Eli game design jam 2013

ITERATIVE DESIGN PROCESS
OF CURRICULUM AND GAMES

John Martin Ryan Martinez
johnmartin@wisc.edu rmmartinez@gmail
Monday, February 4, 13 1

Hello everyone, welcome to the very ﬁrst session of the ELI Annual Meeting. I’m John Martin,
and this is my colleague Ryan Martinez. We are both from the University of Wisconsin -
Madison. My job is to push instructors just a hair out of their comfort zone. Ryan is a
doctoral student in the Curriculum & Instruction department and has on many occasions like
myself, ran workshops teaching the importance of iterative design in education through the
scope of games. So ﬁrst, while you may not be asking this question, many educators and
administrators frequently start off with...

WTF?


or at least “why?” Games? Okay, maybe — there are nice educational games like Oregon
Trail... but Game Design? More now than in recent memory, people have started to associate
playing games to adverse societal effects (violence, etc.).

But to connect curriculum design with game design let’s break it down

WHY PLAY?


Why play? Why do we feel that elements of play and the design of games are important for
education?

EVERYBODY PLAYS


Well the answer is really that play is universal, and not just with friviolous intent.

WE LEARN WHEN WE PLAY


In fact, play is a powerful learning tool. We learn how to interact in cultures, we learn tactics,
ways of thinking, being, and speaking in that game space. We play to learn, and to survive.

PLAY IS SUBVERSIVE

We also play, at times, to preserve and pass on cultures. Much of play is subversive that way.
It’s also a welcome change to traditional didactic instruction.


And play and games are starting to get some “play” in both formal and inform learning
environments with the inclusion of not only academic conferences devoted to the topic but
brand new school intiatives around games-based learning.

WHY DESIGN?


So, that’s play and games. But where does design come in? We all know that students are
terrible designers and will design terrible games. But that’s okay, because it’s the process
that counts. Game design in class is a mash-up of powerful learning practices

Problem-based
Arts-based

Constructionism Improv/Performance

HOW TO


Why play? Why do we feel that elements of play and the design of games are important for
education?


We started doing this in 2008 informally as an extension of the Games Learning and Society
research group....


Basically, it’s a process of starting rough and iterating — just like instructional design.

Set Constraints


Every Saturday we would have a group of people come to our ofﬁces. While the majority of
participants were graduate students, we had participants whose age ranged from anywhere between 7
and 55. We would have each person write on a sheet of paper a theme for that week’s jam.

• to teach the design process
• about speciﬁc course content
through design

• allow students to play a game that teacher designed to learn course content in a playful setting
• (currency can touch on math, social justice, economics, etc.)
• (narrative lends itself to history, identity, science, psychology, etc.)
• (N-game simulates Nitrogn Cycle)
• (game

Grab materials


Once the theme was settled, participants would usually group off and pick through an
assortment of supplies.

Design game


Players then have one hour to design a playable prototype. Here you see one group working
together on various elements of their game. We usually encourage no more than 4
participants per group.

Playtest game


Tweak game


Reﬁne game


Introduce game


Play game


Share game


WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE...

vimeo.com/47970922

http://vimeo.com/47970922


This is from a 2011 class that looked at contemporary issues through the lense of The Wire.
It’s based on Chutes and Ladders, where you roll a 6-sided die to attain the American Dream
— but look at what happens when you get close to it...

• what is the most important part What they think about
of the course content?

• what do we need to communicate here?
• what do we keep literal and what can we
conceptualize through metaphor and narrative?

• is that the right balance?
• how do we get players to “get it” through game
play?

• the game is a good representation, but it’s no fun
— how do we make it compelling?

• the format we chose doesn’t cover everything we
need them to get — is there a better format?

• it takes too long to play — how do we tweak?
• the rules are too complicated/take too long — how do we explain this thing,
how do we “build them in” to the game? given our constraints?
• we need to simplify — what’s okay to leave out?
• have we left out too much?

READY?


Eli game design jam 2013

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