Slides from 2017 DevLearn "Play to Learn" workshop that teaches learning game design to corporate instructional designers and training professionals. Presented by Sharon Boller, president of Bottom-Line Performance, in Las Vegas, NV on October 24, 2017. Includes a series of slides that feature a variety of game development tools, such as Construct2, Unity, Unreal, Game Salad, and Knowledge Guru.

1. Play to Learn:
Effective Game Design
By Sharon Boller

2. Things to download for mobile play
• Plants vs Zombies (free version on either iOS or
Android)
• Password Blaster by Bottom-Line Performance
(free on either iOS or Android)
• KGuru Quest app by Bottom-Line Performance
– I pre-registered EACH of you for ATDGameDesignGuru.
– Use email address you used to register for DevLearn +
password DevLearn_17
Bottom-Line Performance 2

3. 3Bottom-Line Performance
Who we are
Sharon BollerJackie Crofts Bratt Conway

4. Define game &
gamification
Play Games and learn
the lingo of games Best practices to follow;
pitfalls to avoid.
Break
Play Learning Games!
Learning + Game
Lunch
Game Design Guru –
Q&A
Create your own
learning games:
paper prototyping
Playtest w/
your team
Playtest w/
another team
Share what you
learned; wrap
up
B
r
e
a
k

5. Let’s play a game: Sequence
Game Goal
Align the cards into the correct sequence
within 90 seconds. Get rid of cards that do
not belong.
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Set up
• Organize your team into a single row.
• The person whose birthday is closest to today is the dealer / team
manager.
• Agree on which end of team’s row contains Person #1. From there
team members become Person 2, 3, 4, etc.
• Dealers deal out all cards.
– Do not deal cards to yourself.
– Every other person must have at least ONE card. Some will have two.

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Rules
1. Every team member (including dealer) must hold at least one card at
game’s end.
– Person #1 should have first card. All other cards distributed across the row in order. Person
at the end of the row may have several cards. These must be in correct order.
– Dealer should have all discards.
2. When game ends, you earn a scoring bonus for every second you are
under 90 seconds. Get a penalty for every second you go over 90 seconds.
3. Lose game entirely if you fail to have cards sequenced 100% correctly.

8. Correct Sequence
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1. Activity
2. Explicit
3. Goal
4. Challenge
5. Rules
6. Players
7. Interactivity
8. Players
9. Game Environment
10. Feedback Mechanisms
11. Clear Cues
12. Performing
13. Quantifiable outcome
14. Emotional reaction
30
60
90

9. Our definition
An activity that has an explicit goal or challenge, rules that
guide achievement of the goal, interactivity with either other
players or the game environment (or both), and feedback
mechanisms that give clear cues as to how well or poorly you
are performing. It results in a quantifiable outcome (you
win/you lose, you hit the target, etc). Usually generates an
emotional reaction in players.

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Turning this into a learning game…
Game Goal
Stay in business and minimize costs. Align
the cards while using the least amount of $$
and time to accomplish the task.

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Set up & Rules
• Each row is a business. Your business is working on an essential project.
Each 30 seconds used costs your business $300,000. 30 seconds = 1
month.
• The person in the left-most chair is the project manager.
• Each person in your row contributes $10,000 to this cost.
• Finish the task within 2 minutes and earn a bonus for each team member.
• If you need more time at 2 minutes, the PM must eliminate at least two jobs.
• If you are not successful within 4 minutes, your company goes bankrupt.

12. What about
gamification?
Using game elements in a
non-game situation.
• Frequent flyer programs
and other customer
loyalty programs
• Summer reading
programs
• Social Media (likes,
rankings, etc.)

13. Basic Game Lingo
Game goal
• What player(s)
have to do to
win.
No goal?
Not a game.
Mechanics
• Rules for players
• Rules for
system.
Keep complexity
proportional to
target game length.
Design “around” a
dynamic.
Core Dynamic
• What game play
is about; how
you win
Tinkering with one
element may vastly
change game play.
Game
Elements
• Features that
help immerse
you in game play

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Activity #1: Play/Evaluate Timeline
1. Work in your table
group.
2. Play Timeline for 10-15
minutes.
3. Use worksheet in
workbook to evaluate
game.

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Evaluate Timeline
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?)

16. 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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Activity #2: Play/Evaluate Spot It
1. Work in your table
group.
2. Play Spot It for 10-15
minutes.
3. Use worksheet in
workbook to evaluate
game.

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Evaluate Spot It
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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Activity #3: Plants vs. Zombies
1. Access game from your
mobile device (tablet or
phone).
2. Play game for 10 minutes.

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Evaluate Plants vs. Zombies
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?)

21. Define game &
gamification
Play Games and learn
the lingo of games Best practices to follow;
pitfalls to avoid.
Break
Play Learning Games!
Learning + Game
Lunch
Game Design Guru –
Q&A
Create your own
learning games:
paper prototyping
Playtest w/
your team
Playtest w/
another team
Share what you
learned; wrap
up
B
r
e
a
k

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Resources For You
Workbook pages cover a ton of material. We’ll highlight as
we play learning games next.

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Main Take-Aways
• Game goal ≠ learning goal - you need BOTH
• Before creating game, you:
– Define instructional goal and objectives; keep in focus as you design the game to achieve
them.
• Audience matters
• As you design the game, you want learning rationale for these things:
- Choice of game mechanics (rules)
- Game elements to include/exclude
- Rewards/scoring

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Play Password Blaster
http://bottomlineperformance.com/passwordblaster
Worksheet page 17

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Play/Evaluate Password Blaster
1. What was the game goal? Was it fun?
2. What was the learning goal? Did you learn?
3. What was the core dynamic? Was it fun?
4. What were 1-3 mechanics (rules) that stood out? Did they help – or
confuse you?
5. What game elements did you notice?
6. How did you know how you were doing? (What feedback did you get?)
http://bottomlineperformance.com/passwordblaster

26. 26Bottom-Line Performance
About the
Project
We partnered with TE Connectivity
(TE) to create a mobile learning game
for smartphones that helps distributors
learn about their customers, and the
applicable products for each customer
so they can position the right products
with the right customers.

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Results
• The app has been used 2,300+ times by
355+ distributors, and 100% of distributor
users surveyed said they learned
something about TE products while playing
TE Town.
• TE Town led to increased adoption of the
sales enablement program by drawing in
distributors who were previously not
taking training.
• Anecdotal feedback: “It was the best way to
learn about our products by ourselves. I
love it!”

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Learners become
mayor of TE Town.
After a short tutorial,
they can begin
constructing the town.

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The first mini-game
introduces product
applications.

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The “customer type”
grid is populated and
they can begin selling
product applications.

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Learners continue
through a series of
mini-games to learn
more about the
products and discover
what products are
relevant to the
customer type.

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Learners continue
through a series of
mini-games to learn
more about the
products and discover
what products are
relevant to the
customer type.

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Learners continue
through a series of
mini-games to learn
more about the
products and discover
what products are
relevant to the
customer type.

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Learners continue
through a series of
mini-games to learn
more about the
products and discover
what products are
relevant to the
customer type.

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Learners continue
through a series of
mini-games to learn
more about the
products and discover
what products are
relevant to the
customer type.

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After completing a
product, players can
spend their treasury
on upgrades for their
town.

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All the while, they’re
tracking their progress
and performance and
competing on
leaderboards.

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Things to Notice
1. There is an overall game goal (construct/build town and maximize
treasury). Mini-games each have dynamic too.
2. This game is very targeted. It’s probably NOT fun if you know zero
about TE Connectivity or its products.
3. Every “plot” in the town has a series of mini-games that work
together to build knowledge. A singe mini-game onlky gets you so
far.
4. Most players (sales reps) only to 3-5 customer types. We assume
most players will NOT play to the end.

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Case Study: Feeding the World
1. Game goal: Work
together to feed an ever-
increasing world
population, achieving
production goals each
year.
2. Learning goal: Reinforce
all the safety steps and
environmental protection
steps taught during the
previous 3.5 days of a
NEO workshop.

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Game play consists of four “rounds” with 7 turns to a round. Each round equates to 1
year of time. Number of people to feed each year increases to match real-world
increases. The 7 turns mimic the 7 steps of mine to market process. Play complexity
increases in final two rounds.

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Resource cards –
Total of 8 resources
you can use on each
turn. Most turns
require 1-2.
Inspector Cards – Reflect
“chance” and can help or hurt
your performance. You draw
Inspector cards if the Inspector
symbol comes up on a die roll.

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Scenario Cards – Drawn on every turn.
Player reads scenario aloud and 1)
chooses the appropriate resource(s)
to handle the scenario, 2) describe
specifics of how resource(s) get used.
After responding, player hands card to
teammate on his or her right. That player
flips the card and reads the correct
response. Correct responses let team earn
a phosphate toward the goal.

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Learning + Game
1. Company mission linked to game goal.
2. Progress through game mirrored real-world process of going from mine to table.
3. Learning goal is to get players to match on-the-job resources to real-world
scenarios they will encounter and to correctly identify appropriate use of resources.
Game elements matched this.
4. Game element being collected (phosphate) is what the players actually mine.
5. Game board illustrated 7-step process.
6. Ever-increasing # of people to feed mirrors real-world statistic.
7. Chance cards reflected good/bad things that really happen on the job.
8. Mining inspections incorporated as “chance” element as well.

44. Define game &
gamification
Play Games and learn
the lingo of games Best practices to follow;
pitfalls to avoid.
Break
Play Learning Games!
Learning + Game
Lunch
Game Design Guru –
Q&A
Create your own
learning games:
paper prototyping
Playtest w/
your team
Playtest w/
another team
Share what you
learned; wrap
up
B
r
e
a
k

45. Design to
meet
learning
objectives
Best
Practices
Embed into
curriculum
Keep rules,
scoring
simple
Get learner
comfortable
FIRST
Don’t focus
on the win

46. Focusing
only on fun
Pitfalls to
Avoid
Skipping or
minimizing
playtesting
Skipping a
pilot
Trying to
teach
everything
Making
games w/out
playing
games

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Review: Game Design Guru
1. Access game at URL below.
2. Your email (from DevLearn
registration) and
DevLearn_17 are user
name/password.
3. Play World A of the game.
theknowledgeguru.com/ATDGameDesignGuru/

48. Define game &
gamification
Play Games and learn
the lingo of games Best practices to follow;
pitfalls to avoid.
Break
Play Learning Games!
Learning + Game
Lunch
Game Design Guru –
Q&A
Create your own
learning games:
paper prototyping
Playtest w/
your team
Playtest w/
another team
Share what you
learned; wrap
up
B
r
e
a
k

49. DumpADDIE; goagileinstead (iterative)
Playtest. Playtest. Did I say playtest?

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Prototyping… what is it?
• Visuals are probably
better than words here.
• http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=k-nfWQLmlMk

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Prototype Example

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Prototype Example

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Prototype Example

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What you can learn from a prototype
• How effective your game is at helping people learn what you want them to
learn.
• How engaging the game will be to learners. Do you have a “fun enough”
game goal and is your core dynamic one that keeps people interested?
• How effective the game elements are that you are using. Do the elements
support your learning experience or detract from it?
• How clear the rules are AND how they affect the fun and the learning.
• The cognitive load on the learner – too high, too low, just right?
• How complex the game might be to produce (without the expense of
producing it before you find out!)

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How do you create one?
• Paper
• Scissors
• Crayons or markers
• Tape

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Activity: Learning Game Design
Your Task: As a team, create and playtest a learning game.
1. Use game topic & content provided in workbook
2. Decide on a core dynamic from list provided.
3. Determine a theme and a game goal.
4. Decide cooperative or competitive.
5. Create a paper prototype, defining game mechanics (aka rules)
as you go.
6. Playtest in your group.
Use provided worksheet to document game design/rules, etc.

57. Building your prototype
Task Elapsed time suggestion
Review worksheet; gain understanding of instructional
need, audience
15 minutes
Choose a core dynamic (or 2 if you want to push yourself 15 minutes
Choose a theme and a game goal. 15 minutes
Start building game content and selecting game elements
(strategy, chance, time, etc. Define and document game
rules out as you go.
25 minutes
Put together the prototype 35 minutes
Do internal playtest; tweak as needed. 20 minutes
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The Playtest
Things to find out….
• Do game goal and learning goals complement one another?
• Were players engaged throughout game play?
• Are our rules at right complexity level for our audience and the
training situation?
• Do our game mechanics and game elements support real-
world context?
• Are our rules clear?

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So what did you learn
today about designing
good learning games?

60. 60
Shameless book
plug

61. Thank you!
Sharon Boller
President
Bottom-Line Performance, Inc.
Sharon@bottomlineperformance.com
@Sharon_Boller (Twitter)

62. DIY* resources
62
Build It Yourself Tools and Templates
• Google “Game making
resources” LOADS of stuff comes
up such as this:
• https://boardgamegeek.com
/thread/933849/designers-
resources-list
• Thaigi – tons of FREE game
ideas on his site!!
Relatively low-cost options:
• eLearning Brothers templates for
simple games
• Knowledge Guru platform
• C3 Softworks
*Factor your time into “free.” You are NOT free. You cost your company $$.

63. Game Salad

64. Twine
An open-source tool for creating interactive, nonlinear stories.
https://twinery.org/

65. Chat Mapper
Tool for writing and testing nonlinear dialogue and events.

67. Chat Mapper dialogue tree.

68. GameMaker Studio 2
Programming background NOT required,
though helpful. Medium complexity to use; lots
of support available. Amazing quality; no 3D.
Rapidly growing in usage; strong user
community built-in tutorials.
GameMaker allows you to structure your game
to work with a client/server model, dealing
with all of the network management behind
the scenes, while allowing you to focus on the
game itself.
https://www.yoyogames.com/

69. The Gamecrafter
https://www.thegamecrafter.com/

70. Gameboard Backgrounds Shutterstock
https://tinyurl.com/Shutterstockgames

71. Adobe Stock
https://tinyurl.com/Adobegameboards

72. iStock Photos
https://tinyurl.com/iStockGameVector

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Raptivity: Templates
• Template driven
games.
• Simple to use, little to
no customization. One
time events.
• Free trial available.
• www.raptivity.com

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eLearning Brothers: Templates
• Template driven games.
• Simple to use, little to
no customization. One
time events.
• Dozens of different
templates for different
types of games.
• http://elearningbrothers.
com/elearning-game-
templates/

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Construct2 HTML5 game creator by Scirra
• Programming background NOT
required.
• Free open source game framework
for the development of desktop and
mobile HTML5 games.
• Games using the tool can be made in
JavaScript or TypeScript and features
a Canvas and WebGL renderer that
can automatically swap between the
tools based on browser support.
• Tutorials, user community.
• http://phaser.io/

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Unity
• Complex to use.
• Typically used for highly
immersive experiences,
simulations. Very, very powerful
in terms of what it can do.
• Can be 2D or 3D.
• Users tend to have
programming background or
expertise.
• https://unity3d.com/unity

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Lumberyard
• Programing knowledge necessary.
• Typically used for highly immersive
experiences, simulations. Very, very
powerful in terms of what it can do.
• Can be 2D or 3D.
• Built in Multiplayer Capability.
• Users tend to have programming
background or expertise.
• https://aws.amazon.com/lumberyard

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Unreal
• Programing knowledge necessary.
• Typically used for highly immersive
experiences, simulations. Very, very
powerful in terms of what it can do.
• Can be 2D or 3D.
• Built in Multiplayer Capability.
• Users tend to have programming
background or expertise.
• https://www.unrealengine.com/blog

79. Lynda.com (LinkedIn Learning)

80. Turbosquid, 3D Assets
https://www.turbosquid.com/

81. Blender

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Knowledge Guru
• SaaS – pricing starts at
$9,999 for one-year
subscription. Includes 3 apps
(Legend, Quest, Drive).
• Designed for corporate
learning audiences.
• http://www.theknowledgeguru.
com

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Kahoot!
• Gamifies learning;
intended for virtual ILT as
well as face-to-face ILT.
Not for asynchronous
eLearning.
• Instructor displays
questions or polls.
Learners respond via
mobile device.
• FREE!!!!!
• https://getkahoot.com/