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(The Grammar Game)
Christine Sinclair
1 April 2007
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Syntactic Moves
(The Grammar Game)
This paper contains a proposal to support the development of an educational
game to improve students’ understanding of grammar, language and
punctuation use. The structure of the game is detailed in the Appendix.
Why would a grammar game be useful?
Judging by the number of complaints about young people’s grammar,
anything that would make grammatical issues more palatable might be
welcomed. Lamentations about poor grammar are seen and heard regularly
in educational newspapers, in university staff discussions, and even in articles
about computer games. Indeed, feelings on grammar run very high in the
gaming community, as can be seen in an extract from a forthcoming stylebook
for gamers (Thomas, Orland and Steinberg, 2007).
The fears are not just to do with communication between generations and
perceived lack of professionalism, though these are significant. There is a
concern that through not seeing how English language is structured, students
risk missing important cues about their studies. An understanding of grammar
can help a student to see, for example, who the agent is in a situation – or,
perhaps more interestingly, how agency can be disguised through use of the
passive voice. Similarly, a student with an interest in games would benefit
from thinking about the difference between nouns and verbs, as demonstrated
in a blog from a game designer (Bateman, 2005). Grammar is therefore
important for structural as well as aesthetic reasons, and for game designers
and well as students.
The broad aim of the game proposed here is to to inflame the passions of
those who are not yet so interested in grammar – and to do it subversively by
(a) engaging them in interesting practices and (b) showing them how those
practices (games) have a grammar and logic of their own. Too often grammar
is taught in a decontextualised way using unreal sentences – or, as one
student put it more succinctly, “it’s just grammar”. The target groups for this
game are gamers, students and game designers themselves.
There are two types of objective here: one for the game itself and one for
learning. They are closely related.

Game objective: to gather syntactical structures – words, phrases,
clauses and punctuation – and put them together in a meaningful
paragraph that contains a message.

Learning objective: to transfer the vocabulary, syntactical structures
and meaning-making encountered in the game to practical applications
of writing, reading, and – particularly – of game design.
The full version of the game would need a strong team. As Friedman puts it:
“The introduction screens for contemporary games read like movie credits,
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listing producers, programmers, artists, musicians, and actors.” (Friedman,
1995, updated on the Internet). Three modes of play are proposed: I might
eventually be able to undertake the interactive fiction mode myself but would
need graphics, animation and programming support at the very least for the
other two modes.
Why would this grammar game be useful?
There are grammar games already on the Internet, but they do not seem to go
much further than drill and practice. They may use lively and appealing
graphics, but the main aim is to get a high score in what feels like a classroom
exercise. For example, there is a punctuation game which demonstrates that
flying apostrophes can look quite impressive, but which simply engages the
player in a few trivial activities before advertising a book (Truss, 2003).
The proposed game is also associated with a book (Sinclair, 2007) which
might be said to provide the “back story”. The characters from the book –
three students called Barbara, Kim and Abel – are also characters in the
game, though the main agent is the player. The students are used to
illustrate, explain, demonstrate and request (occasionally demand). A central
theme of the book is “no sneering”; if people do not know “correct” grammar it
is quite probably not their fault. Two of the routes through the game retain
this feature; the third one departs radically from it (see “The game’s moods”
below).
The game is different because it does not fall into the trap of jazzing up
essentially boring exercises that do not seem to have any end in themselves.
Because it has an ultimate goal tied to a story and related to the sub-puzzles,
it should be sufficiently engaging. It will also be proposed later that the game
might be modified and customised by the players to explore the issues further.
The story
The player enters the game through a classroom where three students have
formed a study group. In the first visit to the classroom, the player can get a
briefcase, a magic eraser and fairly vague instructions about the game.
On leaving the classroom to the east, the player enters the main (social)
space and discovers seven other rooms off this space (see Figure 1 in the
Appendix). Each room has a different function and in each there is a puzzle
(see Figure 2). Sometimes the puzzle involves taking something from one
room to another. The seven puzzles each result in some points for the player
and also a magnetic strip containing some words, or in one case, some
punctuation. The player needs these strips to put on a magnetic board which
is in the centre of the social space.
When the magnetic strips are correctly positioned, a “message” appears and
the player has won. The player can save the game at any stage, and at that
stage there is a message saying what their current status is: “If you quit now,
you will leave as a… berk, novice grammarian, trainee grammarian, semiexpert, grammar-getter. You will not reach your target of being a grammar
mastermind.” The appropriate word will relate to the number of points scored.
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The player can switch at any stage between the three modes or “moods” of
the game: interactive fiction, fantasy or video nasty(ish). The player can only
“die” in the last mentioned, in accordance with my feeling that this is what
might happen when people play with guns.
The game’s moods
The moods of the game have been labelled according to grammatical moods
– indicative, subjunctive and imperative – though these labels were not my
starting point. By happy coincidence, though, the labels seem to fit: indicative
for the interactive fiction, subjunctive for a fantasy visual version, and
imperative for the version where the students turn nasty and start ordering the
player and each other about.
My personal interest is in developing an interactive fiction game, but I felt
early on that that would be unlikely to reach the students whom I really want
to attract. A visual treatment is more likely to appeal particularly to the “virtual
mind” as opposed to the “lettered” one (Monereo, 2004). Images can even
help people who prefer language: I remember taking an interest in gerunds as
a child because of cartoons by Ronald Searle (Willans, 1954). The idea to
include a third “nasty” strand came from debates and joking about violence –
“well, it would probably be acceptable to shoot people for misusing an
apostrophe” – and realising that for some people this would actually bring the
subject to life and make it memorable. The interactive fiction version would
still be preferred by some young people, however, including those who have
difficulties in accessing visual games.
The game would operate in a similar way in each mood, but there would be
visual differences and designers would be expected to take advantage of the
distinguishing features of each style as seen in Table 1 below. Here I have
attempted to outline the differences: I would expect the technical experts to
offer alternative suggestions, especially for issues such as action and speech.
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Table 1: The game’s moods and their differences
Indicative (fiction that
looks like fact)
Subjunctive (fantasy –
how things might be)
Imperative (the
grammar pals turn
nasty)
The player is himself or
herself – with an interest in
finding out about
grammar. Movement
comes from typing
compass directions or
words such as “enter”.
Comments on the player’s
moves are characterised
by wry humour and a mix
of helpful and non-helpful
observations.
The player will need to
choose an avatar.
Movement comes from the
arrow keys or the mouse.
The player will need to
choose an avatar and a
weapon.
Graphics are attractive,
possibly involving cartoons
and bright colours and
very distinctive rooms.
Special effects would be
encouraged – e.g. for use
of the “magic eraser”.
The player uses tools by
typing in appropriate
verbs.
The player will need to
select a verb from a set,
e.g.: point, take, use,
wave, press, push, pull,
open, close, clean
Dialogue occurs through a
“chat” box. If there is no
appropriate response, the
character shrugs his or her
shoulders.
Graphics follow the style
of the subjunctive, but are
harsher – perhaps darker,
or less colourful. The
cartoons might be more
menacing – or perhaps
real people could be used
in a video nasty.
Extra verbs will be needed
for this one, because there
will be guns: shoot, load,
empty
Dialogue occurs through
following a convention,
e.g.
>Barbara, give me the
eraser. or
>Ask Barbara for the
eraser.
If Barbara has no
appropriate response, the
message is (usually):
>Barbara doesn’t answer.
Inventory can be seen by
typing “Inventory”
People generally act in a
positive way, though
Barbara does get annoyed
if the player takes things
(like her magic eraser)
without asking.
Inventory can be seen by
opening the briefcase or
pressing a button to reveal
it.
People are generally
friendly, but occasionally
what the player asks of
them will be too much for
them and they may seem
unco-operative.
If there is no appropriate
response, the character
shakes his or her fist.
Inventory is seen in the
same way as in the
subjunctive mood
People will order the
player – and each other –
around. The librarian in
Room 2 turns particularly
nasty and starts shooting
the player for wrong
typing. The Tardis activity
in Room 5 involves
unpleasant people. The
player has to watch out for
the balaclava’d vigilante in
Room 7.
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I would like players to be able to switch between moods, either by typing
“switch” or pressing a button in the visual versions. When they switch, the
appropriate heading in table 1 comes up.
In each case, the location title, number of moves and points scored are shown
in a panel at the top of the screen.
Entrance 0/0 Points 0
Entrance 0/0 Points 0
Entrance 0/0 Points 0
Weapon
Syntactic Moves (the
grammar game)
An Interactive Fiction by
Christine Sinclair
Release 1 / Serial number
070401 / Inform 7 build 4K41
(I6/v6.31 lib 6/11N) SD
Avatar
Action
Mood
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Entrance
You're standing just outside
the classroom where the
grammar group meets. You
can enter the classroom to
the east. (New players
should type “help”.)
Switch
mood
Select
Action
Avatar
The designer would be expected to stick to similar layouts of objects etc, but
could change colour schemes or lighting, add things like pools of blood etc.
Development
As can be seen in Figure 3 of the Appendix, I have made a start on the
Interactive Fiction (IF) version, but I have not yet got very far. From having
played a few IF games, I think that what I am proposing should be
manageable. The IF community seems to be very willing to share their
expertise, from the freely available design system Inform 7 to the collection of
resources on the ifwiki.
For the other two moods, I would need a lot of support. I have still to work out
some of the details of the puzzles and those might be constrained by the
technology – or even suggested by the technology available.
One problem with the game as described is that once it is solved there would
be no incentive to play it again. This might be overcome by allowing
modification of the game or “modding”. Indeed, I would want to make this a
key feature of the game because part of the target audience is potential game
designers themselves. This is just one of many issues that I would need to
discuss with a design team. It is an appealing idea, as it could also help with
the evaluation of the game especially if combined with an interactive website.
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Conclusion
The outcome of the puzzle pays homage to the author (Gee, 2003) who has
particularly inspired the view that videogames can be educational. As Gee
makes clear, it is the learning principles from videogames that are important –
whether or not a videogame itself is used. This game attempts to incorporate
those principles and to engage students with grammar by presenting it in a
more appealing format. Grammar has always been a notoriously difficult
subject to teach, but it is still needed even (perhaps especially) in our
videogame age. Ironically, the desire to create and participate in games
might provide a sufficient stimulus for students to learn about grammar so that
they have a vocabulary and structure to think about their actions and
relationships in both real and virtual worlds.
References
Bateman, C. A game design grammar (2005) Only a Game
http://onlyagame.typepad.com/only_a_game/2005/11/a_game_design_
g.html
Friedman, T. (1995). Making Sense of Software: Computer Games and
Interactive Textuality. In Cybersociety. S. Jones, Sage Publications.
Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and
literacy. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
Monereo, C. (2004). "The virtual construction of the mind: the role of
educational psychology." Interactive Educational Media 9: 32-47
Sinclair, C. (2007). Grammar: a friendly approach. Maidenhead, Open
University Press.
Thomas, D., K. Orland, et al. (2007). The Videogame Style Guide, Powerplay
Publishing.
Truss, L. (2003). Eats, Shoots and Leaves. London, Profile Books.
Willans, G. (1954). How to be Topp: A Guide to Sukcess for Tiny Pupils,
Including All There is to Kno about Space, Penguin Books.