Learning Learning Games

Dan White · Dan Norton

Fri., June 11, 11:00–12:30, Old Madison

While the title might imply a talk about learning games that have two times the learning of a regular learning game, it in fact refers to the process of learning how to play a game that, in turn, is designed to teach. Good learning games are engineered to make this process as smooth as possible. The basic premise is simple: Before a game can teach anything, it must teach itself. An educational game without a high quality tutorial is like a nut without a nut cracker: You can’t get to the good stuff without hard work and patience... two things people typically avoid and lack, respectively. So the challenge is to teach the game (the controls, rules, interfaces, etc) as quickly and painlessly as possible and, ultimately, expedite the player’s access to the meat of the experience (achieving the learning objectives).

After five years in the business, Filament has crafted a variety of tutorials to teach an equal variety of educational game mechanics. This session will demonstrate the champions that have emerged from the fray and discuss the iterative processes (including many valuable mistakes) by which each was born and refined. For example, session attendees will learn the difference between a “Madden screen” and a “tooltip cluster”, and why the former is ideally suited for static interfaces while the latter is better for dynamic scenes. Attendees will also learn user testing best practices: slick methods for extracting and interpreting data from play-testers. Ultimately, Filament will impart valuable insight into the tutorial development process and deliver concrete, actionable tutorial design tips. Satisfaction guaranteed!