Direct Link To Paper: Creating Flow, Motivation, and Fun in Learning Games. (PS – some external sites do not like direct links to a PDF format, so I used this blog post instead).
In a 2010 Ted conference, Ali Car-Chellman offered this harsh criticism: “Most of the educational games that are out there today are really flash-cards. They are glorified drill-and-practice. They don’t have the depth and rich narrative that really engaging video games have†(Car-Chellman, 2010). She concludes with this challenge: “We need to design better games.†This chapter will address her challenge.
The chapter was written by 4 game developers: two from entertainment (Michael Guerrero, Kerry Moffitt) and two from learning games (Curtiss Murphy, Dustin Chertoff). This chapter is part of the book, The Design and Development of Training Games, which is in the final-final stages of preparation and should be published later this year.
Topics include:
- Flow – overview and use in games
- Tasks – explicit, implicit, and player driven
- Feedback
- Balancing Difficulty with Skill
- Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment
- Simplicity
- Paradox of Choice
- Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Motivation
- Control, Baseline Rewards, and Achievements
- Scarcity
- Zeigarnik Effect
- Experiential Design
- Types of Fun
- Fun in the Rules
- Presence
The chapter is made available with permission of Cambridge University Press and the authors.