Critical perspective
Creating a game concept based on academically theoretical framework can be a
contradictive task. Computer games are primarily about having fun, losing oneself
and their creation through definitely build on hard earned experience, is still a very
intuitive process. This does not mean that it should not be done, on the contrary.
There are enormous potentials for computer games in other areas that simply
entertainment. Our method has is build from a theoretical perspective. We pull the
essence of this theory into our empirical field to give it “life” and expand on thee
points. Our method can therefore be criticized for not being grounded thoroughly
enough empirically. By using existing learning games, we could have examined our
theoretical arguments by testing them on our target group. We could see to what
extend these theoretical arguments are experienced in the actual playing of learning
games. Our ambition has been the construction of a concept for an adventure game
for learning that takes a point of departure in a concrete case. We have had to
choose whether we wanted to focus on a theoretical perspective or empirical
analysis. Our decision to take the theoretical angel comes from the novelty of this
field. There does not exists an established academic school of thought dealing with
learning and computer games, it is still emerging. We have therefore felt that we
must focus on establishing the theoretical preconditions for making such a concept.
Only when these preconceptions are in place can they be emerically validated.
Instead, our empirical data has been concerned with shedding light on and getting
inspiration for these theoretical arguments and how they can “come alive” in or
concept. We have tried to argue for and make our points clear section by section and
lastly developed our concept around these arguments. The danger is that our
bulletin points do not reflect the theoretical contemplation or analysis that come
before them. As always, going from abstract to concrete can be very efficient but
stands the danger of losing depth. A more well-established and structured approach
to these “bulletins” could maybe have helped reflect how they are applied in our
concept. Much of computer games are about feelings and intuition and we feel that
this should be reflected in our design document; that it should convey an attitude,
atmosphere and approach for development team.
While our report would have been that much stronger, had we been able to firmly
ground our theoretical arguments in empirical data and could we have used a more
established metheodlogy for implementing our theoretical arguments in our game
concept, we hope that our arguments can give other scholars a head start on the
subject and that our theoretical work can help inspire others empirical work. And
that our concept is now closer to a “real” implementable concept …..
Conclusion
How can we develop a concept for an adventure game where learning is an
integrated game element?
In this thesis we have answered our problem formulation by applying it to a specific
case and seen how the learning of DSRI’s material could become an integrated game
element of Space Adventures. We have argued for a theoretical approach to such
integration and given these arguments life and shape through our empirical data.
These arguments have been developed as bulletin points that we have theoretically
established and reflected on through our empirical data. The decisions of our final
design document should are build on these points coupled with our own fantasy and
ideas. Ultimately, Space Adventures should not be about learning and adventure
games, it should one experience.
What adventure games can do best is involve the player in a personal relationship
with an unfolding story and this has been our approach to making learning an
integrated part of Space Adventures. This personal relationship is established on
several different levels in Space Adventures, but the ambition has ultimately been to
make learning DSRI’s material the core progression element of the game. In this
way we have tried to couple the personal relationship of the unfolding story to the
learning of the material. Learning is essentially about feedback. Reflecting on and
incorporating this feedback into a learning process created a deeper level of learning
and this is what Space Adventures can accomplish. By ultimately establishing a
personal relationship to the learning process, the player is more engaged and more
motivated to incorporate the given feedback into the process. The elements of Flow,
as incorporated in Space Adventures, therefore become elements for motivating
player-reflection on feedback. Our system theoretical approach means that while we
focus on the learning process, we can also focus on teaching and how the teacher
can structure this feedback process towards established and desired objectives.
We would now like to relate the bulletins we have develop through this thesis to the
design document of Space Adventures. This comparison should conclude on how we
have incorporated our research on the topic into the game and ultimately how
learning becomes an integrated game element of Space Adventures. The following
discussion will be centred on these points and cover them, not individually, but
through a discussion.
In terms of what the learning process should be, its form, we have emphasised to
elements: that a joint public entity be created by the students and that the learning
process be structured by a teacher. The central theme here is feedback and we have
therefore taken a communicative approach to this. Learning is individual put most
often occurs when inspired by an exterior disturbance. Through the workspace in
Space Adventures, a teacher/student relationship is established where the student
must make there communicative selections visible and the teacher can structure
these selections in the form of feedback. Reflecting on and incorporating this
structured feedback is essential for the games progress. The discussion which takes
place on every mission of Space Adventures demands that the students share their
ideas and make their learning process public and accessible to others again through
communication. The idea of the discussion is that the students must be able to argue
for what they have learned and in this way become aware of their own learning
process. This process must then be incorporated with the learning process of other
students in a reflective process. While this is the form of the learning process it is
integrated into the other game elements in such a way that the success of this
process becomes a factor for the progression of the game???
The clue/puzzle mechanism ties the learning element into Space Adventures in a
very concrete fashion giving the player concrete objectives for the purpose of this
learning. The story telling and spatial exploration in terms of moving around the
space ship and interacting with it in order to find out what happened to McKloo
becomes the motivating factor for engaging in the learning process, through learning
can the dramatic conflict and their curiosity be solved. The feedback process is not
just something that must be done to play the game. By drawing in the player, this
reflective process becomes part of the game, an integrated game element. Reflecting
on the material means getting closed to finding McKloo and this creates a personal
relationship to the material. This might be the biggest accomplishment of an
adventure game which incorporates learning as a game element. Learning about
gravity or asteroids becomes a matter of find McKloo and the dramatic angel means
the player has a greater chance of relating the material, or even McKloo, to their own
life. When a student hears about asteroids on the television or reads about it in an
article, they might think “what would McKloo have thought?” which might be more
difficult if they had simply been told about there hard facts of the subject.