Win-State! How eLearning can facilitate game design

Daniel submitted the following regarding the melding of gaming and learning theory.

"As I write this, I know there’s some debate amongst gamers (usually in the comments sections of gaming blogs) about whether an interactive story is actually a game – or, more granular, what interactive threshold must be met for a project to conceptually move from story to game, or movie to game, or multimedia presentation to game. It’s an ethereal argument, and probably best settled by Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart – while I can’t rightly define a game, I know it when I see it.

Which brings me to Kagiru. This is a story of a girl alone on a spaceship. Only the story is driven forward by player choice about what pieces to uncover next, what hints within the narrative to uncover, seek out, read or dismiss. The player is the driver.

Someone experiencing an eLearning project is not referred to as 'player' but rather 'learner' or 'student'. But the person experiencing the project moves it forward, is somewhat invested in the outcome, experiences a win-state at the completion, and encounters (or invests) different levels of engagement.

So what’s the difference? I’m going to argue that there is none, if the intent of the creator is to design something with passion that can remotely engage, delight, or mystify the player/learner/experiencer. That’s also to argue that the player/learner has the potential to make a game of anything. You’ve been living in a cave in the desert if you haven’t heard of 'gamification' – the idea that engagement and retention can be astronomically improved by attached game theory to traditionally non-game experiences, like school or work or putting on your socks. And there’s just as much argument in the learner community whether slapping badges and points on a class makes it a 'game'.

Well, here’s a flip flop that my experience teaching online and having Kagiru on the brain have led to in equal parts. I don’t want to use game theory to make better classes. I want to use learner theory to make better games. I want narrative game-flow to be enhanced by knowing exploratory vs directive information retention. I want the player to utilize, versus understand, the information presented in the game. I want to present the best theories in synchronous training to the design of player onboarding. I want to present branching player choices in ways that infuse the main concepts no matter what route is chosen.

So, using Articulate Storyline, and a wildly talented multimedia artist for game stills, Kagiru is in full effect. I’ve even written Bloom-approved learning objectives for the levels."