The Cost of Life: Evaluating an RPG

I played RPG, The Cost of Life, first. In this game, the player guides a family in Haiti as the family attempts to improve the standard of living of its members. This was an interesting concept and I anticipated that it would be interesting and fun, but sad. Unfortunately, it was very lacking in "flow."

"Flow," is Csikszentmihalyi’s term for the way that an RPG or strategy game immerses the player into the game world. Game creators and evaluators can assess "flow" by using seven categorical aspects:

Elements of Flow	Manifestation in a game
1. Task that the learners can complete	Does the game provide small sections that lead to the completion of the entire task?
2. Ability to concentrate on task	Does the game world draw learners?
3. Task has clear goals	Does the game have components such as survival, collection of points, gathering of objects and artifacts, solving in puzzles?
4. Task provides immediate feedback	Does the game respond to learners’ choice or movement?
5. Deep but effortless involvement	Does the game create worlds that are far removed from what we know to be real?
6. Exercising a sense of control over their actions	Does the game allow learners determine paths?
7. Concern for self disappears during flow	Does the game provide an environment that is a simulation of life and death? Does the game allow decision or activity that might dangerous “only” in the game world?
8. Sense of duration of time is altered	Does the game allow learners play year-long tasks in hours or minutes? Does it make learners lose track of time? Does it make learners’ perception of time distorted?

Cost of life is not broken down nearly enough. The player chooses family members and one element of life in Haiti on which to focus. After that, the player sends each family member to a place of work or to school. So far so good. However, once the player clicks the "Start Season" button, the family begins to work without any further intervention from the player. 

After my first season, my family was in debt and the youngest child had starved. This is the kind of tragedy that happens all to often in Haiti, so the events were very realistic. However, there was nothing I could do to change the family's fortune in the moment. The entire season of the first year was based completely on one decision of mine. That ruined the game for me and I quit playing. Below is my analysis:

1. Tasks - There were no small sections.

2. Concentration - The game world was intriguing but disappointing.

3. Goals - The goals were clear but frustratingly simplistic.

4. Feedback - Game feedback was too little too late. The very first move of the game should not control so many game components.

5. Involvement - The game world had the potentially to be very deeply immersing. It failed because decision-making opportunities were too few.

6. Sense of Control - As I have said repeatedly, I felt no sense of control over the course of this game at all.

7. Sense of Self/Time - I did not lose track of time at all. The game did not give me a chance to.

After letting the frustration out of my system, I tried Cost of Living again. This time, I made a wiser first move and was able to keep my family alive and out of debt for the first season. One problem that still remains is that the player must watch the fate of each family member at rapid-fire pace. There is simply too much information presented too quickly about each member simultaneously. I could simply ignore this information, but then I learn a lot less about the hazards and blessings of life in Haiti. Needless to say, this makes the game much less valuable as an educational game. So what did I learn about life in Haiti? Well, parents work very hard and children go to ineffective schools. Nothing new there. I am unimpressed:

1-2. Tasks - I understand the tasks of the game better, but there are still too few tasks and they don't bring me into the game world.

3. Goals - The goals are still clear, but they don't involve the player.

4. Feedback - The game responds to the player's choices, but not in any ways that teach me about the game world.

5. Involvement - Although I am less frustrated with the game the second time, there was still very little opportunity to get involved.

6. Control - The players can control their paths, but cannot to much of an extent.

7. Sense of self/time - Even the second time, I was not involved enough to "lose myself" or my sense of time.

Games as Authentic Language Tools

Immediately after looking at this week's gaming assignment, I asked myself, "How can any of these games be called learning tools, especially for learning English?" I knew I was completely missing something, so I read the article Playing to learn: a qualitative analysis of bilingual pupil-pupil talk during board game play, available in the 'Resources' tab. 

According to the article, one helpful application of any unfamiliar interactive game is to allow teachers of bilingual students observe metacognitive talk and scaffolding in peer groups. The students will, of course, negotiate the rules, interpersonal roles, and game play. This strategy can be used to assess the communicative abilities and scaffolding needs of any bilingual students, but especial of timid students. The author/researcher, Heather Smith, specifically designed a board game that incorporates asking and answering questions during a player's turn.

Having an understanding of a possible learning goal for this week did not, unfortunately, help with the online games. I felt it was too much of a stretch to try any of the card games because I wanted to try something like Heather Smith described in her article. 

I first clicked on Agricola, which really got me thinking. I did not play Agricola at all…not at all. The entire page of game interface was Greek to me. There was no button that said, "play." Just a chat window, some pictures, and some seemingly random letters and numbers, like "markiohk 1 playing-4er-R13." 

After eyeballing the screen for a while, I saw and clicked "Game Interface How To." No help at all. Although there were several paragraphs of descriptions and rules, I could not actually do any of them. For example, "All objects can be dragged around with the mouse." Ok, what objects? All I saw is a background and a chat window. Imagine how hard it must be for English language learners to negotiate the interactional tasks that we take for granted!

I gave up on that frustration and wanted to try something more familiar: Monopoly. Unfortuately, that wouldn't start up, which only increased my frustration. This is just not my week, I guess.

Finally, I got Chess to work. The good news was that my game partner was a Japanese person named Haruki. The bad news was that Haruki is a lot better at chess than I am. Not that I am a sore loser, but it would have been nice to have some opportunity to examine Haruki's meta-talk. 

Instead, Haruki and I chatted as much as we could. Haruki's English is limited, but I don't speak a word of Japanese. During our typed conversation, Haruki asked, "are you american."

I answered that I am, and he gave me a nice compliment: "i am easy to talk with you my english class have many student." 

I replied, "I have heard that English classes in Japan have too many students and not enough chances to practice." I might not have simplified that sentence sufficiently, as Haruki took some time to respond. (However, that did not stop him from ripping through my pieces and hacking down my King for the third time). 

Haruki then typed, "we have lab class practicing conversations but my english is poor."

What else could I say to that but, "Not it isn't! Your English is much better than my Japanese!"

"you can speak japanese???!!! ;-)"

"No. Not even a little."

"lol orz"

When our conversation ended, I decided that I agree with Heather Smith. Games have the power to help timid learners open up, forget about correctness, and just use a new language. I am not Haruki's teacher, but I think had a more authentic and helpful conversation during our chess game than he could have had in his English lab.

Game Components: Digital Chess vs. Traditional Chess

Traditional chess allows players to sit in the same room and engage in authentic conversations. Therefore, it is probably better suited to classroom use than virtual chess. However, virtual chess allows players from around the world to engage in authentic written conversations without fear of judgement. 

The elements of text-based chat and anonymity can be advantageous to language learners and their teaches. Anonymity may encourage bilingual people to use their language skills freely and without fear of evaluation. If an opponent does turn out to be verbally abusive, any player can end the game any time at any time she wants. In non-anonymous contexts, the teacher can print out informal texted dialogue with students for analysis of speech patterns that would be harder to identify in only spoken and formally written formats.

Interaction: Digital Chess vs. Traditional Chess

Communication among players of traditional chess is often limited to unrelated conversations and brief cues (e.g. check; check mate) because much can be communicated through gestures. Meta-talk is much more important in virtual chess because the players cannot 'show' each other anything except the current positions of the pieces. Any hints, prompts, or explanations must be delivered in writing, and cannot consist of facial expressions and gestures.

Also, the face-to-face interaction in traditional chess can quickly become extremely competitive and personal. For example, my older sister and I stopped playing chess together in our teens because it was so personal and competitive that we would frequently become angry at each other. In contrast, I did not mind that Haruki mopped the floor with me. For all I know, he might be Bobby Fisher's long-lost twin, so no hard feelings. I was less engaged with or motivated by the game and more interested in our conversation. Is that such a bad thing?

All of the Above

Although the learning styles fad had been formally debunked by several research studies, the idea behind learning styles is still very useful for teaching and learning. This week, I took a Kolb Learning Inventory, a Prensky Scale, and a VAK self-assessment. These three analyses were very interesting, but all of them had the same problem: there is no "All of the above" option.

The Kolb inventory asked, "Which two are your highest scores?" Well, actually, my score was 20 for everything: Active Experimentation, Reflective Observation, Concrete Experience, and Abstract Conceptualization. Let's face it: we all learn best when we have ample opportunities for all of these kinds of thinking and learning. I really think the Kolb inventory is a great checklist for making sure my own games and lesson plans include all of these. However, I don't think it is helpful to label myself or my students.

I really didn't know what my score should be on the Prensky Scale. This scale apparently rates the participant's preference for game playing versus studying. My score varies extremely, depending on the context, and that is not the same as being in the middle. For example, my answer to question one would be that "high speed reactions motivate and excite me" when I am practicing and refining a skill, but I would "rather take my time" when I am analyzing a new idea. Or what should I write for question 2,  about multitasking? I like to drive, argue with my wife, and listen to the radio all at the same time. However, when I was struggling to understand "standard error of the mean" in a statistics class, my wife accused me of ignoring her. Does that make me a 3 out of 5 for "Parallel vs. linear processing," or does it simply mean that the situation is more important than the personal label?

Can you guess what answer I wanted to put for all of the questions in the VAK self-assessment? If you said "All of the above" congratulations! But I want to give special attention to question 4:

"If I am teaching someone something new, I tend to:

a) write instructions down for them

b) give them a verbal explanation

c) demonstrate first and then let them have a go"

Um…what kind of teacher doesn't do all three of these and more for every student? Sarcasm aside, checklists like these can help teachers evaluate the games they use in terms of motivation, cognition and interaction.

United States Map Puzzle

This game lets you put the US together with states and capitals onto a jigsaw puzzle. Correct placements remain and help the player figure out incorrect placements. I played this educational puzzle game and assessed it in light of the above learning style checklists. This map puzzle ranks high in Reflective Observation (RO) and Active Experimentation (AE), and moderately high in Abstract Conceptualization (AC). However, it scores very low in Concrete Experience (CE), because feelings and hunches are irrelevant to this kind of puzzle.

This game earns a 25/50 on the Prensky Scale.  It allows the player to take her time and concentrate or to multitask. The player can also fool around and get instant reinforcement. It also provides a high dose of reality with low-tech drag-fit-drop gameplay.

Finally, VAK self-assessment shows that this game is extremely visual, moderately kinesthetic (drag-fit-drop gameplay), and not at all auditory. However, I found myself talking my way through the game aloud, especially when matching the state capitals to their states. So this game may be suitable for auditory learners.

Who Wants to Win a Million Dollars?

This science and math quiz game is like the old TV gameshow "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" This game scores highest in AC on Kolb's learning style inventory, still very high on CE, moderately on AE and very low on RO. I really liked that this game let me think and feel at the same time. The quiz questions were mostly recall based, so there was not much need to experiment, and no need at all to reflect and observe.

This game earns a 22/50 on the Prensky Scale. The quiz is not timed, gives one question at a time, and is entirely text-based. However, the questions are random and interactive; the format is humorous and includes a fantasy element. The game praises and ridicules the player exaggeratedly. The player feels like she is winning and risking real money. The player can also "ask and expert" and "poll the lab," which makes the game feel more like a TV gameshow.

Computer quiz games like this are very visual. It is expensive to make them auditory, and impossible to make them kinesthetic. I prefer classroom quiz games, where the players can race to tag the correct answer and argue with the game host. 

Analysis and Comparison: Best Fit/Least Fit

Puzzle games, like the United States Map Puzzle, and quiz games, like Who Wants to Win a Million Dollars can help to make test preparation more interesting and motivating. Puzzle games might be a better fit for students who are still figuring things out (AE/RO). Quiz games might be a better fit for students who want to review, assess, and get a feel for their progress (AC/CE). Both types of games appear to moderately fit Prensky's "game generation." Quiz games enjoy a slight, but probably insignificant, advantage. Unfortunately, both types of games are also extremely visual on a computer screen, and neglect auditory and kinesthetic activity. This could be remedied by using electronic projectors or SmartBoards to let students stand up and interact. 

Game Analysis

Simulation Game: CellCraft

CellCraft was developed by Carolina Biological Supply as a fun and interactive way to learn about the biology and functions of a cell and its organelles. The game appears to open with a lengthy training phase, hosted by mysterious creatures, possibly platypuses (platypi?). However, as the game develops, the player discovers that she is the cell the the platypuses are creating.

As the cell, the player learns how to control her cellular movements with pseudopods, how to control her metabolism with ATP and mitochondria, and how to produce RNA and enzymes with ribosomes. This sounds like pretty in depth stuff, but the game does a good job of keeping it simple, fun, and memorable.

After a while, the game takes the form of a single-player RPG. The player must manage a variety of factors to feed her cell (which is almost like an avatar in other simulation games), protect it from predators and parasites like viruses, make it grow, and make it reproduce. Like many RPGs the game's universe, rules, and possibilities are vague and confusing, but become second nature after an hour or so of gameplay; but there is the rub.

RPGs (e.g. The Sims, World of Warcraft, etc.) are appealing because 1) they offer something for all learning preferences and 2) the more one plays, the more one becomes 'addicted' her "character," to gameplay, and to the game universe. If a student became 'addicted' to this game, she would undoubtedly be able to use biological vocabulary fluently, as well as understand and explain cellular biology with ease. Unfortunately, I did not find myself becoming increasingly drawn into the game in the way that I found myself drawn into some RPGs during college. Instead, I honestly kept thinking to myself, "This is fun, but is it over yet?" Then again, I am not a high school student. If the choice was, "Memorize this vocabulary list for the test" versus "Play this game for two hours," I would choose to play the game without question.

Despite the criticism above, it seems to me that CellCraft is fun, interactive, memorable, and a very helpful tool for students and teachers of biology. From the standpoint of situative theory, the game is perfect: the player becomes an 'apprentice' cell, learns about cells by being a cell and by gradually taking over responsibility for that cell's life. A student who could really "get into" this game would have a much more thorough and long-lasting knowledge of cells than a student who had merely memorized facts for a test!