It's Dangerous To Go Alone! Take This.
How I'm using The Legend of Zelda series, especially Breath of the Wild, and it's fantastic game mechanics to enhance my gamified class.
Posted: February 28, 2021
I have always loved the Zelda franchise. And yes, that's despite being so frustrated in Zelda II for the original NES. The original is an absolute classic, but I've always enjoyed every other iteration I've played. A Link to the Past and Wind Waker are two major highlights, and I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get to some of the others along the way, like Majora's Mask, but by and large I've tried to play them whenever I had the chance.
And it's a good thing, too, as when we got a Switch during these Covid times I always knew that I'd eventually get to Breath of the Wild. And when the scene to the right played out a few minutes in, I knew I was in for a treat...
AND WHAT A TREAT IT WAS.
I got this game for Christmas, and played it a few times once the kids were asleep. But then a funny thing happened - my girls (5 and 8) saw me play it one time and fell under its spell instantly. After that, they wanted to watch me play it almost daily, and it was actually used as a positive reinforcement for their behaviour. I had my own in person Twitch account going, and the people watching my stream were my kids. How cool is that?
I beat it recently, and even that didn't stop the action. They wanted to continue exploring Hyrule, find more horses to board, find more shrines to solve, find more side-quests to check off the list. Or cook new ingredients. This game is incredible not just for its gameplay, but for its setup - you can do whatever you want, whenever you want, and the end-goal of defeating Ganon is just the end of whatever journey you decide to take.
So how can I harness this power for the good of my classroom? Well, I have a few ideas.
First of all, I had two main ideas for my gamified class that I wanted to implement - an open world to explore and discover from the get-go, and a status screen to keep track of all of the students progress, items, XP, currency and health. I've always loved that Zelda didn't really care how you progressed in the game and let you explore and find your way. But I also loved how you would come across an area that you know you can't access until you find the item you need, like a boat for the dock you found, or a bomb for the cracked wall you walked by.
So I've wanted to have an overworld map, passcode-protected, that students could see from the time the course started, with a "second screen" to show them these required passcodes when they earned them. I wanted areas to be locked until the student earned the ability to access that area. And I wanted a lot of student choice with multiple pathways to victory. I managed to make a decent status screen in Google Sheets, and managed to make a decent overworld in Google Slides while using Thinfi.com to passcode-protect the links. It was... decent.
But then I stumbled across genial.ly and glideapps.com via the #XPLAP chat Twitter, and my world changed for the better.
First of all, you really need to do the deep-dive into the Gilde gamified app tutorials that Robert Petitto (@rpetitto) has compiled on his YouTube channel. It's a lengthy playlist, and there's a pretty deep learning curve, but it's TOTALLY worth it if you can devote some time and follow it really closely. I've learned a bunch about how the program works, but I'm still lost when it comes to why he does a few of the things he does, but once it's done it works. IT WORKS. And it's unbelieveable.
Not only do I have a functioning status screen for the students, it's an entire app that acts like the Sheikah Slate in Breath of the Wild (basically a medieval iPad). And here studetns can see their progress, their stats, their badges, the objects they've unlocked and it even has an in-app item purchasing and crafting system. IT'S WILD.
Next up was Genially, which is a fantastic presentation software that allows you to password protect your slides. I've used this site to make interactive maps that rely on passcodes that will display via the Glide app to access those slides once the student levels up. It's a match made in heaven. Basically, I'm able to have the map below embedded on my Google Site from day one, but I'm able to keep them "on the rails" to start to allow for the onboarding process. Once I hold their hand through the initially few mechanics of the game, it opens up into the bigger map and allows them to do whatever they want and access various areas - as long as they put the work in to earn that privilege.
There are a lot of other elements and mechanics that I'm planning on bringing over, but these were the first two that really got the ball rolling. I'll be adding some of them to upcoming blogs here, as I do plan on using riddles and puzzles to populate my Shrines, and to have class-wide boss battles for the four Divine Beasts (already thinking about using Floor is Lava on @playblooket for the Death Mountain one). But basically, if you're interested in using a theme or story from an existing universe, try to see if there's a map to use. I've found one for the Hunger Games, Scott Pilgrim, and Zelda: BOTW. I'm sure there'd be something for Harry Potter (a map of Hogwarts perhaps?), Star Wars (a galaxy full of planets?), and Lord of the Rings (Middle Earth for sure has one).
Until my next post, maybe have a listen to my chat with Michael Matera on the Well Played podcast from a few weeks ago. We chatted about pretty much everything in this post, so if you're looking for more information about what I'm trying to do it'd be a great spot to start listening. Cheers!