As an educational game for KS1 level the game served its purpose to basically teach children how to identify different shapes, however after testing the game against our abbreviated Costikyan catagories we found that there was alot of room for improvement.
The interaction aspect of the game was minimal, the user could choose between 3 shapes as a response to a question, one of which would be correct. Wrong and right answers would be indicated by different animations. However as an educational game for a KS1 demographic this was not enough. We established that there was no incentive for getting the answer right, in fact some said that the animation once getting the answer wrong was more exciting than getting it right, which for a KS1 audience was a flaw. After selecting a shape and getting it wrong/right, the game's state never changed, wrong answers were acknowledged by a small pop-up sayign so and right answers simply moved you closer to getting 5/5.
Once the user achieved 5/5 there was no reward apart from a sense of satisfaction, which again for a KS1 user, I don't think is enough. Perhaps if a point scoring/achievement system was implemented to give the user a reason for getting 5/5 or even getting the answer right at all, the user would have a reason for trying, perhaps if by getting 5/5 you unlock a small minigame.
With regards to struggle within the game, there essentially was none, if anything the main obstacle was the possibility of picking one of two wrong answers. There were different difficulty level options, which was most probably one of the only aspects of the game that was fitting with Costikyan's article regarding 'tuning the challenge' to match the player's ability. I think if the possibilty of failing the game was present then again the incentive to get the answers right first time would be more important to players, which would also avoid the player simply guessing.
The structure of the game is basic in terms of you can progress towards gaining 5/5, the player has minimal options and almost no freedom.
I think that the best aspect of this game is that it benefits the userin real life and educates the player, fair enough this is done badly but it still works. Regardless of the fact that there's no incentive and no challenge, the user will still learn in the proccess.
There is alot to change about this game for the better however as a learning tool it does it's job.
Link to game:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize/numeracy/shapes/index.shtml
i enjoyed this but i think your conclusion that this will benefit the player is debateable, it depends entirely on how the game is played. we know for example, that clicking randomly on answers will eventually get the player to the finish, that being so, how much will they have learned?
ReplyDeleterob
Cheers Rob, maybe I should change my statement from 'learning tool' to something like 'skill practicing tool', I agree that randomly selecting answers will eventually get the player to the end however that is provided that they are just guessing, I think if i was back in primary school playing this I would feel slightly compelled to select the right answer first time, although granted every player is different and it does depend on how they play it!
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