In an earlier post I wonder “What is a game?‘ It looked at the characteristics you can use to define a game. This week for a project I’m working on, I’ve been thinking about how you turn a normal activity into a game, the process of gamification. Jane McGonical is one of the most passionate […]
Archive | Play
RSS feed for this sectionChallenge
I’ve written a couple of posts already about motivation (the motivation to learn and motivational momentum) but today I want to explore some of the issues associated with that powerful driver: challenge. The ability to overcome some conflict is central to the engagement of most narrative experiences. Similarly the level of challenge associated with any […]
Families that play together
There’s a lot of research that seems to state the blindingly obvious but sometimes it is reassuring to discover that our innate beliefs are sound. Like having a local park improves your health or this piece from Concordia University published in the journal Family Relations that reminds us that families that play together are more […]
New connections; common ideas
One of the joys of being able to publish ideas online is the ability to make entirely new connections with people one would never otherwise meet. This weekend I’ve had the pleasure of being introduced (virtually) to two really interesting thinkers and practitioners in fields of play and learning – Lois Holzman and Jim Martinez. […]
Where play meets learning
Play’ and ‘games’ are dirty words to many traditional educationalists because of their connotations of trivial, wasteful and indulgent activity. It might hark back to our WASP-ish philosophy that only hardship and suffering are good for the soul. Even the seminal play theorist, Johan Huizinga, argued that play is “an activity connected with no […]
Games, Narrative & Storytelling
Following my series on narrative formats, I thought it worth thinking a little about the relationship between narrative, storytelling and games more generally. Storytelling and narrative are central components in many forms of entertainment. In traditional dramatic media, the authored story engages the viewer emotionally through a set sequence of predetermined pieces of information, like […]
Creativity, Wooing Women and Disneyland
The evolutionary psychologist, Geoffrey Miller, has published many papers speculating about the development of human creativity – that is, why would we evolve in such a way that we create apparently wasteful artefacts such as art, poetry, humour and music? According to Miller it is all about the Mating Mind – it’s peacock feathers and […]
1 in 3 a gamer
On the MCV website today, the UK trade body, UKIE, speculates that 1 in 3 of UK population is now a ‘gamer.’* I’m sure they are attempting to challenge and dispel the stereotype of the teenage boy hunched over a console in his bedroom. It’s the games industry’s attempt to mainstream and normalise gaming. Changing […]
Exploring Interactive Narrative – Parallel Paths
Parallel paths overcome some of the production challenges of a strict branching narrative by reducing the total number of tracks down to just two. This limits the options even further than the constrained branching narrative model but still allowing a level of user choice. Parallel paths offer the user two distinct paths and ‘junctions’ where […]
Exploring Interactive Narrative – Branching
This instalment of my series on interactive narrative focuses on branching. In many respects, branching narratives represent the opposite end of the spectrum to traditional linear narratives. Branching narratives are the most common attempt at truly unconstrained and interactive drama where the player’s behaviour materially influences the conclusion. Instead of a single continuing storyline, branching […]