3 Videos All Instructional Game Designers Need to Watch
Recently Sharon Boller of Bottom Line Performance and I did a presentation at ASTD2013 on Instructional Game Design. We talked about game design, the need to play games and how games can be used for learning in the first part of the one day workshop and in the second half of the workshop, we had the attendees create games. They created some really awesome games in a relatively short amount of time.
And while you have not been able to attend the workshop, here are three videos that capture much of the thinking that went behind the game design portion of the workshop.
The first video is about brainstorming, you need to brainstorm to be able to create an engaging learning game. I think this video provides some insightful information on brainstorming—I think good ideas come from conflicting views and the video does a good job of describing the use of criticism for generating ideas.
The second video is an advertising for a game design school but it still has great information. Kim talks about the need to play games in order to design games, great advise for an instructional game designer. She talks about paper prototyping…a requirement and she discusses testing and re-testing game designs. Yeah Kim, this is what we discuss in the workshop.
Finally, this is a great Google Talk on the design of a game and provides insight into the thought process. Couple of rules, don’t polish a prototype too early (you become married to it). Here is some great advice–Keep things simple and “raw” when first designing it. Iteration is important. Need to have a goal (we’ll call it learning objectives!) Reduce the “friction” in the game.
If you want to do a game design workshop live, Sharon and I will be doing a session in August. For more information, you can check out the workshop here.
If you are interested in an expanded instructional game design, see the book below.
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