I want to start this page (it is a long one but at the end you get your reward because while you read you are playing the game) by giving you a couple of standard definitions about “transmedia” and “gameplay” both extracted from wikipedia. To illustrate the meaning of these words about a very fast evolving media, in 6 months there will be more new applications around for sure, I will publish 3 videos that I found on the net. The purpose of these videos and definitions is so that you understand there is no way back, the world has changed and you cannot teach anything without using these media in a crossed platform concept, your students are there talking, publishing, adapting and creating content as they never did before. They speak a new language that you are forced to learn if you want to communicate with them. The amount of information is so big that they use their friends to filter it and they create communities around subjects of common interest. They mobilize information that is transformed in real time. Businesses understood this so they produce activities, games, and advertisements, using these kinds of media; on Facebook I publish video examples of this.
There is another fact:
Tribes of talented students who are connected, mutually trust and support one another are in a position to create a movement, to provide items of value, to move ideas forward faster than any individual ever could. They can create emotional maps and express learning content from a different perspective making the content viral at the speed of light.
Teachers are able to write stories and to embed what they teach into these stories, but to produce and develop the game requires other skills that unfortunately they don’t have, training must be provided in a practical way, on top of this there is a serious lack of soft & hard ware (available to them) on new devices e.g. smartphones and this contributes to preventing them from moving ahead and changing things. They need to create teams they need to work closely with their students in developing new learning methodologies. They already know there is a more informal way of learning than formal which means VET systems without various and is always on anyplace and anytime.
If the game and media industry involves hundreds of people in developing one single product and the people involved have expertise in something relevant for its production, why do we expect teachers to produce a whole game on their own?
In 2003, then MIT media studies professor, Henry Jenkins used the term in his Technology Review article, “Transmedia Storytelling,” where he reflected Kinder’s assumption, via analysis of mass-market entertainment, that the coordinated use of storytelling across platforms can make the characters more compelling.[3] Under the mentorship of Kinder, Stephen Dinehart, used transmedia storytelling as a development methodology. In his 2006 USC School of Cinematic Arts graduate thesis, “Transmedial Play” he created a model for transmedia story development, transmedial play and the viewer/user/player (VUP). In the paper he relates transmedia storytelling to Richard Wagner‘s concept of Gesamtkunstwerk (“the total artwork”).[4] Dinehart goes on to suggest that unlike crossmedia projects of the past, in which intellectual properties cross media divides to maximize merchandising, “true” transmedia is designed in preproduction with the intent of immersion rather than simply rehashing such properties in post-production for maximum return on investment.[5]
In his 2006 book Convergence Culture,[1] Jenkins further describes transmedia storytelling as storytelling across multiple forms of media with each element making distinctive contributions to a fan’s understanding of the story world. By using different media formats, transmedia create “entrypoints” through which consumers can become immersed in a story world. The aim of this immersion is decentralized authorship, or transmedial play as defined by Dinehart[6]. Transmedia pioneer and producer Jeff Gomez defines it as “the art of conveying messages themes or storylines to mass audiences through the artful and well planned use of multiple media platforms.”[7]
Gameplay is a term used to describe the interactive aspects of game design. An alternative name for gameplay that is finding favor with academics is game mechanics, however, it can be argued that gameplay and game mechanics are different concepts. Gameplay is what distinguishes a game from a non-interactive medium such as a book or film through the interaction with the game by the player. Often the game designer will seek to provide challenges for players through the design of game mechanics that it is hoped to be found entertaining by the player. Key concepts in gameplay design are:
As suggested by Ermi and Mäyrä, “The act of playing a game is where the rules embedded into the game’s structure start operating, and its
program code starts having an effect on cultural and social, as well as artistic and commercial realities. If we want to understand what a game is, we need to understand what happens in the act of playing, and we need to understand the player and the experience of gameplay. Read full paper Game Play Experience“>”The Gameplay experience”
Before we move on in seeing some videos examples of gameplay I want to give you some tips:
The Game industry states “what make games fail (boring, irritating, frustrating)” is based in a series of errors, so the game is not fun neither entertains the player, maybe the Story/idea is a good one, but not the game play.
However teachers must not feel so concern about that because most of the errors are associated to programing codes and teachers have nothing to do with programming. Bear in mind what Wikipedia defines as gameplay and try to fine the equivalent to your gameplay.
Key concepts in gameplay for your game design are:
1.Your environment/scenario is based on Google maps and street view so you have to use and manipulate the scenario by adding e.g. videos, photos, links, and clues.
2.The ability for the objects to change (in Mario cars if rank a particular score or catch some object the car is converted in super turbo). This ability is not relevant at all for you because you will use the social media tools to create content to build knowledge, but you can modify objects by adding data across platforms, e.g. adding photos and videos to google place.
3.Rules, you have to clearly define the rules what the player can do or don’t do connected to each task and challenge to accomplish his/her mission.
4.Player rewards, that is for sure because encourage the player, punishment not sure if it is a good idea, read again the 12 steps of the Hero’s Journey so maybe we could call this 11 resurrection.
5.Players being to be able to interact, no doubt is a MUST in your game design, is all about interaction, creation, adapting, changing and above all deliver Media content.
Remember not only for fun and entertainment but also for learning and knowledge construction you design your game. Think like your player there is no magic formula, pay attention to your student profile and include actions and challenges that engage them.
Most action-adventure games are based e.g. in
1.Find the mission
2. Solve a Puzzle
3. Defeat level
4.Rescue
5.Fight
6.Shoot and
7. Kill.
1,2,3 may apply to you but for the next one you need a bit more imagination and make the mission, tasks, and challenges more consistent according to what you teach.
Some challenges are told by you to the player straightforward e.g. winning condition of each level, others the player has to discover them while trying to accomplish the mission. Please check our Challenges excel table to map them properly.
For the left brain oriented teacher game designer one simply advise, the player has fun figuring out what he suppose to do by looking into the story by exploring the territory where clues are hidden, too much explicit sounds like a test, not as game.
Challenges of all kind can be used in your game e.g. logic, collateral knowledge, exploring, intelligent based, pattern recognition, applied puzzle, conflict resolution, economic, but you have to somehow gives them a hierarchy. Remember each GENRE has a sort of predefined challenges.
Game Genres are well defined in videogames world, but we are talking about extracting a part of the video game methodologies to build games to content knowledge creation based on web 2.0 tools. There is no Genre definition for this because it is new, so we will call it the Ivetagr Genre.
Like in a cooking receipt the challenges associated to the Ivetagr genre are:
From Action Games; puzzle solving, tactical and exploration.
From Strategy Games; conflict solve, logistic, tactical, economic, exploration
From Role–Playing Games we must consider the possibility of creating different avatars or digital identities and make them interact within the context of the Story.
From ARG games we should take the concept of blurring the reality.
Puzzles that can be solved by trial and error are useless; the player must have a certain amount of experimentation and be able to deduct what the solution could be.
Time pressure put the player into stress and changes the feeling of the gameplay and that is attractive for the player, is a challenge inside the challenge.
When you design your game give to your player a richer experience don’t think linear gameplay, create different paths branching your game so the player can play the game in different ways. By doing that, learning and content creation is more fruitful in terms of games this mean multiple endings that should be Ivetagr Genre.
Games that employ linear stories are those where the player cannot change the storyline or ending of the story. Visual novels frequently use multiple branching storylines to achieve multiple different endings, allowing non-linear freedom of choice along the way. By analysing how the player ends the story you can deduct who he learns therefore you have a chance to improve your game design.
The Ivetagr Genre allows you to cut the story and challenges in pieces and deliver these pieces to multiplayers, so they are somehow forced to co-operate together to solve the game, then is collaborative and cooperative learning what you look for, not a Winner.
To define what actions are possible you need to know the possibilities of the web 2.0 tools. Such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, don’t tell the player what to do, but you have to bear in mind what the possibilities of the interface are, in your case a device connected to Internet running in open platforms.
Saving your game is not necessary at all, while most videogames gives you this chance to facilitate the immersion in the play and return to the left point, your Web interface keeps permanent records your game is automatically saved.
On Game Balancing,
Not so spicy, no so salty, no so sweet, find the balance among the different game components, do not overwhelm your player with too much of any.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cs%C3%ADkszentmih%C3%A1lyi_Mih%C3%A1ly) defined the “flow” (performing task enjoyable state) when our abilities balance the task we face, if challenges are too difficult they get anxious, if to easy they become bored. I suggest you read this book.
When a game designer designs a video game he doesn’t know who is going to play the game so he cannot control previous experience and native talent of the player, but you can, because you know your player, so adapt the game to his /her profile.
Nintendo, XBOX, Play station, PC, Wii are some of the platforms of the videogames in Ivetagr the platform is the web 2.0 and its tool, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, Blogs, Flickr, Google maps and others. The interface is just the click of the mouse and free software.
Action Games:
According to the video game industry Action Games requires high reaction speed and good hand eye coordination because the player is busy shooting, selecting, collecting points, objects, punching, defending. Is all about physical challenges.
Asteroid, Pac-Man, Tetris are example of these games.
Strategy Games:
The player face challenges that force him to make decision among several choices, war games and chess are two examples. Depending on what decision he makes to solve the strategic conflict challenges different actions are required, logical, explore a territory, economic, collateral knowledge.
Role-Playing game
Thinking from the point of view of the teacher as puppet master this kind of Genre fits very well with slightly adaptations. In a role-playing game the player controls several characters and guides them through multiple quests. The teachers play both roles puppet master and social media role.
Adventure Game:
Are based in an interactive story, exploration and storytelling are fundamental in this kind of games, the kind of challenges the player face are puzzles and conceptual such as to find a key to unlock a door, explore labyrinths, decoding messages, playing the role Dick Tracy, solving puzzle, collecting objects understanding social problems or even looking for a job.
New technologies make games more realistic, but the essence of the game remain the same. Watch this trailer and pay attention to how they explain what kind of game it is and how the gameplay works.