Everything these six weeks taught me
“The Rule of the Loop: The more times you test and improve your design, the better your game will be.” – Jesse Schell (The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses)
I think I now have a deeper understanding of the above sentence by Jesse Schell pointing out the nature of design. I would like to share my thoughts on this quote and use the last six weeks of design loop to look back my personal work in the team and reflect on what these six weeks has taught me.
Team Formation
Starting with the team’s name, Maureen, Nicholas, Rachael, Joshua, and I got together to name our game design team. We had quite a few nice options, like Gaia Games Studio, GeoForce Studio, and Terra Learner Labs. Luckily, my proposed team name “ShowMeGeo Studio” was selected. It shows our identity, aligns with client expectations, and reflects our game’s goal—to introduce Geological majors. I am proud to be the creator of the team’s name.
Play More Games Before Designing One
Before we started designing the game, Dr. Oprean asked us to find, play, and share games related to geological majors. Through this exploration, I noticed many games were related to maps, possibly because maps are easier to design into games or simulations.
With the insights gained from playing games shared by other team members, I confirmed my assumption about the common use of maps in geological games. This led us to ponder: What other possibilities could we explore in geological game design? With this question in mind, we began researching our audience.
Understanding the audience is crucial for guiding our next steps in game development. By gaining a deeper insight into the interests, educational backgrounds, and gameplay preferences of our target players, we can tailor our game to better meet their needs and enhance their learning experience.
Researching Learner Persona
During the persona research phase, I drew upon my extensive experience as a secondary school science teacher to contribute to our team’s creation of learner personas. With 16 years of teaching in K-12 schools, I have observed many students choosing geography or related majors as they advance to college or graduate school. Recently, one of my former students, who is now attending the University of Nevada, secured a NASA research grant for his groundbreaking black hole research. Zhang, who was once just a curious young student in my science class in Beijing, China, is an example of the type of student who can significantly inform the development of our learner personas.
Given my background in geography and firsthand observations of secondary school students who pursue it as a major or research direction, I am well-equipped to assist my colleague Maureen in developing the learner persona, with a particular focus on those younger than college age. I am eager to contribute to the descriptions of our learner personas, particularly for high school and middle school students, leveraging real-world examples and experiences to ensure our game design effectively resonates with and educates this demographic.
Game Design
Starting from last semester, in Dr. Oprean’s course “Design Games for Learning”—the one before the current advanced course I am taking—I have been pondering the differences between games, movies, instructional design, and cooking. These thoughts frequently emerged in my mind, sparked by the many similarities between these disciplines. While writing a blog to review the past six weeks, these thoughts visited me again.
In my opinion, game design closely resembles movie design, instructional design, and even cooking. Why? Because all involve preparation: a game blueprint, screenwriting, a lesson plan, or a cooking procedure. The clients of the game, the viewers of the movie, the students in a class, and the tasters for a dish are the targets for these designs. All need interactive improvements if the creators wish to present the best to the end user.
You can find lovers of good food, elegant instructions, impressive movies, and playful games everywhere. Additionally, I think good games can also be attractive movies, informative instructions, and high-quality “spirit food,” especially in the case of story games like those ShowMeGeo Studio has been designing.
Schell, J. (2019). The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, Third Edition (3rd edition). A K Peters/CRC Press. )
Jesse Schell used a figure (Schell, 2019) to illustrate the five important elements that comprise story games: Story, World, Economy, Action, and Fantasy. From this figure, I could confirm my imagination about the relationships between games, movies, instruction, and food once again. Because again, games, movies, teaching, and food can all contain the same five elements, and those elements can be improved upon by the designer.
For the importance of the story design in a game, Schell (2019) pointed out, “ When developing a game with a compelling story, it can be very tempting to start not by designing a game but by writing your story.” Now, let me focus on the story design.
Game Storming
Where do good game ideas come from? Kultima concluded some points from the interviews that, “Good ideas were seen as inspiring for others to immediately build on top of them. It was seen as beneficial when a description gave enough information for other to imagine the idea, but enough space for them to develop it further. The bouncing of ideas would expose that quality of an idea.” (Kultima, n.d.) During a weekend brainstorming session inspired by Maureen, I developed a game idea while cycling on the MKT trail in Columbia, MO. This idea was influenced by geographic facts displayed on the trail (figure 3), leading to the creation of our game “CoMo Valley,” which incorporates different spaces and historical periods.
The Design Loop
When the five of us began sharing our specific ideas on a shared Google Doc, we quickly encountered a “chicken or egg” dynamic. This dynamic persisted in the following weeks as we developed the Storyboard, Objective Mapping, Assessment Plan, and the Concept Testing Report. We often debated which component should be introduced first: game mechanics, instructional objectives, assessment plans, or storyboard design? There is no definitive answer, as the ideal approach may vary from one game studio to another.
I confirmed this assumption during a guest lecture with Greg Marlow, who has extensive experience in both the game industry and academic settings focused on game design. The design process is inherently iterative—meaning the more times you test and refine your design, the better your game will become (Schell, 2019) . This also aligns with Dr. Oprean’s initial introduction to the course, where we embraced the concept of being in a continuous loop of development and improvement.
One key realization I had during our game development process is the importance of continually revisiting the problem description. I found myself rereading it numerous times to ensure that our design stayed aligned with the initial goals and objectives. This constant reference helped keep our project on the right track, ensuring that every element of the game design directly addressed the core issues we set out to solve. It served as a crucial checkpoint that guided our development decisions and helped maintain a clear focus throughout the iterative design process.
Problem Description
- There has been a steady decline in Geography majors over the years despite the real-world need for keeping the long-standing discipline alive. To better understand the problem, you can read a bit more on the decline here.
- Very few games and simulation solution exist to engage in the practice of Geography.
- Geography is a multi-faceted discipline with very diverse areas of practice, many of which are often confused with other discipline in Environmental Sciences and GeoScience.
- Geography in practice differs from what is taught in K-12 classrooms (K-12 classrooms focus on facts-based information where Geographers synthesize and draw meaning from human and environment interactions).
During this development phase, Dr. Soren Larsen shared his expectations for the game, emphasizing the importance of enhancing students’ abilities to analyze spatial patterns. The challenge was to design a game that not only helps novice learners understand the role of geographers but also trains students majoring in geography to analyze spatial patterns on thematic maps effectively.
To address this dual need, I suggested a multi-level design approach. This strategy allows us to cater to both novice and professional learners within the same game environment. By implementing different levels of complexity and challenge, we can ensure that our game is accessible yet sufficiently challenging to engage and educate players at various stages of their educational journey. This approach aims to provide a seamless learning curve that enhances the educational value of the game for all users.
Reflecting on My Process
As an experienced secondary teacher, I brought a lot of first-hand educational experience to our design process. Despite challenges in communication due to language barriers, I learned the importance of patience and persistence in game design.
New Content
The past six weeks have taught me the significant impact of patience in designing games, and the immense effort required to create games like “Stardew Valley” as an individual.
This process has been a valuable part of my learning and growth as a game designer, helping me to understand the intricate relationship between different creative processes and the importance of iterative design in game development.
References
Forming a Learner-Player Persona
I attended a workshop at the Teaching for Learning Center. Once again, I was reminded by the host of the workshop (slides) Dr. Bethany Stone that all the good lecturers need to understand their audiences. While designing a serious game, the reminder is still meaningful. ShowMeGeo Studios memembers have been working on designing a learner-player personna to develop a serious game to introduce more audience what the geographers do. Dr. Opren encouraged us to design the persona from three different perspectives: a learner, a user and a player.
Part 1: Gather Some Information for creating a learner persona
As a learner, the most important thing, while I play games for learning, is providing me with a new way or new angle to observe the learning content. For example, I can learn the special relationships between the planet earth and sun and other celestial bodies according to read books and watch documentary films. But the game may provide me a chance to manipulate a spaceship to travel through our solar system to explore them. For the most valuable entertainment I would like to enjoy while playing games, is a feeling of freedom. The freedom bring by the game should let me forget the difficulties in my real life and help me forget bitterness or anxiety for a while, which help me refresh. When I use games and simulations as learning tools, my highest expectations is to extend my attention span to focus on practicing or learning.
Source of the information: I have asked three secondary school students about their preferences while playing games. I interviewed them and record their responses.
Types of information I collected: verbal descriptions.
Part 2: Analyze my Findings for creating a learner persona
When I taught science courses in my former school, I used game-based learning as a very important teaching strategy. From my experience, I could understand learners’ preferences when they engaged in the learning games. So, I conducted virtual interviews with three of my former students who, during their middle or high school years, chose Geography as their major in college. As their former science teacher and homeroom teacher, I not only maintain close connections with them but also have a deep understanding of their personalities and experiences. Please note that these three students represent a larger group who majored in Geography, embodying the most common traits of those passionate about the subject.
Based on my virtual interviews with these former students, I have summarized my findings below. Additionally, if time permits, I would like to share and discuss these findings with the real persons to refine and enhance my understanding.
| Participant 1 | Participant 2 | Participant 3 | |
| Name | Zhang | Qin | Zhu |
| Bio | G7 student in middle school. GPA is in top 20% of his class. Interested in observing starry night. | Freshman in high school. GPA is in top 40% of her class. Interested in investigating the stories back of the hills and rivers. | Senior in high school. GPA is in top 60% of his class. Interested in traveling around the world. |
| Age | 13 | 15 | 17 |
| Gender | Male | Female | Male |
| What is important to you when you play games for learning? | How can I learn fast and better? | Not too hard and complicated. | Help me understand the learning content. |
| What is important to you when you play games for entertainment? | I want to have more joy. | Peaceful and beautiful. | Give me a real experience feeling. |
| What is important to you regarding user experience and usability with learning games as learning tools? | Can it help me tackle learning difficulties? | Use less time and learn more. | I want it can give me possibilities to design my games to learn the knowledge. |
Part 3: Reflect on my Data Collection Process
I would like to express my sincere thanks to Maureen for providing a well-structured learner persona template. Following our discussions on Canvas and during our online meeting, we have decided to merge her college student learner persona with my high school student persona. Narrowing the focus from broad to specific presents a challenge, as does expanding your focus in diverse directions. Drawing on the insights gained from virtual interviews with my former students, I am proposing a secondary school learner persona utilizing Maureen’s template. The referenced articles are: How to Use Learner Personas to Understand Your Audience (growthengineering.co.uk)And How to Develop Learner Personas for Effective Training (td.org)
A new learner persona (high-school student) created by me
Name: Danny
Bio:
Age: 15 Freshman
in high school. GPA is in top 50% of his class. From a mid-size city,
studying in a public high school, interested in travelling
Race: mixed race
Gender: Male
Motivation: stories enthusiast
Key character
traits: curious energetic, positive,
considers himself a Creative
Key learning
type: kinesthetic learner (learns by
doing), Visual learner, naturalistic learner
Key challenges toward
learning: does not like math, has trouble
concentrating during lectures, requires highly structured instructions, wants
all classes to be goal oriented, difficulty understanding scientific concepts.
Games: Role-Playing-Games and flight simulation games.
A learner persona (a college student) created by Maureen
Name: Sue Learner (she/her)
Bio: College Freshman, currently Undecided.
Graduated in top 25% of her high school class. From a small, rural
community and attending a large public university. Follows van life
influencers and is interested in building a tiny house.
Age: 18
Race: mixed race
Gender: female
Motivation: Wants a job in “sustainability,” financial stability
Key character
traits: excited, self-motivated,
positive, considers herself a Creative
Key learning
type: kinesthetic learner (learns by
doing)
Key challenges toward
learning: does not like math, has trouble
concentrating during lectures, requires highly structured instructions, wants
all classes to be goal oriented.
Games: Enjoys Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and
Breath of the Wild, has a Twitch stream with 250 followers. Prefers solo
games, but likes to chat with her followers while playing.
Part 4: The combination learner persona
Name: Kayla S. Learner (she/her)
Bio: Age: 17, Senior in high school with a GPA in the top 40% of her class. From a mid-size city and interested in sustainability, particularly in the context of travel and building spaces such as tiny houses.
Race: Mixed race
Gender: Female
Motivation: Passionate about stories telling, sustainability, and financial stability. Aims to work in a field that combines their creative interests with environmental consciousness.
Key Character Traits: Curious, energetic, excited, self-motivated, positive, and highly creative.
Key Learning Type: Kinesthetic learner (learns by doing), visual learner, and naturalistic learner.
Key Challenges Toward Learning: Struggles with math and has difficulty concentrating during lectures, needs highly structured instructions, prefers goal-oriented classes, and sometimes finds scientific concepts challenging.
Games: Enjoys a variety of games, including role-playing games, flight simulation, Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and Breath of the Wild. They have a moderate following on Twitch where they engage with followers while playing mainly solo games, but also enjoy the social interaction that comes with streaming.
The challenges I encountered for forming information into a persona were include which the key words I should select can on behalf of the main traits of the interviewees? How can I use a simple but accurate way to describe the learner personal? Finally, I thought the current process for me was to get a quick and dirty persona as a scratch to continue the following steps. I should focus on the main traits of the users.
Read MoreResearching Learner Persona
I will use this blog entry to share my learner persona creation, as well as the reflection of the whole creation process.
Part 1: Gather Some Information
As a learner, the most important thing while I playing games for learning is providing me a new way or new angle to observe the learning content. For example, I can learn the special relationships between planet earth and sun and other celestial bodies according to read books and watch documentary films. But the game may provide me a chance to manipulate a spaceship to travel through our solar system to explore them. For the most valuable entertainment I would like to enjoy while playing games, is a feeling of freedom. The freedom bring by the game should let me forget the difficulties in my real life and help me forget bitterness or anxiety for a while, which help me refresh. When I use games and simulations as learning tools, my highest expectations is to extend my attention span to focus on practicing or learning.
Source of the information: I have asked three secondary school students about their preferences while playing games. I interviewed them and record their responses.
Types of information I collected: verbal descriptions.
Part 2: Analyze my Findings
When I taught science courses in my former school, I used game-based learning as a very important teaching strategy. From my experience, I could understand learners’ preferences when they engaged in the learning games. So, I conducted virtual interviews with three of my former students who, during their middle or high school years, chose Geography as their major in college. As their former science teacher and homeroom teacher, I not only maintain close connections with them but also have a deep understanding of their personalities and experiences. Please note that these three students represent a larger group who majored in Geography, embodying the most common traits of those passionate about the subject.
Based on my virtual interviews with these former students, I have summarized my findings below. Additionally, if time permits, I would like to share and discuss these findings with the real persons to refine and enhance my understanding.
| Participant 1 | Participant 2 | Participant 3 | |
| Name | Zhang | Qin | Zhu |
| Bio | G7 student in middle school. GPA is in top 20% of his class. Interested in observing starry night. | Freshman in high school. GPA is in top 40% of her class. Interested in investigating the stories back of the hills and rivers. | Senior in high school. GPA is in top 60% of his class. Interested in traveling around the world. |
| Age | 13 | 15 | 17 |
| Gender | Male | Female | Male |
| What is important to you when you play games for learning? | How can I learn fast and better? | Not too hard and complicated. | Help me understand the learning content. |
| What is important to you when you play games for entertainment? | I want to have more joy. | Peaceful and beautiful. | Give me a real experience feeling. |
| What is important to you regarding user experience and usability with learning games as learning tools? | Can it help me tackle learning difficulties? | Use less time and learn more. | I want it can give me possibilities to design my games to learn the knowledge. |
Part 3: Reflect on my Data Collection Process
I would like to express my sincere thanks to Maureen for providing a well-structured learner persona template. Following our discussions on Canvas and during our online meeting, we have decided to merge her college student learner persona with my high school student persona. Narrowing the focus from broad to specific presents a challenge, as does expanding your focus in diverse directions. Drawing on the insights gained from virtual interviews with my former students, I am proposing a secondary school learner persona utilizing Maureen’s template. The referenced articles are: How to Use Learner Personas to Understand Your Audience (growthengineering.co.uk)And How to Develop Learner Personas for Effective Training (td.org)
A new learner persona (high-school student) created by me
Name: Danny
Bio:
Age: 15 Freshman
in high school. GPA is in top 50% of his class. From a mid-size city,
studying in a public high school, interested in travelling
Race: mixed race
Gender: Male
Motivation: stories enthusiast
Key character
traits: curious energetic, positive,
considers himself a Creative
Key learning
type: kinesthetic learner (learns by
doing), Visual learner, naturalistic learner
Key challenges toward
learning: does not like math, has trouble
concentrating during lectures, requires highly structured instructions, wants
all classes to be goal oriented, difficulty understanding scientific concepts.
Games: Role-Playing-Games and flight simulation games.
A learner persona (a college student) created by Maureen
Name: Sue Learner (she/her)
Bio: College Freshman, currently Undecided.
Graduated in top 25% of her high school class. From a small, rural
community and attending a large public university. Follows van life
influencers and is interested in building a tiny house.
Age: 18
Race: mixed race
Gender: female
Motivation: Wants a job in “sustainability,” financial stability
Key character
traits: excited, self-motivated,
positive, considers herself a Creative
Key learning
type: kinesthetic learner (learns by
doing)
Key challenges toward
learning: does not like math, has trouble
concentrating during lectures, requires highly structured instructions, wants
all classes to be goal oriented.
Games: Enjoys Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and
Breath of the Wild, has a Twitch stream with 250 followers. Prefers solo
games, but likes to chat with her followers while playing.
The combination learner persona
Name: Danielle Learner (she/her)
Bio: Age: 17, Senior in high school with a GPA in the top 40% of their class. From a mid-size city and interested in sustainability, particularly in the context of travel and building spaces such as tiny houses.
Race: Mixed race
Gender: Female
Motivation: Passionate about stories telling, sustainability, and financial stability. Aims to work in a field that combines their creative interests with environmental consciousness.
Key Character Traits: Curious, energetic, excited, self-motivated, positive, and highly creative.
Key Learning Type: Kinesthetic learner (learns by doing), visual learner, and naturalistic learner.
Key Challenges Toward Learning: Struggles with math and has difficulty concentrating during lectures, needs highly structured instructions, prefers goal-oriented classes, and sometimes finds scientific concepts challenging.
Games: Enjoys a variety of games, including role-playing games, flight simulation, Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and Breath of the Wild. They have a moderate following on Twitch where they engage with followers while playing mainly solo games, but also enjoy the social interaction that comes with streaming.
The challenges I encountered for forming information into a persona were include which the key words I should select can on behalf of the main traits of the interviewees? How can I use a simple but accurate way to describe the learner personal? Finally, I thought the current process for me was to get a quick and dirty persona as a scratch to continue the following steps. I should focus on the main traits of the users.
If I had to do this again, I wish to collect more experienced teachers’ feedbacks about their students who eventually chose Geography as college majors. I would like to design a survey to collect the persona information both from teachers and students.
Read MoreGeography Games Research Report
Part 1 – The Method
Initially, I thought it would be very easy for me to find a couple of high-quality serious games or simulations for introduction to Geography major. Since I used quite frequently a lot of applications based on Geography – google map, Uber, Zillow (recently, I have been searching for new apartment rentals for next school year)… However, when I formally started to do the search, the difficulty was beyond my imagination. Finally, I only got a few directly related games about Geography major introduction.
Before searching, I tended to clarify the definition of Geography. With better understanding about the definition of Geography, I could trace the targeted games more accurately. I preferred the definition of Geography from the National Geography website after I compared different descriptions of “What is Geography” from different references, “Geography is the study of places and the relationships between people and their environments. Geographers explore both the physical properties of Earth’s surface and the human societies spread across it. They also examine how human culture interacts with the natural environment, and the way that locations and places can have an impact on people. Geography seeks to understand where things are found, why they are there, and how they develop and change over time(Geography, n.d.).”
Beyond the definition, I knew that as an expansive discipline, geography covers a lot of study which can always be confused with other disciplines in Environment Sciences and GeoScience. About three-quarters of graduates from the doctoral program become college professors or join college faculties(Beck, 2019). Then, based on the better understanding about what Geography as a major focuses on, I used the following platforms and methods to do the searching.
- GoogleScholar
I used “Game”, “Geography Education” as keywords to research the related articles published after 2014, 51,700 results returned, narrowed down the research results by adding more keywords, such as “Introduction OR Simulation OR Orientation”, and picked up 4 related articles (Robinson et al., 2021) (Gi̇rgi̇n, 2017) (Tidmarsh, n.d.) (Morawski & Wolff-Seidel, 2023) from the results. Unfortunately, none of the related articles mentioned specific games or simulations about Geography general introduction. They were related to game design theory or instructional suggestions with games.
I used “Game OR Simulation OR Geography OR Geographer” as keywords and keyword groups to search related targets. Most of the results were web pages with game introductions, but seldom of them met my expectations. Finally, I found three mostly related games.
Part 2 – The Results
- Game 1: MapMaker
- https://www.arcgis.com/apps/instant/atlas/index.html?appid=0cd1cdee853c413a84bfe4b9a6931f0d&rsource=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.esri.com%2Fnatgeomapmaker
- Learning Domain: Conceptual knowledge, Rule-based knowledge
- Core dynamic: exploration.
- Summary: The purpose of this simulation is to invite learners to explore anywhere on the planet earth they are interested in, and design a map with different layers which they want to have on the map. For example, they can add latitudes and longitudes, transportation, Earthquake information, Volcanic Eruptions information, etc. on their own map. The different layers include many categories which can meet the designers’ personal preferences and help them understand the meaning of maps, as well as the work details of geographers.
- Client’s expectation: All ages will be welcome to use. The higher standard functions will be more suitable for high-school students and college students who are going to prefer geography as their majors. But the players can not easily understand the traits of geography majors by simply playing the game without instructor’s introduction and guideline.
- Game 2: Geographical Adventures (Under Construction)
- https://sebastian.itch.io/geographical-adventures
- Learning Domain: Declarative knowledge, Conceptual knowledge, Affective knowledge
- Core dynamics of the game are exploration and collecting.
- Summary: It is a little game under development. The game rules are simple: fly around the world, picking up packages and delivering them to various cities as players go. There are three locations marked at the top of the screen. At each location, players will find a hot air balloon waiting with a package for the players to collect. Fly the plane through the balloons to collect the packages. Once the package has been picked up, its location at the top of the screen will change to a delivery address. Fly over to that city based on geography knowledge and drop the package off there. While playing the little game, players will be familiar with the world map, as well as the specific locations of the main cities on the map. The comfortable music and pleasant game graphics give players a beautiful feeling of being a world traveller.
- Client’s expectation: All ages are welcome, especially designed for the players who want to change their understanding about world maps and knowledge of cities all over the world. But the players can not easily understand the traits of geography majors by simply playing the game without instructor’s introduction and guideline.
- Game 3: NASA Earth Observations
- Website: https://neo.gsfc.nasa.gov/
- The core dynamic of the simulation is exploration.
- Learning Domain: Declarative knowledge, Conceptual knowledge
- Summary: Users can get visually descriptive data about energy, land, life, ocean of the world from a birdview angle, and the time bar at the bottom can show the date in different years, which are helpful to see the relative change and do comparison.
- Client’s expectation: All ages can use it, but it is more suitable for college students or graduate students who need specific data about geography. But the players can not easily understand the traits of geography majors by simply playing the game without instructor’s introduction and guideline.
- Game 4: Mini Solar System
- Video introduction website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHnfQzlqKPg
- Core dynamic: Exploration, Matching.
- Learning Domain: Declarative knowledge, Conceptual knowledge, Affective knowledge
- Summary: In the Fall semester of 2023-2024, I learnt how to use OpenSimulator to create a desktop Virtual Reality project. When I used OpenSimulator to design my instructional content, I used more energy to decide which learning content I should create than thinking about what technologies I should use during my personal project. What kind of scenarios can I create in the virtual reality learning environment (VRLE) to provide the learners with a better learning experience than in the real learning environment? At that moment, a sentence sounded near my ears, “People do not learn from technology; they learn from thinking. When technologies can enhance students thinking, they should be used. Otherwise, they are probably no better than no technology.” This sentence was from David H. Jonassen, when he commented to the relationships between learning and technology during an interview(Simsek, 2012). My initial thinking for creating my VR project was a studying area contains more barriers or constraints for the learners in the real world. Both the small-sized and large-sized worlds met my assumption. E.g., a plant cell or a solar system is impossible for common learners to experience in real life, but in the VRLE, the answer is OK. Plus, in OpenSimulator, the avatar can fly to check the virtual creation from more dimensions, making it easier and more beneficial for learners who want to learn space science. Then, I created my personal VRLE, a Mini Solar System.
- Client’s expectation: In this serious game, players can manipulate an avatar to explore the mini solar system to better understand the location of our planet earth, then increase their interests in Geography learning. I believe this serious game is suitable for high-school students and college students to explore the solar system in a VR setting. But the players can not easily understand the traits of geography majors by simply playing the game without instructor’s introduction and guideline.
Part 3 – The Critique
There were quite a few apparent commonalities between the games I introduced. Three of them were related to maps. Maybe maps were much easier to be designed for Geological games or simulations.
Game designers like instructional designers, will face a diverse audience, they will never know the specific expectations of the audience. The best games, as well as the best instructions, should be the most proper ones to the players and learners. It requires the game designers to have a tool box which can create different types to fit different players’ expectations. The relationship between chance, strategy, skill, simulation, expressiveness, performance, whimsy, role-playing, competition, and cooperation can be recombined in different ways to create new play experiences – like a chef combines different ingredients and cuisines to create new dishes and fusions (Macklin & Sharp, 2016). The four games I introduced belong to different categories. According to their different traits, they can be put in different positions in a play matrix (Fig. 1) (Fullerton, 2018). Mini Solar System belongs to skill-based Play. Geographical Adventures contains both skill-based game and experience-based game elements. MapMake and NASA Earth Observation belong to simulation-based play (Fullerton, 2018).
Fig. 1 Four Games in a Game Matrix
My client’s expectation of the game was seeking a testable serious game design that not only can help attract interest in the field of Geography, but also educates players on what Geographers do. All the games I introduced met parts of the requirements, but without specific designs for introducing what kinds of jobs the Geographers will do after they graduated from a Geography major. After playing several games about geography, I can feel more realistically about what geography is about. But, the games and simulations I explored just covered surface learning content, which showed a clear signal to us that there is a gap for game designers to create some serious games.
References
Tidmarsh, C. (n.d.). Think Piece – Using games in geography.
Researching Game — Where Have All the Geography Majors Gone?
In this blog post, I want to report my researching on Geography games in the past week. Initially, I thought it would be very easy for me to find a couple of high-quality serious games or simulations for introduction to Geography major. Since I used quite frequently a lot of applications based on Geography – google map, Uber, Zillow (recently, I have been searching for new apartment rentals for next school year)… However, when I formally started to do the search, the difficulty was beyond my imagination. Finally, I only got a few directly related games about Geography major introduction.
Before searching, I tended to clarify the definition of Geography. With better understanding about the definition of Geography, I could trace the targeted games more accurately. I preferred the definition of Geography from the National Geography website after I compared different descriptions of “What is Geography” from different references, “Geography is the study of places and the relationships between people and their environments. Geographers explore both the physical properties of Earth’s surface and the human societies spread across it. They also examine how human culture interacts with the natural environment, and the way that locations and places can have an impact on people. Geography seeks to understand where things are found, why they are there, and how they develop and change over time(Geography, n.d.).”
Beyond the definition, I knew that as an expansive discipline, geography covers a lot of study which can always be confused with other disciplines in Environment Sciences and GeoScience. About three-quarters of graduates from the doctoral program become college professors or join college faculties(Beck, 2019). Then, based on the better understanding about what Geography as a major focuses on, I used the following platforms and methods to do the searching.
What did I find?
- I found this game on the website of National Geographic. I used “game” as a keyword and spotlighted the game from the search results.
- The core dynamic of this simulation is exploration. The purpose of this simulation is to invite learners to explore anywhere on the planet earth they interested in, and design a map with different layers which they want to have on the map. The different layers include many categories which can meet the designers’ personal preferences and help them understand the meaning of maps, as well as the work details of geographers.
- All ages will be welcome to use. The higer standard functions will be more suitable for high-school students and college students who are going to prefer geography as their majors.
- Geographical Adventures (Under Construction)
- https://sebastian.itch.io/geographical-adventures
- Firstly, I found an introduction video of the game from youtube, then I trace the game on itchi.io and github.
- It is a little game under development. The Core dynamics of the game are exploration and collecting. The game rules are simple: fly around the world, picking up packages and delivering them to various cities as players go. There are three locations marked at the top of the screen. At each location, players will find a hot air balloon waiting with a package for the players to collect. Fly the plane through the balloons to collect the packages. Once the package has been picked up, its location at the top of the screen will change to a delivery address. Fly over to that city based on geography knowledge and drop the package off there.
- All ages, especially designed for the players who want to change their understanding about world map and knowledge of cities all over the world.
- NASA Earth Observations
- Website: https://neo.gsfc.nasa.gov/
- I found this simulation from NASA website.
- The core dynamic of the simulation is exploration. Users can get visually descriptional data about energy, land, life, ocean of the world from a birdview angle, and the time bar at the bottom can show the date in different years, which are helpful to see the relative change and do comparison.
- All ages can use it, but it is more suitable for college students or graduate student who need specific data about geography.
- Mini Solar System
- Video introduction website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHnfQzlqKPg
- This is a serious game created by me.
- In Fall semester of 2023-2024, I learnt how to use OpenSimulator to creat desktop Virtual Reality project. When I used OpenSimulator to design my instructional content, I used more energy to decide which learning content I should create than thinking about what technologies I should use during my personal project. What kind of scenarios can I create in the virtual reality learning environment (VRLE) to provide the learners with a better learning experience than in the real learning environment? At that moment, a sentence sounded near my ears, “People do not learn from technology; they learn from thinking. When technologies can enhance students thinking, they should be used. Otherwise, they are probably no better than no technology.” This sentence was from David H. Jonassen, when he commented to the relationships between learning and technology during an interview(Simsek, 2012). My initial thinking for creating my VR project was a studying area contains more barriers or constraints for the learners in the real world. Both the small-sized and large-sized worlds met my assumption. E.g., a planet cell or a solar system is impossible for common learners to experience in real life, but in the VRLE, the answer is OK. Plus, in OpenSimulator, the avatar can fly to check the virtual creation from more dimensions, making it easier and more beneficial for learners who want to learn space science. Then, I created my personal VRLE, a Mini Solar System. In this serious game, players can manipulate an avantar to explore the mini solar system to better understand the location of our planet earth, then increase their interests in Geography learning.
- I believe this serious game is suitable for high-school students and college students to explore solar system in a VR setting.
What have I learned about games in my topic area?
In college, I minored in Science Education, which helped me understand the Geography was a broad major covered many study areas. According to play several games about geography, I can feel more realistically about what geography is about. But, the games and simulations I explored just covered superficial learning content, which showed a clear signal to us, the game designers to keep in mind the current gap.
There were quite a few apparent commonalities between the games. Most of the games, include many games I played but not introduced in this blog post, were related to maps. May be maps were much easier to be designed to games or simulations.
References
Geography. (n.d.). Retrieved February 8, 2024, from https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/geography-articleSimsek, A. (2012). Interview with David H. Jonassen: Looking at the Field of Educational Technology from Radical and Multiple Perspectives. Contemporary Educational Technology, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.30935/cedtech/6069
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