Gamification

Mystery, Curiosity and Surprise

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55 Curiosity Mystery Curiosity and Surprise

Most people seem to like surprises and mystery. It also seems that curiosity has the power to drive us to do strange and counter-intuitive things. We like to know what is in the mystery box, what is behind door number 3, what happens after the season finale, what the red “do not press” button actually does, if we can climb to the top of the rickety looking rope.

Curiosity can also be seen around problem solving. Whilst at times we need to solve the problem, there is no need for us to do puzzles like crosswords or to learn languages that we do not really need. These kinds of drives seem to fall in or around curiosity. Think of children and how they learn. I remember being told and told and told that the berries in the garden were poisonous, but curiosity got the better of me – I had to find out if they really were. The resulting vomiting supplied me with the answer to my curiosity. I could not deal with this idea that I just didn’t know for myself. Curiosity lead me to learn about Gamification and learn how to programme. Read More ...

OnBoarding, Tutorials and Learning by Doing

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For me one of the most effective uses of gamification that I see in education (at the moment) is the inclusion of things like onboarding and tutorials.

When I was young, games came with manuals that you could knock a donkey out with. They had all the instructions, keyboard overlays, back stories and more! It could take a day just to read them, let alone start to play.  Who can forget the microscopic space fleet that came with the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?

I sometimes wonder if a lot of this was acceptable to us because of how long games took to load. Ah, the joyous sounds of the Commodore 64 loading – not to mention the amazing music you used to get (Ocean Loader v4 being my favourite – sad I know!). Read More ...

A few videos for you and a design worksheet

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Hi all. Not got a blog ready yet, but thought I would post a few videos for you. The first is about my User Types. I made it for Victor Manrique’s Iversity gamification design course (he has kindly agreed to let me post it here). The others are some little test videos I have been making recently with the fantastic Adboe Voice.  If you want to be able to create simple narrative driven videos and have an iPad – check it out (it’s free).

Also, I have started to build a worksheet to help you design and plan gamified solutions, The first draft is now available – let me know what you think! gamified uk worksheet v3 (pdf) Read More ...

GAME: A design process framework

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Quite some time ago I released my little design framework. Well as I have been condensing my thoughts and ideas, I decided it was time to make it a little easier, so I came up with GAME.

Gather

Gather information by asking;

  • What are you gamifying
  • Why are you gamifying it
  • Who are you gamifying it for
  • How is success measured

Act

Once you have the information, act on it. Design the best solution for your goals and the engagement / experience of your users. Then you have to test it with them!

Measure

Measure the activities of the users and measure the outcomes and how they relate to your goals. Use this feedback to iterate improvements. Read More ...

Why do we use game related words in gamification?

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And, is it ok?

The quickest answer is ease and lack of maturity.

It is easy to borrow words from games like quests, missions, achievements, trophies, player and the like. It is easier than finding gamification or more “businessy” alternatives. The reason for this? Gamification has not yet matured enough to have its own set of metaphors to use. Instead we use ones from games.

Is this ok?

It all depends who you ask. Many in gamification, especially the newest members of the movement, don’t like it. It feels as though it cheapens the amazing things that can be achieved with gamification. It makes us all think of the bad times, where points, badges and leaderboards were all that was out there. Read More ...

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