ISLT 7384: Player Type and Game Choice

This presentation aligns with the Player and Blogger attributes of the WSSG (Why So Serious Games) Academy.

This semester, I’m enrolled in ISLT 7384: Designing Games for Learning at the University of Missouri – Columbia. Throughout the course, I will earn badges and attributes which acknowledge my achievements. The assignments require us to play two games; and I chose Zoombinis (2015) and Portal (2007). This gameplay allows us to identify, analyze, and create games using sound principles of game and learning design. 

My Player Type

In Week 1, we took the Quantic Gamer Motivation Survey to discover which player type best aligns with our gaming style. The survey aligned me with architect (Image 1). Architects prefer to be calm, spontaneous, relaxed, independent, and inquisitive, and they’re motivated by discovery, story, and strategy.

While I played games heavily from the mid-1980s through the early 2000s, it’s been some time since I played a game. The survey requires the input of modern games, so I chose games I enjoyed watching (or would like to play if I ever find the time one day). Still, I felt the results aligned with my preferences as architects prefer an interesting story; solo gameplay, without competition; and a slower-pace (Quantic, n.d.).

My Gameplay Experience

This week, I played two hours of Zoombinis. I chose the game as it reminded me of the premise of Lemmings (1991). As my first play through of the game, I chose Not So Easy (least difficult) and allowed the game to create random Zoombini characters. So far, I helped two (of 80) Zoombini reach Zoombiniville (Image 2).

Zoombinis aligns well with the architect’s preference for discovery, story, and strategy (Quantic, n.d.). In Zoombinis, the titular characters once lived in a nearly perfect world which gets corrupted by the Bloats exploitation of the Zoombinis love of making. As the player, you guide them through the challenges so they can find a better life in Zoombiniville. This story structure mimics Joseph Campbell’s monomyth (Hero’s Journey) as described by Kapp (2012, p. 43-44). 

Zoombinis exemplifies several of Gee’s (2013) “16 Principles of Learning,” including: co-design, manipulation, well-ordered problems, pleasantly frustrating, and systems thinking. Players must use strategy, hypothesis, observation, and logic to solve the game’s puzzles. While the game doesn’t hold your hand, it rewards the player with feedback which allows you to progress through the game using repetition and logic. The repetition doesn’t feel burdensome (and I find myself making bolder choices each time I play the game).

Final Thoughts

As educators and designers, we should understand sound principles of game and learning design. Actual gameplay experience helps us evaluate how elements such as principles of learning and player types inform the design of games for learning. 

References

The 9 Quantic gamer types. (n.d.). Quantic Foundry. 

Gee, J. (2013, November 13). Jim Gee: Principles on gaming [Video]. YouTube. 

Kapp, K. M. (2012). The gamification of learning and instruction: Game-based methods and strategies for training and education. Pfeiffer.