This is Serious Game Design!

Take it how you like; high quality game design or designing what's known as serious games. The truth is that it's both. I'll admit to being blinded by the math and science game designs that have come far more easily to mind than this kind of game design, but I know when I find quality work. It makes me want to design. Take a look for yourself at this blog post about Brenda's deep game design. That's something that doesn't just educate, it helps you learn and understand.

These are the kinds of things I look for as an artist. Yes, this is being written as an artist, not an educator, designer or anything else. Just reading about her designs and their results brings back the itch to create. I listen to the group Celtic Woman and I want to play music, sing songs and write poetry. It brings back the desire to learn, grow, push myself and most of all to create something worth the effort of creating and consuming repeatedly.

There is an art to game design and teaching that is easily lost even to the masters if they're not careful. Facts are not enough. Even video isn't enough. Let people live the history, the wonder. Yes there are topics like math and science that seem fairly cut and dry, but why not link that knowledge and those skills into the social and historical situations?

The inspiration for Brenda's design direction was teacher her daughter about the slave trade. The numbers from the school lessons distanced the tragedy from the here and now. "So she did what any game designer worth her salt would do: She made a game out of it." - http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/conferences/tgc_2009/6021-TGC-2009-How-a-Board-Game-Can-Make-You-Cry

'Brathwaite assembled a collection of tiny wooden figures, then had her daughter group them into "families." After her daughter was finished, she picked them up by the handful and placed them on a makeshift boat. Her daughter was confused: Why would she take the parents but leave the baby? Why wouldn't brothers stay with their sisters? "No one wants to go," Brathwaite explained. That's when it started to click.

Then Brathwaite devised a primitive resource management mechanic. It took 10 turns for the boat to cross the Atlantic. The boat had 30 units of food. Each turn, the player had to roll a d6, and reduce their food stores by that number. By the trip's halfway point, it was clear to her daughter that her "cargo" wouldn't make it. It wasn't a "fun" game by any means, but it served a different purpose: It helped her daughter intuitively understand the emotional experience of the slave trade, a lesson that numbers on a chalkboard couldn't provide.

At that point, Brathwaite was hooked.' - http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/conferences/tgc_2009/6021-TGC-2009-How-a-Board-Game-Can-Make-You-Cry

For years I've heard people saying why video games are so bad for society. I'll grant that constantly repeating violent behaviors in a way that encourages mindless slaughter is going to desensitize people. After all, look at the news and television. Their content keeps getting worse and worse, like the video games that are following suit, but that's not all video games.

Sometimes we need to be shown atrocities. We need to know they exist. When good becomes commonplace without bad, good looses its meaning. If you don't know its bad, you aren't likely to fix it. If we aren't shown the humanity of those around us, their needs, desires, faults and contributions, it becomes easy to dehumanize them in our minds. Just because somebody is different doesn't mean you are better than they are or that they are a lower form of life.

We also need to be shown hope. How about a follow-up game for the slave trade that covers the Underground Railroad? National Geographic has tried their hands at an Underground Railroad interactive experience. There is a path that leads out of such pits of despair, but usually you have to dig it yourself. That's the truth we need to share, and the fact that it can be done by those with little or nothing to start with except dedication. How about a Sims game that deals with raising public awareness of problems and community organizing?

With a couple simple mechanics Brenda brought the history to life for her daughter, and it's possible to duplicate it. One of the most repeated questions about school topics is when that knowledge will be useful in life, so why not use interactive models to shown them. In military campaigns there are a lot of logistics to be dealt with. I've seriously heard of people having trouble counting change while running a cash register. Make the problem real and interactive. Don't just tell students how it might be useful, show them.

Have fun, spread the word and tell me what you think,
Igen Oukan

This is Serious Game Design!

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