Pezman's a game researcher!

[The Pezman]

Yours truly will be writing a chapter for publication in this upcoming book. The editor had seen my previously published work and personally invited me to submit an outline for consideration. This was a few months ago, but I'm very pleased to announce that I've finally gotten word it's accepted!

My chapter is a comparison of educational/serious and commercial games, with regards to features, attractiveness to players, and the methods by which they incite motivation. I will also suggest a number of ways that developers of educational games can add features from commercial games in order to make them more appealing and fun. I think such developers need to appreciate the culture that has built up around commercial games, and approach games as more of an art form than simply a utilitarian tool.

I will be gathering a number of sources, speaking to several professionals, and using my own judgment to write this chapter. But what can never hurt is perspectives from intelligent gamers. Feel free to share your thoughts on the subject. Let me know about the good commercial and serious games you've played, and what was good (or not so good) about them. Sephfire, I haven't forgotten about your video on the subject. In fact, I may want to speak to James Portnow and the folks at EDGE.

Also, in before "Educational games can never have the same appeal commercial games do." Please don't use this thread for that argument. I'm not saying that to be contrary or stifle opinion, but because those comments certainly don't help me write my chapter. Furthermore, I don't think it's unreasonable for a game to be entertaining and truly educational at the same time. If you still feel the need to tell me otherwise, please PM me.

[BardicKnowledge]

Pezman, if you haven't played any of the "Super Solvers" series for Win 3.1 and Win95, I'd encourage you to take a look at them, as IMO they have some of the best balance between "educational" and "game" -- especially Ancient Empires, which was a fully fledged action title.

The other "educational" thing I noticed from games is that many (though certainly not all) of the plants and flowers from The Elder Scrolls games resemble their real-life counterparts. My inlaws garden quite a bit, and as nerdy as it sounds, I was actually able to follow some conversations I wouldn't have otherwise thanks to Oblivion.

Personally, I'm all for learning real-life things in video games, though making education the only focus of the game at the expense of gameplay (Carmen Sandiego, etc) isn't the right path to pursue outside of a classroom setting.

[The Pezman]

Pezman, if you haven't played any of the "Super Solvers" series for Win 3.1 and Win95, I'd encourage you to take a look at them, as IMO they have some of the best balance between "educational" and "game" -- especially Ancient Empires, which was a fully fledged action title.

I played a lot of The Learning Company's old stuff. Operation Neptune remains one of my favorite games to this day. Played Treasure Mountain, Mathstorm, etc. However, I do believe there's a problem with the way those game presented information.

Namely, it became more about the game than the learning. I can't remember anything those games taught me which actually stuck. The information wasn't vital in of itself - you needed to solve a math problem to open a door or advance to the next level. Whatever information the game teaches you should be itself crucial for the game. That way, the act of using it to advance yourself in the game will drill it into your memory. Imagine for every character move combo you know in Street Fighter, it was instead a historical fact. And you needed to use every one of those facts to make it through a time-traveling scenario. The analogy may not be perfect, but I think the concept holds.

Personally, I'm all for learning real-life things in video games, though making education the only focus of the game at the expense of gameplay (Carmen Sandiego, etc) isn't the right path to pursue outside of a classroom setting.

I agree. That's basically why I'm writing this chapter. Educational games today place the information ahead of all else - production, gameplay, everything. But I think educational games need to step it up. They should have all the storyline appeal of Metal Gear Solid, the multiplayer capacity of World of Warcraft, and chock full of enough directly applicable information to get you a GED. That is the kind of educational game I think kids would eat up.

[PriZm]

I love how the Persona games are dungeon crawlers/dating sims/educational games.

[Tinaddar]

Operation Neptune was fantastic, but you're right: the only problem I remember is fractions involving healthy barnacles. Number Crunchers was another one I loved. And oh yeah, Sesame Street ABCs for the NES; teaches you to form various three letter words!

I've been discussing this topic of educational games with my friends for years, and even wrote about it for one of my classes this semester. I grew up with games, and attribute to them things like learning to read very well. What this relies on, of course, is that I played a lot of games with text, like RPGs where in order to finish the game I HAD to understand everything that was being said, more than action games. What is troubling is that nowadays a lot of RPGs have their main characters have voice actors, and nobody has to read anymore...

It seems to me that games generally teach three things: Reading skills, Math and Problem Solving skills, and Other facts. Once you've learned how to sound out words, any game with text will allow you to practice and become better at reading, so you don't have to worry too much about intentionally trying to teach that. Most games have some sort of puzzles, so while you have to keep it in mind while designing a game, it shouldn't take too much effort to get kids practicing their problem solving skills.

What is more difficult to put into video games are important facts. If you want to teach kids about US History, and make it fun, well... That's a bigger challenge than trying to teach kids to add two digit numbers. If you want kids to remember things, you have to make them important; if you want them to remember certain historical individuals then you have to make them important characters in your game. If you want them to remember years, you have to highlight that in your game. Imagine Chrono Trigger: I can tell you the date of every important piece of history that happened (65 million BC, 35000 BC, 600 AD, 1000 AD, 1999 AD, 2300AD), and these are facts I never TRIED to learn, I simply did because I had to use them all of the time. Various gods such as Odin, and Shiva, and creatures such as Behemoth and Leviathan I was initially exposed to from Final Fantasy (even though Shiva really doesn't resemble true Shiva). Basically: you remember the things that you have to use often.

So far as motivation goes, people tend to be motivated by being faced with challenges. Unless your game is really funny, or has a really moving story or something, if it is too easy people will get bored. Optional really hard challenges are also good; you want to appease those who like things really hard, without turning off those who can't handle it. Also important is rewarding the completion of these challenges. If you get nothing, or get something useless for doing something really hard, what's the motivation to keep playing? If you go out of your way to defeat an annoyingly hard boss, die ten times, but finally win, and you get rewarded with some cheap potion, or worse: nothing at all, just the ability to fight the next annoyingly hard boss... Well, chances are lots of people would just give up on the game.

If you could create a game that was as moving and in depth as Metal Gear Solid, as wide appealing and multiplayer as World of Warcraft, and educational enough to give everyone a GED... Well, you'd be both rich, and probably earn a Nobel Prize.

[kitty]

Don't forget to include a mention about crossovers such as Mario Teaches Typing and Mario is Missing!

[Cerrax]

Mario Teaches Typing

Typing Of The Dead.

Easily the best way to get young boys to stay in front of a keyboard and learn to type efficiently.

and Mario's Time Machine actually helped me retain a lot of history info.