Presentation highlighting elements of game thinking and thinking like a game designer presented in a story format.

2. You are a game designer at
SuperGame Corporation which has hit
some hard times lately.

3. It’s Friday 4:59 PM you and your
colleague have only one thing
on your mind.

4. Suddenly, your boss calls you
and your colleague into her office.
Ito and Jasmine come
into my office.

5. Yes?
Yes?

6. Look, someone
wants us to
create a game
about capturing
dragons.
It appears to be a
craze or something.

7. Working name is…
“Dragónmon Go”

8. You are competing
internally for the project.
Winning team earns the
right to work on the
project.

9. Each team will be
confronted with 3
questions.
The team that
correctly answers
the most questions
wins the work.

10. What about the other
team?

11. Losers are assigned
to the game
“watching paint
dry.”

12. Wow, I heard about that
project, it’s almost as fun
as… never mind. Dragon
Capturing is much better.

13. Get it
together.
Now let’s hear about
the dragon capturing
game.

14. First decision…..

15. Tell player three things they
need to know about capturing
dragons.
or
Begin by having player start
capturing dragons right away.

16. Begin by having player start
capturing dragons right away.
Application before mastery.

17. Why does this
answer make sense?
Not Sure?

18. Game designers know games
are engaging because they
require action right away.

19. Action draws in the player and
encourages further
engagement. Start by
capturing a dragon.

20. Too often learning
events are about
content and not about
action.

21. Game Design is
about action!

22. Solve a mystery.
Make the learners do something.
Answer a question.
Work a problem.
Make a decision.
Escape a room.
Play a game.

23. Here is a testing example,
half of a group of students
had to re-read content,
half had to answer quiz
questions after only seeing
the content for 4 minutes.
Wiklund-Hörnqvist, C., Jonsson, B., & Nyberg, L. (2014). Strengthening concept learning by
repeated testing. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 55(1), 10–16. http://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12093

24. Participants who had been
tested (rather than re-
reading the material)
outperformed the other
students on three tests.
Wiklund-Hörnqvist, C., Jonsson, B., & Nyberg, L. (2014). Strengthening concept learning by
repeated testing. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 55(1), 10–16. http://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12093

25. Think like a game
designer, think
action.

26. OK, next decision.
Provide map with locations of
all the dragons.
or
Create a sense of mystery
concerning location of the
dragons.

27. It is a good idea to build
curiosity and mystery into a
game.

28. Reveal locations of dragons
throughout the course of the
player’s journey.

29. Check out my notebook on
this subject.

33. A sense of suspense,
mystery and intrigue
draws people into games.

34. And it can draw
people into learning
as well.

35. Next question.

36. Should we make the game..
Easy
or
Challenging.

37. Jones, B., Valdez, G., Norakowski, J., & Rasmussen, C. (1994). Designing learning and technology
for educational reform. North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. [Online]. Available:
http://www.ncrtec.org/capacity/profile/profwww.htm and Schlechty, P. C. (1997). Inventing
better schools: An action plan for educational reform. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Chapter 2
“The Gamification of Learning and Instruction.”
It needs to be challenging.

38. Robert and Elizabeth Bjork.
Create “Desirable Difficulty.”

39. Research indicates that our
brains grow when we make a
mistake because it is a time of
struggle.
Moser, J. Schroder, H.S., Heeter, C., C., Moran, T.P., & Lee, Y.H. (2011) Mind your errors: Evidence for
a neural mechanism linking growth mindset to adaptive post error adjustments. Psychological
Science, 22, 1284-1489.

40. Encourage the
freedom to fail and
the chance to
struggle a bit in
learning events.

41. It aids in learning and
is motivational.

42. People are motivated
when they have
autonomy, mastery
and relatedness.

43. Isn’t that Self-Determination
Theory?

44. Why,
yes…yes it is.

45. Sailer, J., Hense, J. U., Mayr, S. K., & Mandi, H. (2017) How gamification motivates: An experimental study
of the effects of specific game design elements on psychological need satisfaction. Computers
In Human Behavior. Pp. 371-380.
The game elements of
badges, leaderboards, and
performance graphs
positively impact mastery and
task meaningfulness

46. The game elements of
avatars, meaningful
stories, and teammates
affect experiences of
social relatedness.
Sailer, J., Hense, J. U., Mayr, S. K., & Mandi, H. (2017) How gamification motivates: An experimental study
of the effects of specific game design elements on psychological need satisfaction. Computers
In Human Behavior. Pp. 371-380.

47. Lot of information,
thanks. So let me
ask one more
question.

48. Which team gets to
design “Dragónmon Go”?
Which team won?

49. Well, they are all
winners to me.

50. Ugh….

51. Tips
1) Begin with activity
2) Create curiosity
3) Create challenge
4) Use game elements
appropriately

52. Questions?