HW#8 - What are the principles behind 'engagement' in game design?

This week each team reviewed their game. Carrie left us with the question "What are the design principles you see in these games that you can use in your class?"   This is good question.  

I also briefly chatted with Jim (a coach) about 'challenge' in games (video/computer or otherwise).  In a previous conversation Jim cut through all the jargon and called it the 'carrot'.


The thing I have been mulling over is how elusive 'engagement' is.  

I do know that it is extremely difficult to design continuously increasing challenge into a software game. Part of the art of game design probably lies an intuition of what constitutes 'challenge.'  At the same time, I am assuming that 'engagement' / 'challenge' has been deconstructed quite extensively in Game Design Schools (e.g. Nintendo).  

I'd like to get an overview of the literature (from gaming or pedagogy) on engagement/challenge, especially with regard to keeping the carrot ahead of the horse.  Also, what are the parallels between the gaming genres and the classroom.  What is the overlap with 'learning styles?'  [responds to What questions do you have and what do you want to learn more about?]


Jim pointed out that you get to choose the comptuer game you want to play.  What engages one person is quite different from what engages another.   Games fall into specific genres because of that.

It struck me that in school the students don't get to choose the 'game.'  They have to play all of them.  So, as a game designer, the teacher can't cater just to the fan-base of one particular genre. [responds to What applications do you see to classroom practice based on what you learned?]



The most significant thing I learned in class this week was, however, not related to gaming. Rather it emerged from Collins & Halverson's summary of the reasons that technology does not gain a foothold in classrooms.  The summary itself was not noteworthy, but it certainly helped consolidate a perspective that I am exploring for the first time [see my last few blog posts].

Pedagogical ideas and tools operate in a marketplace.  Although things like production (e.g. research, policy, etc.), advertising and marketing (e.g. blogs), and fashion are aspects that describe the marketplace, in the end the consumer/purchaser is the teacher.  And the teacher is notoriously tight-fisted.


[If my native spelling shows through in this post, it is because Google removed the spell-check in their new WYSIWYG editor.]