Foundational Elements CHAPTER QUESTIONS What are the foundational elements of ILEs? How does feedback impact learning in ILEs? What constructs should I consider when creating an ILE? What should I consider when creating a story challenge for the ILE? Introduction In this chapter we will be discussing the elements that are the building blocks of simulations, games, and gamification. A simulation is an interactive representation of an event, system, or action. If you add elements like feedback, constructs, artificial challenge, and exaggerated story to a simulation, at some point it becomes a game. The same “elements” you add to a simulation to make it a game can also be added to non￾simulation environments to “gamify” them. The equation below describes this interaction: Simulation + Gamification = Game Feedback We give feedback to players to create a feedback loop. In a feedback loop the system gives players information about their performance or the game state, and with this information the players can change their behavior. When creating feedback, we must account for the timing, tone, and delivery method. Timing of Feedback Whether you give your players immediate or delayed feedback depends on how you want them to use the information and the type of information you are giving. For actions taken by the player, like pushing a button or jumping, it is best practice to give them feedback immediately, unless you are simulating an action where that information would not be readily available. Immediate feedback is also important when players are receiving information about a changing game state that they must rapidly respond to. Examples of this could be a crackling sound of a fire or a player’s health meter dropping to show he is being harmed. For feedback that is based on the player’s performance there are a few additional considerations. Sometimes immediate feedback, such as a “Good job!” message from the system, can encourage players. Other times delayed performance feedback, like an overview at the end of a round or level, is best. Consider how quickly you want players to respond to feedback, if the feedback would be distracting, and if you want the players to gauge their own performance. It is good to take into account the players’ level of experience. Inexperienced players will benefit from immediate feedback more because they are unsure of their own performance and the state of the game environment. For more experienced players, it is beneficial to withhold feedback for a while so the players can evaluate their own performance and, ideally, change their tactics based on that evaluation. Questions to ask when considering timing: Is the player new or experienced? Do you want the player to change behavior immediately or in the future? Do you want the player to self-correct? Do you want the player to see the consequences of a wrong move? Will immediate feedback be helpful or distracting? Tone of Feedback When developing your feedback system you have to account for positive, negative, and neutral tones. Most games and simulations have a combination of all three types of feedback tones. Positive feedback tells the players they are doing well and to maintain their current strategy. Ideally this type of feedback should tell the player what they are doing well and why. Examples of positive feedback include a note streak in a music game like “100 note streak!” or a kill streak in a first-person shooter like “Ultra Kill!” Negative feedback tells the players that they are not doing well and must change their current strategy to be more successful. Ideally, you want to tell players what they are doing wrong and what they can change to be more successful. Examples of negative feedback include the buzzer noise in the game Operation when you touch the side with your tweezers. Neutral feedback does not address the players’ performance. Instead, neutral feedback addresses their current situation or status and gives them information about their particular circumstance. Examples of neutral feedback include tool tips when players roll over a button they have never seen or the tips that occur on loading screens between levels like: “This level is full of monsters made of fire; water spells will be effective against them.” The feedback tone you give players must be weighed against some kind of metric. The metric can be based on their performance, their performance relative to others, or an arbitrary measurement. Questions to ask yourself when you begin to make your feedback system include: What constitutes a good or bad performance? How will you measure the players’ performance? What information will players need to know how they are doing? What can the players do in response to a review of their performance? What situational information should you provide to players so they can understand the system better? Designer Notes Playtesting to see how players utilize your feedback is important. It is difficult to anticipate some of the more complex interactions until you actually see someone doing it. The sooner the better. Feedback is critical to learning, so make sure it is targeted and provides a learning opportunity. Feedback is usually a time when you have the learners’ undivided attention. Feedback Delivery Four delivery methods can be used to give the players feedback: visual, auditory, tactile, and movement. All four methods have the same purpose, to convey information. Using multiple delivery methods for different types of feedback can add realism to an experience, as well as spread information across multiple senses to avoid overwhelming players. Make sure your feedback delivery methods are consistent throughout the experience. Ideally, the feedback should also match standards already set by other popular game and simulation experiences. If every other game on the market places its mini map in the upper right￾hand corner, you should consider doing the same unless there is a good reason not to. A word of caution on using additional feedback in simulations meant to accurately reflect something in real life. Players can become dependent on a piece of feedback that will not be there when they attempt the real-life action. This could hurt their performance and would defeat the purpose of simulating an event. Designer Notes What is too much information? Always playtest and remember that as a player advances in skill level, he will be able to handle more information. Consider different levels of feedback so that you are not just giving feedback on one dimension. Visual Delivery Methods The most used method for information delivery in games and simulations is visual elements. A subset of visual methods is the user interface, or UI, the on-screen menu(s) and graphics that overlay a game or simulation. Similar to a heads-up display, the players use the UI to gather information about the state of the game and to interact with the environment. Score is one of the most fundamental feedback mechanisms on the user interface. Quantifying performance and giving players numbers that represent how they are doing is pretty straightforward and similar to how grading is done in schools. Always explain the scoring to the player. Designer Notes Can you go beyond an arbitrary number score? Can performance be represented in a more meaningful way, such as a smile on a face in a simulation or counting the number of lives saved. Scores could also be related to time accuracy and other elements. Progress bars can be used for experience gain or player health. Visual and Sound Effects Visual effects can be things like explosions, pulses of light, or fireworks that are in the game environment behind the UI. These effects tell the players about the state of something that is happening in the world. They should be easily recognizable and easily distinguished from other types of feedback. The setting that a simulation or game takes place in is also a visual effect that can be a type of feedback. If players step into a new place that looks dark and foreboding, their behavior will be different than if they are in a field of flowers. The setting can be used to reflect player performance and the current state of the game. The second most used method for delivering information to players is sounds. Sound effects are caused by action. The action can be from the player, the system, or another source. Sound effects require acknowledgment or an immediate response from the player. Examples of sound effects relating to player performance are a ding or buzz for a correct or incorrect decision. An example of a sound that requires a response from the player is a hissing noise to ready the player for an impending explosion or so they are prompted to check to see if a tire is leaking Ambient noises do not require immediate action from the player. They are secondary sounds that can reveal information about the setting or mood. An example of this could be crickets chirping or birds singing in a forest or the sound of a generator humming. If they stop suddenly, the player should question why. Many games have music that helps to set the mood of a level. Music can also clue the player in to an event change. For example, if the music changes suddenly, in many games it means there is going to be a boss fight. Another example is music speeding up as the player needs to move faster to accomplish a task. Designer Note Always allow users to mute extraneous sounds like music and ambient noises that are not essential to the feedback system. Touch Tactile stimulation is used in come controllers, particularly the controllers of consoles like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The vibrating controller often lets the player know he or she is being damaged or is used to accompany visuals like an earthquake or an explosion. In some arcade games and military simulations, compressed air is used to make guns and flight sticks react in a natural way by pushing back against the player. Movement The final and least used method for delivering information to players is moving the players in the real world to reflect actions. Flight simulators and some arcade games do this to enhance the experience. Driving on a bumpy road or turning in a jet will cause hydraulics in the platform to move the player in a manner that matches the simulated environment. Designer Notes Rewards are an extension of feedback. However, a reward, unlike feedback, can be kept by players as a reminder or proof of their accomplishment. Don’t make the rewards the reason they are playing, and for learning games don’t make them more important than the knowledge being gained. Make the reward representative of the learning and the challenge that the player faced. Remember that in multiplayer games rewards can be used as credentials. Constructs A construct is a fabricated addition to a simulation that does not exist in the real world. Constructs are used to make the players’ experience more interesting, give them better information, or enhance training effectiveness by accentuating certain aspects of an interaction. Constructs can also be used to limit or empower the players. Game mechanics such as the ability to slow or reverse time is an example of a construct. Things like points and levels are also a type of construct. When creating a construct it is important that it have some kind of purpose. Never add things to a serious game or simulation because you think they are cool. Everything that you create will be competing for the players’ limited attention. The challenge with educational games is to create constructs that are fun but also serve some value to the learning experience. Constructs can take many forms. In this section we will discuss the use of game mechanics, allegory, laws, and rules. Game Mechanics The term “game mechanic” refers to a rule or set of rules that enable or restrict player action by creating a cause-and-effect relationship. Players know that when they perform an action or a certain game state occurs an expected consequence will ensue. Often when creating a game or simulation you will not come up with novel mechanics. You will instead repurpose, recombine, or modify them from other games that already exist. There are many different types of mechanics and the only way to be exposed to them is playing lots of games. Examples of game mechanics and a justification for their use in a serious game or simulation include: Stealth game mechanic—Giving the players the ability to avoid being seen. This is typically accompanied by a penalty if they are seen. This type of mechanic can allow players in educational games or simulations to observe situations that they may not normally have access to. It is also a good way to see things from another person’s perspective. This type of mechanic was used successfully by RETRO Lab at the University of Central Florida in a game called Devil’s Advocate—a game that dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by using cognitive behavioral therapy techniques. Time-slowing mechanic—This type of mechanic allows the players to change the speed at which time passes to give them more time to react or outmaneuver enemies. This could be used to give players a closer look at the intricate details of a technique. By mastering something in slow-mo first, the transition to normal speeds might be smoother. Resurrecting at a save point—When players die in a game, they are allowed to restart at a place where they do not lose all of their progress. This allows players to experiment without fear of permanent consequences. An alternative to this is a game mode that is popular in RPGs called “Hardcore,” which makes the player’s character disappear after death. Always explain the scoring methods to player so they can self-evaluate when the scoring is not available in real life. Levels and experience—These are built into many games as an indicator of progress and strength. Players often set goals around these values. These levels can be matched up with learning objectives to align players’ game progression with knowledge. Attributes like dexterity or motivation—These are used in games to indicate what qualities the player exemplifies. They can be used in educational games to imply what qualities are most desired for a particular task. Allegory An allegory can be used when an analogous representation of an event or experience is more effective than the actual event in terms of training. Sometimes an allegory can be easier to apply an interesting story to or, in the case of therapeutic games, easier for the players to deal with issues indirectly. This is particularly effective when a process can be re-created using simple game mechanics. Examples: Teaching how a lysosome cleans a cell by creating a game with mechanics similar to Pac￾Man. In this game the players must respond to signals from within the cell and steer a lysosome around to eat garbage in a cell. Do not become too abstract with your metaphors. Keep it simple and keep the mechanics as true to whatever you are representing as possible. Laws and Rules Laws and rules inside a game or simulation give players a framework to work within. Laws and rules are not the same thing. A law is something like gravity that is fundamental to the game or simulation world. A rule is something like speeding that we hold the player accountable to. Another example can be taken from a game children play where the floor is lava and you must navigate a room and not touch the floor. “Don’t jump on the lava” is the rule that kids use in a game. How far they can jump is dictated by the laws of physics. You can break or bend a rule and the game can punish or reward you for that. Laws cannot be broken. When creating the laws and rules in your game, think about how you want to limit the players. Are the laws you create similar to the real world or unrealistic? Are the rules guiding the player in a meaningful way? For example, the rule in the game Operation is not to touch the sides. That rule could be justified because when performing real surgery you wouldn’t want to cut anywhere outside of the intended location. Decide what is important to the learning experience and add rules based on that. Some questions to ask include: Is speed important? Add a timer. Is accuracy important? Add a metric for precision. Is it important to complete everything? Add a metric tracking progress. Is it important to instill a feeling of growth in the players? Add leveling and experience points. Challenge Challenge is a good thing in games, gamification, and simulations. Design challenge to scale with player experience to keep them engaged and motivated. Keeping players teetering on the fine line between boredom and stress is what makes players fall into a flow state. We create challenge by doing several things: Having increasingly more difficult objectives (learning and game) and goals for players Chunking information in consumable clusters and distributing them evenly Sequencing information so it is relevant to players Scaffolding in assistance to players as they need it and taking it away at appropriate times so they can become more self-sufficient Shifting the rules to alter the players’ current strategy and take them out of their comfort zones In order to effectively accomplish the techniques listed above, it is essential that playtesting and tuning take place. It is impossible to predict how players will respond to your efforts to challenge them. If you go too far, they will be overwhelmed, and if you do not do enough, they will lose interest. When playtesting you must observe players and assess their performance, stress level, enjoyment, and motivation. Story Using a story to complement a game, gamification, or simulation is a very common practice that has many benefits to players. One benefit is that it creates a setting similar to where the players would use skills or knowledge they acquire. The term used to describe learning in a setting similar to where the knowledge would be used is “situated learning.” Having a story also helps players create a mental model of an entire process and in some cases stay motivated because they want to know what happens next. For more information on the importance of story, refer to Chapter 6 of this book. Exaggerated Story Exaggerated story is used in games to put the players in a situation when the typical experience will not keep them engaged or training for an extreme event will prepare them for all other possibilities. Events in the story can be used to give the players goals that might be outside of a normal operating environment for a task or to give new meaning to mundane duties. This almost always includes the element of “fantasy,” which was discussed in Chapter 3. Some examples include (1) aliens attacking earth so you must learn how to optimize performance in a factory using process improvement tools; (2) a day when everything goes unrealistically wrong; and (3) take whatever you are trying to teach and add the phrase “In spaaaaace” after it

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