Presentation at ATD 2017 on learning how to design learning games by playing games.

2. About Us
Sharon Boller
Game-lover, learner, author, instructional designer, game
designer, dog-lover, Mom, wife, cyclist, gardener, hiker, reader,
founder and president, Bottom-Line Performance.
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Karl Kapp
Video game player/designer, perpetual student, professor,
husband, father…author of books and Lynda.com courses,
professor of instructional technology at Bloomsburg University

3. A game is…
• An activity with an explicit goal or challenge
• Rules for players and the system (computer games)
• Interactivity with other players, the game environment (or both)
• Feedback mechanisms that provides players with clear cues on
how they are performing.
• It results in a quantifiable outcome (you win, you lose, you hit
the target, etc.) and often triggers an emotional reaction in
players.

4. What’s required to learn and remember
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Motivation Relevant Practice Specific, Timely Feedback
Spacing & Repetition Story Ability to retrieve
Mental
involvement
(aka
“engagement”
Memory
builders

5. How games help learning & remembering
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Motivation and emotion: Game goals, challenges, competition (against time, the game
itself, other teams), reward structures
Relevant practice: Connection between in-game challenge & on-the-job need, linkage
between game rules and real-world constraints and environmental factors, reward
structures that mirror real-world, levels w/in game, game loops
Timely, specific feedback: Consequence of choices on game progress and status,
comparison to performance of other players or game system; “Game loop” itself also
supplies feedback as players experiment with different strategies and observe results.
Spaced repetition: Levels, replayability
Story: Theme, narrative and characters (Note: not every game has story)

6. We’ve designed lots of games…
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7. We’ve designed lots of games…
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8. We’ve designed lots of games…
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9. We’ve designed lots of games…
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10. We’ve designed lots of games…
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11. Experience with these games helped us
design these…
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TE Town
(available on
iOS and Google
Play)

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Experience with these games helped us
design these…

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Experience with these games helped us
design these…

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Experience with these games helped us
design these…

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Experience with these games helped us
design these…

16. You learn game design by playing games!
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It all starts HERE!

17. 3 games we’ll play
1. Quiplash – social, improv-casual,
large group
2. Timeline – tabletop, card-based
(modified for large group play)
3. Lie Swatter – party, large group
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18. Play: Quiplash
1. Game type: Improv-style/social-casual, large-group
2. Game goal: Score the most points by getting people to vote for
your “quip.”
To Start:
• Six volunteers with mobile phones.
• Up to 100 audience participation folks.
• If selected to play or participate, go to jackbox.tv and enter code
we provide.
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19. Evaluate: Quiplash
1. What was the game goal? Was it fun?
2. What was the core dynamic? (Race to finish, territory acquisition,
matching, escape, etc.) Was it fun?
3. What were 1-3 mechanics (rules) that stood out? Did they help – or
confuse you?
4. What game elements did you notice? (i.e. aesthetics, cooperation,
competition, theme, rewards, time, chance, strategy, levels, etc.)
5. How did you know how you were doing? (What feedback did you get?)
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20. Brainstorm: What’s re-usable? (5 min.)
Q1: How you use elements from this game to
create a different learning game?
• Elements you can pull: Game challenge, short
timeframes for play, aesthetics, scoring strategy (two
components to a score), combination of drawing w/
words, etc., multiplayer format, etc.
Q2: How you could use a version of this game in a
VILT or as a tabletop game of some sort. Ideas?
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21. Play: Timeline
1. Game type: tabletop game/card game
2. Game goal: Work collaboratively at your tables to
create the longest possible correct timeline given the
cards you have.
3. To get started:
1. Place a card with the date face-up in center of table
where all can see it.
2. Distribute remaining cards face down to the people
at your table. DO NOT LOOK AT DATES!!!!!!
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22. How to play
1. As a team, evaluate one card at a time and decide where
to place it onto the timeline. Once placed, turn card face up
to reveal the date.
2. If card placement is correct, card remains. If not, discard it.
3. Select another card and repeat the process.
4. As you use additional cards, your team can 1) insert them
between two cards already placed on the timeline; or 2)
place the card left or right of the other cards.
5. Game ends after 5 minutes.
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23. An Example
Wrong!
‘Remove Card

24. Scoring
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Cards on Timeline Achievement
10 Time Immortus
9 Time Traveler
8 Time Impaired
7 or less No sense of time

25. Evaluate: Timeline
1. What was the game goal? Was it fun?
2. What was the core dynamic? Was it fun?
Examples: Race to finish, territory acquisition, matching, escape, etc.
3. What were 1-3 mechanics (rules) that stood out? Did they help –
or confuse you?
4. What game elements did you notice?
Examples: aesthetics, cooperation, competition, theme, rewards, time, chance, strategy,
levels, etc.
5. How did you know how you were doing? (What feedback did you
get?)
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26. Brainstorm: What’s re-usable? (5 min.)
Q1: How you use elements from this game to
create a different learning game?
• Elements you can pull: Game challenge (alignment), card game
type, increasing difficulty, use of images, scoring, rules, etc.)
Q2: How you could repackage this game in a VILT
or as an eLearning game of some sort. Ideas?
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27. Adjusting games to suit needs
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCe7ySOq4A0

28. Example of re-use…
Knowledge Guru – Sales
to Implementation
Process:
• 4 roles, 28-steps in
process from start of
conversation through
support of product
• GREAT re-use of
concept from Timeline
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29. Play: Lie Swatter
1. Game type: Party/Trivial
Game
2. Game goal: Score the most
points by figuring out the lies.
1. 100 player limit: Go to
Jackbox.tv
2. Enter in 4-digit room code &
follow directions.
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30. Evaluate: Lie Swatter
1. What was the game goal? Was it fun?
2. What was the core dynamic? Was it fun?
3. What were 1-3 mechanics (rules) that stood out?
Did they help – or confuse you?
4. What game elements did you notice?
5. How did you know how you were doing? (What
feedback did you get?)
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31. Brainstorm: What’s re-usable? (5 min.)
Q1: How you use elements from this game to
create a different learning game?
Q2: How you could repackage this game in
another format—VILT, tabletop game, or as an
asynchronous eLearning game of some sort?
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32. Example of Tools for Audience-based
Interactive Games….
UMU--https://www.umu.com/
Poll Everywhere--https://www.polleverywhere.com/
TurningPoint--https://www.turningtechnologies.com/turningpoint
Kahoot!--https://getkahoot.com/ (little more K-12 focused)
Nearpod--https://nearpod.com/ (little more K-12 focused)
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33. Resource to help you…
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https://www.td.org/Publications
/Books/Play-to-Learn

34. Book signing opp: immediately
following this presentation
inATD Store
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Sharon Boller
President
Bottom-Line Performance, Inc.
Sharon@bottomlineperformance.com
@Sharon_Boller (Twitter)
Karl Kapp
Professor
Bloomsburg University
karlkapp@gmail.com
@kkapp (Twitter)