway to enter, a character to confront – you know it’s an illusion of freedom, but somehow it doesn’t affect the sense of agency you get from playing the game. It may not be open-ended but it certainly isn’t linear either.

In game development terms, the branching that creates the illusion of freedom means the creation of content and experiences that many, if not most players will never see- rarely do players retrace their steps and replay, unless they have to.

Branching also creates the need for signs or clues that redirect the player back onto the primary game path. The game’s narrative or player’s purpose needs to progress and make sense, regardless of the order in which players may experience branches of the game.

This is, as you might expect, an expensive and time consuming development process. Hence the budgets and the development time that are synonymous with digital game development. But the ‘personalised’ experience that it creates for the player is what makes digital games so unique, and is something worth reflecting on in learning design.

Giving learners a degree of freedom to choose the path and process in which they complete a task, or when they are given a set of tools or principles that will help or even hinder their progress, makes for a more meaningful and deeper learning experience. Learners are then not simply following a prescribed route or shopping list of actions, passively and without thought; they are thinking through a problem or task for themselves, considering ways to approach it, making decisions on skills or knowledge that are needed to resolve a problem or answer a question.

Spector, Warren (1999) Remodeling RPGs for the New Millennium

Labels: agency, RPG

Abstract #2 Creating a Link: The Avatar and the Player - Identity and Learning in RPGs

In RPGs, the player takes on the role of key protagonist in the unfolding gameplay and back-story. A character’s physical appearance and personality traits though often pre-defined and pre-rendered, form a powerful bond between protagonist and player. Character development is central to RPG gameplay, and your character grows with you as you play, gaining new powers, weapons and knowledge.

The paper explores the often complex notions of identification that players generate with avatars in RPGs. Drawing on Link, the player-character in ‘The Legend of Zelda’ series, the paper explores the unfolding relationship created between the protagonist and the player in RPGs and looks at how this relationship could be harnessed for learning.

Labels: avatars, RPG, Zelda

Abstract #1: “All I know I learnt from Zelda” - immersive worlds, immersing minds?

In Role Playing Games (RPGs), players enter and explore fantasy based virtual worlds, taking the role of protagonist on a quest, facing challenges and battles, interacting with mythological inhabitants as part of often complex back stories and gaining an understanding and application of the virtual world rules in order to progress. RPG virtual worlds and their gameplay components create a so-called ‘immersive’ gaming experience, with gamers engaged over extended gaming sessions, for sustained periods of time.

Achieving an immersive experience or ‘flow’ is a desired outcome for digital game designers and given that there is now an appreciation that learning occurs within ‘good’ digital games (Gee, 2003/2006, Shaffer 2005) educationalists are seeking answers to unlock the Pandora’s Box of digital gaming techniques and of games culture in an attempt to apply them to education and training.

This paper explores the gameplay beneath the surface of RPGs virtual worlds, using the RPG genre defining series The Legend of Zelda gameplay mechanisms to unpack some emerging digital games and game-based learning theories. It reflects on the nature of immersion and flow that can be achieved in good games and the issues surrounding the potential application of such experiences for learning, the transference of virtual to reality and player engagement, set against a backdrop of UK education and the interests, needs and motivations of learners in a knowledge-based 21st Century.

Labels: agency, flow, immersion, puzzling, RPG, Zelda

Chapter and Verse or Blog Reverse?

I've decided to post a series of blog entries, rather than trying to accumulate ideas and research into chapters or papers. There are a few abstracts for papers littered herein that refer to a scattering of more worked up papers. I'm not really sure what to do with these – to publish or blog? (suggestions on a postcard please).

Each blog entry is based on a principle, a game mechanic, a theory or an observation on the nature of gaming and/or the nature of learning. Hope you catch my drift. Off we go...

Labels: learning game design

Overview

I'm thinking, writing and blogging about game design and gaming mechanics and their application to learning design, following James Paul Gee's notion that 'good game design is good learning design'. I'm interested in the interplay between gaming and learning, and developing a theoretical framework for the development of learning games. I'm looking mainly at RPGs and, as you’ll find, I'm rather obsessed with Zelda.

This blog is the fruits of my time spent under the guise of an honorary research fellow at the Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol, under the guidance of Professor Angela McFarlane. Enjoy!

Labels: learning game design