Slides from GBL 2009 Presentation in London

1. Dr. Jacob Habgood
Head of Serious Games
© 2009 Sumo Digital Limited
Wii Don’t do “Edutainment”!

2. Sumo Digital Limited:
 “Work for hire” Console Developer
• SEGA, Konami, Sony (Xbox, 360, PS3, Wii, DS, PSP).
• Around 130 developers in Sheffield.
• Heritage going back to Gremlin Graphics in the 80’s.
 Foundation 9 Group
• Around 800 developers worldwide.
Just who are Wii?

3. Personal Background
Industry & Academia:
Gremlin / Infogrames / Atari
• Hogs of War, MicroMachines, Actua Sports.
• Programmer / Technical Lead (PSX, PS2, Xbox, GC) .
Ph.D. in Learning Sciences
• LSRI, University of Nottingham.
• “The Effective Integration of Digital Games and Learning
Content” (www.zombiedivision.co.uk).
Head of Serious Games
• “The Game Maker’s Apprentice”.
• Game Development tools for Kids (Game Maker).
• But no explicit “learning” products… yet.

4. Learning Showcase
Work for Hire:
Console-based Learning
• “Edutainment” products are trickling onto consoles.
• Often developed by smaller developers to make ends meet
while chasing the big publishing deal.
• Not necessarily any expertise or passion for learning.
Sumo: Serious about Learning
• Large console developer, great track-record : large
publishers beat a path to our door.
• Passion and expertise for game-based learning.
• Perfectly positioned to branch into learning-based
console products.
Showcase Game
• Self-funded WiiWare title: “Outnumbered”.

5. Design Philosophy
Anti-Edutainment:
Intrinsic Integration (Kafai, 2001)
• Extrinsic “chocolate-covered broccoli” approaches to
integrating games and learning do not work.
• Modern example: Questionaut by Amanita Design
(Award-winning web game designers).
• More integrated approaches could be more effective.

6. Research Evidence
Zombie Division:
Controlled Trials
Results
• Intrinsic games are more motivating than extrinsic
games (as measured by time-on-task).
• Intrinsic games are more effective than extrinsic
games (as measured by learning gains).
• Intrinsic
Skeletons = Dividends
Weapons = Divisors
• Extrinsic
Skeletons = Symbols
+ Extrinsic Q&A
• Control
Skeletons = Symbols

7. Design Philosophy
Maths-Based Game for WiiWare:
Intrinsically Integrated
• Deliver learning content alongside, and in tandem
with the flow experience of the game.
• Integrate the learning content within the structure of the
gaming world and its core-mechanics.
Unpatronising and Unapologetic
• Kids are aspirational: so design for big ones.
• Safe is dull – zombies/monsters/explosions are fun.
Does Not Try to “Make Maths Fun”!
• Maths is simply a medium.
• All games are about learning something.
• The fact that this happens to be maths should
be almost entirely irrelevant to the player.

8. Pedagogy
Interconnected Mathematics:
Learning Content
• Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division.
Conceptual and Procedural Knowledge
• Should be developed alongside each other (Rittle-Johnson,
Siegler & Alibali, 2001).
Beyond Rote Learning
• Embodies the meaningful relationships between knowledge
essential for understanding (Hiebert & Lefevre, 1986).
Anchored Instruction
• Successful mathematics teaching needs to be
grounded in “real world” situations (Greer, 1992).
• Real world “anchors” (Brandsford et al, 1990).

9. Outnumbered
Basic Concept:
Maths can be fatal – especially if you’re a monster!
Attach your brain to your wand-arm and get ready to cause some
serious mayhem as you defend your wizard’s home against an army
of magical beasts…

10. Outnumbered
Screen Layout

11. Outnumbered
Core Mechanics:
“Mechanism through which players make meaningful choices and
arrive at a meaningful play experience”
(Salen & Zimmerman, 2004).
Core Mechanic 1: “Playing with Goo”
• Magical mana comes in two flavours.
• Monsters are made of bad mana while
wizard’s towers attract good mana.
• Bad mana can be neutralised with good.
• Monsters die when you reduce their
bad mana exactly down to zero.
• Overshooting makes all the good mana
fall off the monster.

12. Outnumbered
Core Mechanics:
Core Mechanic 2: “Monster Grow Bags”
• Create your own good monsters.
• Drop mana onto a monster grow bag and it will
form its own “good” cloud.
• Fill it up to the desired value of good mana.
• Grab the cloud to pull the monster from the earth.
• The good monster will defeat any bad monster
of equal value in its path AND take out any
other monsters standing behind it.

13. Outnumbered
Progression:
At the beginning of the game:
• Throwing Goo = Subtraction.
• Growing Monsters = Addition.
• Mixing colours of goo is fine.
Progressing to PURE EVIL:
• Monsters which are pure evil can only be defeated by
pure good mana – i.e. a single colour of goo.
Now :
• Throwing Goo = Division by repeated subtraction.
• Growing Monsters = Multiplication by repeated
addition.

14. Outnumbered
Core Mechanics:
Core Mechanic 3: “Divide and Conquer”
• Repeated subtraction is a slow way to divide.
• Magic can speed that up.
• Any value of blob can be powered up
to become a divisor.
• Magic blobs kill monsters instantly
(provided that they divide!)
Fire Ice

15. Core Mechanics:
Divisor Relationships:
Core Mechanic 4: “Multiplying Monsters”
• Repeated addition is a slow way to multiply.
• Magic can speed that up.
• The result is always “pure” good.
Outnumbered
2, 4 &8 3, 6
&9
5 & 10 7

16. Outnumbered
Emergent Gameplay:
Core Mechanics:
• Throwing Goo = (Repeated) Subtraction.
• Growing Monsters = (Repeated) Addition.
• Dividing Monsters = Division.
• Multiplying Mana = Multiplication.
Mixing Mechanics:
• Pure Evil / Pure Good.
• Monster Immunity (Red, Blue, Yellow).
• Subtract -> Divide / Multiply -> Add.
• (23 – 2) / 3
• “Smart Bombs”
• End of Level Bosses – multiple clouds

17. Outnumbered
Difficulty Level:
Gameplay Difficulty:
• Standard gameplay progression:
• Speed, quantity, strength, visual cues.
• Same for every player.
Mathematical Difficulty:
• Cognitive Model:
• Tracks use of key domain concepts.
• Varies difficulty accordingly.
• Different experience for every player.
• Additional replay value.

18. Outnumbered
Wii Demo
Around 50% Complete:

19. Any questions?
Release
Coming to WiiWare Summer 2009
 500-1000 Wii Points (£3.50 - £7.00)
Outnumbered