Use of “Time” in Instructional Video Games

Time is an element that has many dimensions as it relates to instructional game design and game play.

Dude's running out of time to do tricks on skateboard.

The most obvious is to use time as a motivator for player activity and action. As soon as that timer appears in the upper corner of an instructional video game screen and starts to count down (or in some cases up), it raises the stress level and motivates action. Players no longer loiter, leisurely explore an area or wait to see what happens next. Instead, they focus, jump into action and begin to undertake the tasks needed to accomplish the level or game’s goal. In this way time serves to spur player action and to force the player to work under pressure. This can be valuable in mimicking certain work conditions where time is a key success factor such as resolving a customer complaint as quickly as possible in a call center and then answering the next call or completing a task within a certain amount of time.

Time can also be a resource that needs to be allocated during an instructional game. The allocation of time to one task and then another task can be critical to success. For example, in many games it is important to gather treasure but if the player spends all their time looking for treasure, they may not complete a level in the allocated time or they may lose out on gathering other rewards because they spend all their time looking for the treasure. In more corporate focused games, players can learn how much time they should spend on one activity while balancing their overall time allotment. Players can be placed into situations where they have to decide, “Should I spend my time answering all my emails or focus on voicemail or have fewer face-to-face meetings?” Prioritizing activities because of time constraints can be a challenging determining what time is spent on what activity. However, it is a challenge people deal with on a daily basis and time management is frequently a skill people need as they work within organizations.

Instructional video games allow the designer of the game to compress time to show consequences of actions more quickly than during the natural course of events. In an actual situation a person may have to wait months for the results of an action such as the decision to build an apartment building hoping it can be filled with tenants. In a video game, those months can be compressed into minutes. A good example of time compression is the game Sid Meier’s Civilization V, hundreds of years go by in a matter of a few hours as the players take turns moving warriors, ships and settlers. Without the convention of compressed time, games would be onerous and boring. And viewing the results of actions after time has passed can provide insights to learners that they may not encounter otherwise….”oh, that’s what happens when I inadvertently put down the wrong customer classification code? I never knew.”