Peruse the media here to learn a little more about our approach to Psychology-informed serious game design.
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Game based learning and Gamification are not synonyms. While game-based learning can have gamification elements, it's a different approach all together.
The aims of a serious game will be undermined if the gamification elements like points and badges are too prominent. Our games were designed with this principle in mind!
Motivation -- the energy that drives us -- is managed by a delicate balance of multiple forces. Following from Self Determination Theory, the three prominent forces are the need for Good Relationships, Autonomy, and Competence. Game features can nurture each of these. If only one is over-fed though, then motivational qualities will diminish.
Good relationships are forged when playing with others
Autonomy is nurtured when players can make choices
Competence is fed when players get immediate feedback on their "plays" in the game. As such, rewards matter, but they are not the most important feature to games.
Walton's Wise Intervention model was not made with serious games in mind, but it works well in this context!
To learn more about this approach to establishing ways of promoting healthy changes to behavior, attitudes, and beliefs, check out wiseinterventions.org
Professor and author Ian Bogost coined the term Procedural Rhetoric to convey what can happen in player's minds as they become immersed in a serious or persuasive game. The short of it is that when images, text, and simulated behaviors combine, the experience causes a position, new point of view, or new knowledge + behavior combos to "come into mind". Whereas literary rhetoric is a linguistic means of persuasion, procedural rhetoric is an enactive form of persuasion. Getting the words, actions, and images "just right" is a delicate business, but when it all comes together, attitudes and behaviors can change.
In this video, Bogost discusses Procedural Rhetoric at a symposium hosted by the center for games and playable media at UC Santa Cruz.
Serious Game Organizations
Games for Change: A non-profit organization that empowers game creators and social innovators, Click here
iThrive Games: A non-profit that uses game-based learning (and design) to help teens thrive. Click here.
Persuasive Games: A company that creates games for education, political outreach and more. Click here.
Further Reading
Lost in a good game, by Pete Etchells
Anatomy of Game Design, by Tom Smith
Connected Gaming, by Yasmin Kafai & Quinn Burke
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