games

The Game Thinking Spectrum

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Game Thinking Spectrum 2 The Game Thinking Spectrum

A quick thought around my original Game Thinking content from a few years back.

I often listen to others talking about gamification, serious games and the like, as if they had no relationship to each other. Whilst it is true that they all require different approaches to develop solutions with, they should not be considered as totally exclusive of one another.

A good gamification consultant will look at the problem they are given and decide what the best solution is for their client based on their needs, not on the semantics surrounding the difference between gamification and serious games. If the solution requires a game, that is what will get made. If it will benefit from gamification, with some learning based games and maybe even a few pure entertainment games, then that is what will get made! Read More ...

The Paradox of Play

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Play from the Start

When we are born, we don’t have a set of predefined rules imprinted on us about what we should and shouldn’t do or how we should and shouldn’t do it! Babies have a totally open and clear mind.

They spend their time learning everything they can, using all their senses. They learn the sound of their mother’s voice, the feel of her touch, the scent of her hair, all before they even open their eyes to learn what she looks like.

From that moment on, they are exploring their environment and learning. Everything is new to them, it’s exciting and probably terrifying in equal measure. Strange faces, strange smells, and tastes. People playing peekaboo, talking in strange voices and making odd sounds that should probably mean something, but don’t. They get bounced on knees, thrown in the air, passed around and cuddled like a toy. The experience new things called emotions; love, fear, joy, sadness and more. Read More ...

4 Tips to Balance Your Gamification

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There is nothing worse than playing against people who are miles ahead of you in terms of either ability or equipment. It is very demoralising to lose time and time again when in reality you never have a chance. Take leaderboards as a good example. Very often the people at the top are always the same few names, over and over again. For most companies, this does not seem to get addressed for some reason. It’s a bit like pitting your local Sunday Dad’s league against Chelsea every week. There is no opportunity for the Sunday players to ever be as good as Chelsea, they will get destroyed week after week until they give up playing. It is totally unfair and unbalanced. This is why in organised sports, you have divisions and leagues. You only play against people that you have a fair(ish) chance of beating. Read More ...

Bits ‘n’ Bobs

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A few side projects and stuff for you to enjoy.

Gamification Memes: A compilation of my memes over the last few years

Other “Wisdom” Memes…

Some music I’ve been recording for fun (updated often).

Videos with my kids (Challenges mostly)

And finally…. A game made in Construct2 (which doesn’t YET work on mobile…)

Learning From Games: Battlefield 1, RAMP, User Types and Awesome Gaming

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Over Christmas, I started to play Battlefield 1, a game that I was especially looking forward to given my love of the series. I’ve not had as much time to play video games as I would have liked over the last 12 months, so I’ve been making the most of this opportunity. I may even review it for my old and neglected games review site http://yetanotherreviewsite.co.uk!

Anyway, back on topic. I’ve always loved the series because of how good the multiplayer experience is. Back when Battlefield 1942 first came out it broke the mould by not even bothering with a single player game, a brave and clever move as it turned out. It also put a much tighter focus on teamwork with its “Conquest” mode. This saw teams holding key strategic points on the map for as long as possible. Achieving this required good balance of character classes and a level of teamwork beyond just rushing off and killing things. Read More ...

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