Good design is at the heart of gamification and learning. To become outstanding designers, we must have a language to communicate our ideas to our teams. Sometimes our gameful design languages (or design approaches) are different and communication suffers. This talk outlines how you can find your primary gamification language and introduces five languages: (1) goals and challenges, (2) quality of content and context, (3) incentives, (4) motivating actions, (5) system mechanics. Each of these present different perspectives on pursuing gameful design, but they are not always distinct – in fact, being able to speak all five gamification languages fluently will make you a better gameful designers. The talk will introduce each gamification design language with examples of how to apply these languages in a gamified learning context. You will be able to self-assess your gamification language and comprehend the language of other gameful designers in your time. If you learn more than your primary gamification language, you can apply these languages to improve your gameful designs for wider audiences.
The future of UX design support tools - talk Paris March 2024
The 5 Gamification Languages: The secret to gameful experiences that last (Gamilearn 2017 Keynote)
2. ABOUT ME
I LEADAWONDERFULTEAM OF AMAZING STUDENTSAND POSTDOCSTHAT RESEARCH
AFFECTIVE SYSTEMSAND GAMEFUL INTERACTIONAND EVALUATION.
WE FOCUS ON GAMIFICATION, PHYSIOLOGICALAND AFFECTIVE COMPUTING RESEARCH,AND HOWTO
DEVELOP NOVEL GAMING INTERFACES.
5. LANGUAGES
Allow us to communicate with one another and
understand our actions and the context in which
these actions are done.
7. “
”
It is important […] to understand
how and why game structures do
shape player behavior […]
I HAVE NO WORDS & I MUST DESIGN: TOWARD A CRITICAL VOCABULARY FOR GAMES
GREG COSTIKYAN, GAME DESIGNER
8. WHAT MAKES A GAME A GAME?
★ PRELUSORY GOALS
★LUSORY MEANS
★CONSTITUATIVE RULES
★LUSORY ATTITUDE
9. “
”
A GAME IS A CONTEXT WITH RULES
AMONG ADVERSARIES TRYING TO WIN
OBJECTIVES
CLARK C. ABT, GAME THEORIST
10. LET’S ANALYZE A POPULAR GAME: POKÉMON GO
• DESCRIBETHE FOLLOWING IN POKÉMON GO:
• WHAT ARETHE OBJECTS INTHE GAME?
• WHAT ATTRIBUTES DOTHE OBJECTS HAVE?
• WHAT INTERNAL RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN OBJECTS CANYOU
FIND?
• WHAT ENVIRONMENT DOESTHE GAME SYSTEM OPERATE IN?
11. Need Definition Example
Competence
Ability to function effectively in the
environment
Feedback that allows you to see your
learning progress in a game
Autonomy
Independence and ability to alter the
environment
Ability to influence and set your own
goals and tasks
Relatedness
The feeling of being connected to others in
the environment
The option to gather and mingle with
other players in the game
SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY
Ryan and Deci (2000) distinguish between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, where the latter is “the inherent
tendency to seek out novelty and challenges, to extend and exercise one’s capacities, to explore, and to learn.”
12. GAMEFUL EXPERIENCE
An interactive state occurring when a person
• Perceives non-trivial achievable goals created externally
• Is motivated to pursue them under an arbitrary set of
behavioral rules
• Evaluates that motivation as voluntary
LANDERS, MEKLER, TONDELLO, KAPPEN, COLLMUS, NACKE, UPCOMING WORK
14. HOW DO WE CREATE GAMEFUL
EXPERIENCES?
THE LANGUAGES ARE TOOLS THAT HELP US UNDERSTAND HOW TO DESIGN FOR GAMEFUL EXPERIENCES
16. 5 GAMIFICATION LANGUAGES
1. GOALS AND CHALLENGES
2. QUALITY OF CONTENT AND CONTEXT
3. INCENTIVES
4. VOLUNTARY INTERACTION
5. GAME MECHANICS
17. 1. GOALS AND CHALLENGES
• Every game needs you to set a goal and help players affirm the
goal
• Players pursue different challenges to accomplish tasks they
would not usually do
• Reframe difficult tasks as challenges to overcome them
gamefully
19. 2. QUALITY OF CONTENT AND CONTEXT
• Focus on designing the experience of players
• Personalize the content
• Be mindful of the context of your game
21. 3. INCENTIVES
• Rewards that are meaningful to players
• Badges that measure personal skill progression and learning
and match player and environment
• Gifts that are random and surprising to players but related to
content and context that they care about
23. 4. VOLUNTARY INTERACTION
• First decide ‘what’ you want your player to learn
• The gameful rules must seem reasonable and easy to engage
with and make the learning interaction desirable
• The outcome of the interaction must be motivating
25. 5. GAME MECHANICS
• Rules are limitations of actions in your game environment
• Game mechanics are the system specifications of those rules
• These include triggers and logic of your game system
interactions
27. USING THE GAMIFICATION LANGUAGES
• Each language is a way of approaching gamification, it can have
its own dialect and variation
• Experiment with each language to find the one that works best
for your interaction or learning problem
• Ensure that you evaluate your gamification for success
28. 5 GAMIFICATION LANGUAGES
1. GOALS AND CHALLENGES
2. QUALITY OF CONTENT AND CONTEXT
3. INCENTIVES
4. VOLUNTARY INTERACTION
5. GAME MECHANICS
29. HOW DO WE
EVALUATE
GAMEFUL
DESIGN?
Gustavo F. Tondello, Dennis L. Kappen, Elisa D. Mekler, Marim Ganaba, and
Lennart E. Nacke. 2016. Heuristic Evaluation for Gameful Design. Proceedings
of the 2016 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play
Extended Abstracts - CHI PLAY EA ’16, ACM. DOI: 10.1145/2968120.2987729
31. TAKEAWAYS
• Fun is another word for learning, learning enables gameful
experiences.
• When you travel the world of gamification, these design
languages are your guide to understanding different
‘gamification countries’
32. 3
2
CONTACT ME
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TODAY!
I AM OFFERING GAMIFICATION CONSULTING FOR COMPANIES; GET IN TOUCH!
HCI Games Group, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
P H O N E
(+1) 519-888-4567 x38251
Twitter: @acagamic
E M A I L
len@uwaterloo.ca
W E B S I T E
www.hcigames.com
www.acagamic.com
Editor's Notes
Hello and welcome to my talk about the 5 gamification languages, the secret to gameful experiences that last. I hope this talk will provide some inspiration for you.
So, let’s start with a view on languages and why I chose this metaphor (other than a nod to Gary Chapman’s famous book). We really have to think about what a language is and what we can do with it?
How does it help us solve problems? How does it structure our communication?
But languages are more than just words, they are signs and symbols, they help us express beliefs and cultures.
Merriam Webster’ Dictionary, for example, defines languages as “a formal system of signs and symbols including rules for the formation and transformation of admissible expressions.”
This became very clear to me in my last days in Spain, where I was not able to speak the language but was immersed in the culture and behaviour of Spanish people trying to interpret what I could with as much as I was able to do from the gestures and symbols.
Languages allow us to communicate with each other and understand the actions that we are doing or planning. We are able to exchange knowledge, beliefs, opinions, wishes, threats, commands, thanks, promises, declarations, feelings – only our imagination sets limits. Languages are important tools for learning.
So, in gamification, which we defined as the use of game design elements in non-game contexts, it is particularly important to have tools that allows us to build effective gamification.
A game is a closed formal system that subjectively represents a subset of reality. (Chris Crawford)
Games are a space that exists as a subset of reality with boundaries and rules (we have even mentioned the concept of the magic circle).
Games can be seen as sets of elements, but they are much more than just a set, often having internal relationships and states of elements that help them interact. At this level, it is most sensible to refer to games as systems. Now, systems can be seen as sets of items that can affect one another. The interaction among these set items can form patterns that are distinct from its individual parts (i.e., the whole is greater than the sum of its parts).
Languages and a common understanding has long been absent in game design unfortunately. Resulting in a lack of structure for game design methods and design patterns.
Or as Greg Cotikyan notes, “It is important […] to understand how and why game structures do shape player behavior […]”
The shaping and molding of player behaviour really is at the heart of good gamification. The languages that I will present to you today, could also be seen as design lenses or as communication tools that help you build better gameful experiences.
Prelusory goals
Attempts to achieve a specific state
Lusory means
Means only permitted by the rules
Constituative rules
Prevent using more efficient means in favour of less efficient means that propel the game
Lusory attitude
The willingness to accept and abide by the rules of the game world, letting them apply to you
“A game is a context with rules among adversaries trying to win objectives.” (Clark C. Abt)
To help us understand this space in which the gamification languages apply, we need to define what we understand as a gameful experience
So, there is some magic to the gameful experiences that we can create. We really have to think about building goals, rules, and how to get people to engage in them voluntarily.
Each of these present my different perspectives on how you could pursue gameful design, but they don’t need to be distinct, in fact, being able to speak all 5 gamification languages fluently will make you a better gameful designers. My current ideas are (and they are open for feedback):
The 5 gamification languages that I present today are not necessarily distinct approaches to game design, some of them can be used together, others possibly not. Knowing each language will make you a better designer, it adds a tool to your gamification toolbox. With each language that you understand how to use, you will have a different tool in your toolbox.
Languages help us decrypt meaning when otherwise we do not understand what is going on around us.
Learning the languages will help an understanding of design process and help you understand, why gamification works (or why it does not work, if a designer did not speak one of the languages). Knowing every language, means you travel the world of gamification without problems
*Goal affirmation*. Your design focus is on affirming the user goals and strengthening their way to their self-selected goal.
Beyond goal affirmation, you could also talk about *challenge*. I think it's also an important part of gameful experiences. Gameful design can either help users pursue different challenges, so they can accomplish things that they would not usually do; or it can also just help people reframe difficult tasks that they have to do as challenges to overcome "gamefully".
Objectives/Goals. Often referred to as missions or quests, they are like a task list for your player telling them what they should be working toward.
Player experience is defined as goals as “goals that the game designer sets for the type of experience that players will have during the game. These are not features of the game but rather descriptions of the interesting and unique situations in which you hope players will find themselves.” (Fullerton, page 12). So, essentially you have to ask yourself what you want your players to do and feel. Ideally, they should feel something about everything that they are doing or are able to do in the game. Actions and reactions create player experiences. If you game has a goal, such as “players win only if they all reach the end square together,” this is different from a player experience goal that could state “players have to collaborate to win the game.” Instead of focusing on your game’s features, try to focus on what your players are thinking and feeling when they play your game. What meaningful decisions would facilitate these thoughts and feelings?
Example: Fitness app: Does not work from one day to the next, subgoals, smaller challenges
This is simple, how does someone win at this game?
Something as simple as “score the most points” doesn’t cut it. Think about how players can achieve the end goal and map that out.
Is there only one way to win or can a player take multiple paths to achieve the end goal?
Can more than one player win? Are you trying to get the player to learn something?
Can players continue on after someone wins?
Ask yourself these questions to really determine the goal of the game. Well-designed challenges provide people with a sense of control.
*Quality of content and context*. This spans the gameful design space over to serious games even. Effective game design means designing for the right context and content. Focusing on conveying knowledge in a new area.
Semantic context of language
Example: Fitness app: Instructions how to do the exercise, context, sensors that check muscle movement or time of day or mood, etc.
The main items that we should focus on as game designers: (1) Context, which can be the spaces, objects, story and behaviours that you encounter in games. (2) Participants are your players that act upon your game context for example via manipulation or exploration. They inhabit your game world to play. (3) Meaning is a concept that we have already mentioned when we talked about meaningful choice. When players take actions in your game, meaningful play should emerge from the agency that players feel. Meaning here is tied to the value of significance of something encountered in a game for the individual player. Even in real life, meaning is important to us because it helps us navigate through our world and interpret the people and the world around us. Our everyday interactions are essentially guided by meaning-making.
Designing the experience for players is difficult, because you are only creating an artifact (a game or a gameful system) that the players interact with. Good content comes from personalizing the experience for players, generally the experience of a game is related to acquiring new knowledge or learning a new skill, so it is important to build something where players grow as people when they engage and interact with it.
*Rewards, badges, and gifts*. Basically the Zicherman-type gamification, very focused on giving rewards and gifts or badges to help the user understand their progress.
Dialects and flavours
Example: Fitness app: Depends on the person, but the goal is intrinsic, losing weight, etc.
Example: Fitness app: You already want to lose weight, so the app supports you on your journey
*Motivating actions*. Focusing your designs on interactions and user actions that motivate themselves and other users.
Decide what you want the player to learn
Interaction with object
Make this interaction desirable by making the object challenging to attain
Reward player for attaining object by matching it to user goals and environment
These are the actions that characters and other components can do, or have done to them, in the course of the gameplay. This element outlines all of the constraints put on your characters and helps create a level of difficulty for your game.
It is very important that the mechanics follow the rules set up in the game space; for example if a character can break through a brick wall then a wooden barrier cannot prevent them from entering an area. It is also important that you think carefully about the challenges and weaknesses that each character will have so you can give them something to compensate for them.
*Game mechanics*. Being able to speak the mechanical/dry language of design elements that underly every game design and gameful design attempt, understanding the system of a game at a visceral level.
Scaffolding of exercises and rules of what actions you have to do every day to reach your fitness goals.
Rules/Mechanics. In games, mechanics determine howsomething works, much like game rules do. They are about the possibilities for the players that will change the game state. Rules are the most defining quality of games. T
… but one more thing
One more thing…
Remember that as a designer you are in a world of gamification, where you will travel to different gamification countries as part of your job. To best understand how to operate in these countries, you need to speak the 5 languages of gamification and work on understanding its dialects and variations to be able to get the most out of your travels in the gamification world.