Game session notes (editable version). Static below:

Jane McGonigal, Reality is Broken — game definition:

  • Goal
  • Rules
  • Feedback
  • Voluntary entry

Existing examples of game discussion in education

David Wiley had an RPG for the semester — changing your grade was “leveling up” and there was some discussion about FERPA (privacy) problems (if students knew what others’ levels and thus grades were)

Uses of games/discussion
  • Mixed results in use of games in new media studies teaching actor network theory — board game (TransAmerica). To teach game design, it’s important to get away from bells & whistles (part of railroad game genre), to teach concept of network externalities through game mechanics (unlike Hollywood Stock Exchange, which didn’t work for Ted; too much division between students who caught on quickly & those who didn’t)
  • One issue is the question of numbers — what’s the right size of a group
  • Werewolf used in similar class to focus on role-playing (mechanics are simple)
  • Discussion of SOCL — there were prize incentives that brought in 28% of “voluntary” participants in quizzes.
  • Is voluntary entry inconsistent with game structure in classes, where it might be required?
  • Aspects of fun is one thing that appears to fail in libraries that try to create game mechanics as part of library instruction.
  • Arden was wonderfully designed but declared a failure
  • Bibliobouts… a Zotero add-on (www.bibliobouts.org/) and discussion of whether anyone would find bibliographic entries fun
  • Brian Croxall describes a “study break” game that wasn’t specifically about libraries but engaged students (donut prize!) — not about classes but more positive in general
  • Putting policy learning into a quiz-show format worked for Emory writing center
  • If we need to (or want to) make failure fun, does that require changes to how we grade students?
  • In the context of a game, would students be more willing to be wrong?
  • Jason — skeptical of the “digital native” assumption that videogames would help students be more willing to fail and be persistent through failure (to “level up”)
  • Is ETS’s E-Grader development something that is a sufficient game gesture for students to revise (and thus be persistent through failure in) essays.

Can we build a game in the session?

  • Getting out of grad school and a job
  • Satire/dark humor
  • Game mechanic idea — horrible things that really do happen in job searches?
  • Game mechanic idea — point system/badges (out of Academic Jobs wiki?)
  • Resources — what do you need to collect to move forward? (Monopoly has money, which is both a score and a resource.)
  • Suppose the score is “cultural capital” — can you spend that for other items?
  • Deviance credits — do enough scutwork for your institution and you can mouth off, become a union activist, etc.
  • Soul credits — how much of your soul are you spending? (Lots of laughter instantly.)
  • Is the point of the game to get a job before your soul is gone?
  • Need to figure out the right tradeoffs — e.g., “work enough for an abusive professor and you lose soul points but gain prestige points.”
  • Multiple win conditions? Would it be possible to get a non-academic or alt-ac job?
  • (Randomness for some win conditions?)
  • Competitive or cooperative game?
  • Is this an Alternative Reality Game (ARG) or a short-term game?
  • There already exist game gestures (such as mock job interviews, practice job talks, etc.)
  • “Survival of the Witless” from Avalanche Press. Out of print, described in www.avalanchepress.com/valhalla.php

What happens to the magic circle if the game has any consequences outside of itself? If there are grades attached, or if it’s an ARG tied to a very high-stakes circumstance? (Salen & Zimmerman’s concept of the “magic circle”)

Some discussion of the magic-circle concept — gambling is the negative side of spillover, McGonigal’s “SuperBetter” something designed for the reverse. More to the point about THATCamp, the humanities ARE supposed to be a space that give students and other scholars the ability to play with ideas.

Some discussion of less “points-like” structures in classes — Operation Nudge (Sherman), debates over Whitman’s position on the war, … maybe just breaking that up is game enough. Brian: “Maybe we don’t have to be as structured in our game [to have the benefit]. Maybe we need to play Calvinball, where we don’t do the same thing twice.” Jason: “it takes the subject material and applies minimal almost-rules to the information they [are supposed to] have.” In-situ debates are more common in history classes.

Some discussion of how to modify some of the game gestures discussed above.

Discussion of TEI — teaching encoding: could there be a game structure to it? Or programming… the assumption behind Alice would enable young girls to become more interested in programming. Could interest in narrative become a method/means for teaching programming.

Not all courses on game design are effective — what’s necessary to teach better game design (in part as prof. development for teachers)?

Some discussion of different types of feedback. Progress bars, etc.