Rulebooks are one of the first things that players turn to after they’ve decided to play your game.  Players turn to this as the guide; the rules; and the structure that will shape their experience.

Often designers think about rulebooks at the very end of their design process. However the ability to write clear, concise, and actionable rules is more challenging than you may think.

This article will review game rulebooks in depth. It will cover the purpose of your rulebook; striking a balance in your structure; and the process of writing and revising the rulebook. The structure of the rulebook will be covered from different sections including statistical information, components, theme, overview, setup, core loop, and game end.

The way that you organize the contents of this rulebook is important for shaping the player experience. Your voice in how you write your rulebook is as important as testing it out with your players. Finally, edge cases; applications of rule books in games based learning; and action steps for writing your rulebook will be covered in detail.

Purpose of the rulebook

Rulebooks are where your players begin. Someone has decided to play your game. So they turn to your rulebook as their starting point.  It’s important to remember that your player wants to play your game; they are not interested in reading your rulebook.  The rulebook is just a necessary step in order for them to achieve their end goal.

Unfortunately, this means that often your rulebook has to serve different purposes. For new players it has to explain everything about your game and how to begin playing it. For advanced players it needs to remind them how to play your game or at least how your game plays similar to others in its genre.

Game designers can be notorious for writing less than stellar rulebooks; particularly if when they get completely engrossed in the project. This means that they can no longer look at the game objectively as the project that has changed and evolved over time.

However, the rulebook is important. It’s perhaps the most important in getting players over the hurdle of playing their first game.  A badly written; incorrectly worded; or poorly organized rulebook might force some players to put the game right back on the shelf.

This is all the more important when a game hasn’t even been published yet. Your rulebook should walk even the most seasoned gamer through the steps necessary to setup and begin playing your game. This is especially critical when pitching your game to publishers. That’s because your rulebook represents how your game works in your absence.

Balance in the rulebook

Creating a great rulebook is a true balancing act. You have to provide all of the information that is necessary for a player to pickup and begin playing your game. Yet, you also can’t throw everything about the game in any order.

This is the point where designers will often get caught up. They are unsure when or if to provide information in a particular order for the player. Usually valuable time is spent nitpicking the details of just a few examples in the rulebook. Instead, designers should spend their time addressing larger systemic issues regarding the rulebook contents and organization.

Designers must also approach the rulebook as a work in progress – even after it has been published. Getting feedback from consumers, players, publishers, and other designers is critical. This feedback helps you re-write and recreate the structure of the rulebook to best serve the end user: the players.

While your rulebook may already be in the hands of players, it’s still possible to publish digital addendums, edits, and updates that originate from your gaming community.

Writing and revising the rulebook

Writing a rulebook is hard. You’ll never get it right the first time. Because of that, it’s important that you keep writing, changing, revising, and re-organizing your rulebook throughout your design process.

A good starting point is assuming the player knows nothing about your game. However, it is good to assume that players have played OTHER games before; just not necessarily your game.

This reinforces the fact that your players will need to be able to easily pickup and begin setting up and playing your game. Your rules therefore need to be understandable and organized. However, you don’t want your rulebook to be too long as it could provide the player with too much information without the correct context. Likewise, you also want to avoid a rulebook that is too short and doesn’t address the most common player questions.

Writing the rulebook also means organizing as you go. This requires you to chunk and compartmentalize information for players when they need to know it – and in the recommended dose.  For instance, it’s good to have a section in a rulebook for different actions a player can take during a turn. A sub-section could address movement and then the types of movement that a player can perform.

Additionally, you want to include consistent and defined language throughout your rulebook. If you identify goods as commodities in the game; don’t call them “products” later on. Developing a vocabulary for game terms is important for rulebooks because each time you pick one up it’s like learning a language for the first time. You may already know the difference between nouns and verbs from another language; but you need to learn how to recognize nouns and verbs in THIS language.

Rulebook Structure Overview

Rulebooks are important for conveying the most relevant information to your player in the correct order, quantity, and context. In order to do this the following areas of rulebook organization are presented in the order in which they should be provided to players: statistical information, components, theme, brief overview, setup, core loop, and game end.

These individual sections will be provided in order with descriptions for what should be included.

Structure – Statistical Information

Statistical information is some of the most basic but often missing information from the first few pages of a rulebook.  Sure, the information is often printed on the side of the box. However, it’s best to also list this info on the inside of the rulebook as some of the first information that a player will see.

The most important information to list here are the title, designer, number of players, suggest age, and average length of a game. It’s important to list this information here, because players may review a rulebook without the rest of the game components present. So, it’s useful to provide information redundancy here.

In addition, potential publishers may request a review of your rulebook prior to seeing your game. Providing this statistical information here is important in that context.

Structure – Components

Components are the physical assets included in table top games. They can include decks of cards, tokens, pawns, boards, and dice. Components should be listed next, ideally with pictures of what the finished components look like in the game as well as the quantity provided in the box.

This list is important for setting the vocabulary and terms for your game. If you call a piece a “meeple” in the rulebook but the game calls them “soldiers” then you already have a disconnect between the components the players see and how they will be referenced later on.

One my favorite games that makes mention of all of this and more at the very beginning is Montana.

Structure – Theme

Next you should dive very briefly into the theme of your game. Are we medieval knights? Are we pirates of the Caribbean? Are we searching for lost treasures under the ocean or perhaps exploring planets in outer space? Answering these questions provides very brief insight into what the game is about and who the players are from a thematic standpoint.

While not known for its theme, Azul does provide some insight in the very first paragraph of the rulebook. This informs players who they are and what they are accomplishing through game play.

Azul is available on Amazon

Structure – Brief Overview

The rulebook should then include a brief overview of what the game play is and what players do to succeed and win. This could be different if you are playing a competitive orthogame versus a cooperative idiogame. Regardless of the type of game, this section provides great insight and connection between the theme and the setup for the game.

For competitive games: the designer should identify what is necessary to end the game and win. This could be the first to reach a certain number of points, the first to finish a specific track, being the last player left standing, or having the most number of resources after a set amount of time. No Thanks is a game that provides this information right at the beginning.

No Thanks is available on Amazon

For cooperative games: the designer should identify what players need to do in order to succeed against the game. Whether that is to achieve a specific objective in a set amount of time, reduce the hit points of a non-player character (NPC) to zero, or resolve a scenario. Pandemic provides this information in its’ brief overview.

Pandemic is available on Amazon

Structure – Setup

The setup of the game should be covered next in the rulebook. This includes identifying which components need to come out first and in what order. Many rulebooks already include identifying the game board and placing it in the center of the table so that all players can see it.

It’s also important to note which components need to go where and in which order. Specific resources that aren’t used later in the game can be left until later. Other, components (like money or player pieces) should be identified first if they will be used throughout the duration of the game.

Ideally designers should include a visual reminder and layout of the setup of the game with references to specific steps and text in your description. Doing this provides an overall complete picture of what a setup game should look like for players. It also provides a quick visual reference that everything is exactly where it’s supposed to be.

Gùgōng provides an excellent example of this visual setup process and accounting of common and player components throughout the setup.

Structure – Core Loop

The core loop of the game is what gives provides players feedback during game play. The core loop is what players will do repeatedly and concurrently as they play your game.

These are the different actions that players can do or take each turn, round, phase, or stage of your game. The core loop is the main formal structure of your game and what players do at each one of those stages.

It’s helpful to demonstrate and show players how these structures are formatted. For example, many games include a “turn” structure in which each player take turns in clockwise order. Once all players have taken their turn a new “round” begins. Once three rounds have been completed then a stage is over. Once you have played two stages one phase is over. Once you have completed two phases then the game is over and you score everyone’s points.

Assuming that your players will understand how these structures work is a simple mistake that can be avoided by explaining how these are nested and formatted in your game.

Endeavor: Age of Sail does a great job at describing and breaking down what players do on each one of their turns and identifies what happens at the completion of a phase.

Structure – Game End

All games must come to an end. This is the section that includes how your game ends. This could be after a set number of turns, rounds, stages, or phases. It could also end with one player left alive. It could be a race to a certain number of points. Games could also end when one or several players achieve a particular objective.

Identifying HOW your game ends is one part of this section. Another part is identifying how players score or tally their points, objectives, money, resources etc… at the end. Explaining how different achievements translate into points is important for determining a winner of the game.

Kingdomino takes this scoring into account at the appropriate section of its rulebook.

In addition, explaining how particular scenarios are decided is important. The most common scenario is how ties are broken and resolved. Make sure those procedures are outlined in this section.

Kingdomino is available on Amazon

Organizing your rulebook’s contents

Rulebooks must serve many different purposes. In addition, they must be accessible, searchable, and readable by players. That’s why it’s important to organize, divide, and categorize your content accordingly. This will help your players better understand and play your game.

This can be most easily achieved with the table of contents. A table of contents provides a quick overview of the game and keeps the most important content organized for easy reference.

Additionally, it is important to bold and identify key terms and phrases within your rulebook. If this game identifies “money” as gold then you should indicate that in the section when you talk about game resources. If your game’s scoring rubric exchanges money at a 1:1 ratio at the end of the game for victory points, then you should identify that information as well.

Providing these insightful reminders throughout your rulebook in “callout” boxes helps to highlight specific information for your players. This is particularly important for returning players who need a quick reference for the game in order to remember how to play.

In the Year of the Dragon does this well by providing a quick summaries through each stage of the rules explanation.

In the Year of the Dragon is available on Amazon

This is also important for cross-referencing information about your game. If players’ movement around the board is influenced by how much money or victory points they currently have, then it’s important to point players towards the information on “Player Movement” when talking about money or victory points.

Finally, new games are beginning to part out sections of the rulebook for players in order to get them playing quickly.  Root does a great job at this by including a “quick start” guide in addition to their full rulebook for the game. The quick start guide includes basic information in order to begin playing the game immediately. Whereas rules questions for specific cases with more robust descriptions are left to the full rulebook.

Root is available on Amazon

Player experience

Ultimately a rulebook is supposed to serve as an agent of the player experience. Players will come to your game to play it. Not to read the rules. Of course there are a subset of players that will come to games and happily dive into rulebooks for their description and structure.

However, most players will pick up the rulebook to learn how to play the game and nothing more. Whereas other players will skim the rulebook for reminders and refreshers if a significant amount of time has passed since their last session.

The goal as the designer is to find a style that works for the majority of your players and stick to that style. This is mostly informed by the type of game that you have. Is it a light party game? You want your rulebook to be clean, simple, and straight forward. Heavy euro? Then you can afford to dive into the nuances of the player roles, abilities, and actions. Many games will find a home in between those two extremes.  Because of this, it helps to know that there are generally three “player” types who will read your rules.

First time players may be first time board gamers or first time players of your game. In either case you want your rules to be thorough, clean, and approachable. These players need to learn from the ground up how to play your game (even if they may not have played other games like it before).

The intermediate player on the other hand wants to read your rules as a reference point for how your game plays and operates. These are players who may have already played your game (or others like it) before and need a summary for how your game is similar and how it is different from what they remember or expect.

Lastly, there are the expert players. These are players with a very diversified pallet of games. They have read and played a wide swath of different games and may even be designers themselves. These players will carefully review the rulebook looking for typos, loopholes, or otherwise edge cases that the previous two kinds of players may have missed.

Voice when writing the rulebook

Regardless of the type of player you are writing for; it’s helpful to always write your rules in the most simple, clear, and concise way you can. You can always expand on certain rules and specific cases in other parts of your rulebook. However, remember that ultimately your rules are there to serve the player.

To do this it helps to write with simple descriptions in active voice. This method conveys information easily and quickly. For example, instead saying “the player takes the board out of the box” say “take the board out of the box.”

In addition, write in short sentences with straightforward language. This especially helps if the instructions are read aloud to a group of players. It is also useful to define how terms are used within your rulebook.

“May” and “must” have different meanings in rules compared to everyday language. “May” provides the option for players to take an action whereas “must” requires players to do something. Innocent words can have different interpretations depending on your readers. Likewise phrase like “either or” should be more properly defined in order to avoid confusion. One of the easiest ways to do this is to state “player MUST take only ONE of the following two actions.” This is a more straightforward way of conveying an “either or statement” using simpler language.

Following these steps provides you with a rulebook that is easy to use for new players while answering the questions decisively for intermediate and advanced players.

Testing your rulebook

Just like your game, your rulebook should be tested. Often this is done at the latest stages of playtesting when players are given rulebooks and allowed to teach and play the game without any help from the designer.

In addition, you may also ask someone else to read your rules and explain them back to you in order to confirm that the correct outcome has been achieved.  Observing how other readers and players interpret and take action based on your words is irreplaceable. The more input that you can get from others the better.

Ideally your players should be able to play your game right after reading the rulebook. A quick and clean start from the end of the rules demonstrates that players were able to interpret and act on your instructions.

Edge cases in the rulebook

The rulebook is supposed to serve the widest possible audience. A consequence of that means that you’ll often have to overlook certain “edge cases” that may not come about too often through game play.

A common mistake with taking into account these edge cases is “bikeshedding” or spending an inordinate amount of time to wrestle with small details that won’t affect the majority of players’ game play.

This doesn’t mean that you should ignore edge cases. Rather, these should be collected in the appendix or other area at the end of your rulebook for reference if they are needed. Taking game testing notes accommodates for these edge cases that might come up during game play.

For example, a rulebook could include information on how players can move their player pieces in your game. There could be many ways that a player can LEGALLY move their piece. As such, you should spend time explaining how that can be done and leave other “edge cases” or infrequent occurrences to your appendix.

Some game designers try to create rules with the minimal amount of these edge cases or scenarios. This is a challenging design practice. However, many game rules are often written in tension. This means that they may contradict each other or require a specific state in the game in order for those rules to apply.

If these rules come up often, then it’s okay to include them in your basic rulebook. However, if there are only certain situations that arise on a regular basis, then you should list these in the appendix of your rules.

In the occurrence that a rule is so specific to an uncommon scenario that it requires its own dedicated section then consider getting rid of it. The requirement of dedicating so much of your precious rulebook space to accommodating this very infrequent scenario means that eliminating the circumstances in which it may arise may be the best move to make.

Games-based learning and rulebooks

We often think of rulebooks for just table top games. But, rulebooks also serve a wider purpose of educating our players for how to play our game to the best of their abilities.

Games-based learning is using existing games to help students achieve their educational goals.  Rulebooks have the educational goal of bringing players up to speed on how to play the game as quickly, easily, and painlessly as possible.

Because of this, it’s best to turn to other educators, teachers, instructors, and professors for the best way to lay out your rulebook content. They often have incisive advice on how to provide information with the right context, brevity, and scope to help your readers.

Remember: rule books are instructional materials first and foremost. They are there to serve and instruct your players. Do them service by using your rulebook as a gateway to learning.

Action steps

Here are some specific action steps that you can take in order to make sure that your rulebook is the best it can be to serve your players.

Use board game specific terminology whenever possible. This includes commonly understood phrases like “boards” and “cards.” You can also include more industry specific terms like “meeples” or “chits.” However, when identifying these terms, make sure that you clearly associate the component with what they look like in the game.

Avoid using unspecific pronouns when referring to players. Past rulebooks commonly referred to players in the masculine third person (i.e. he/him/his). Rulebooks should strive to use more inclusive pronouns as well as more gender neutral pronouns. It’s best to use the terms (they/them) when identifying players in the game in order to satisfy the widest possible audience.

Make sure that you adhere to appropriate tone during your rules explanation. Third person active voice is the best form to use. This means that you should use explanations that begin with “Each player takes their individual player boards.” Instead of: “The starting player will take one player board for all players playing the game. The starting player will then distribute all player boards to all players.”

Make sure that your rulebook is formatted consistently. Using appropriate headings sizes, fonts, bold, italics, underline, and color goes a long way towards making a block of text more easily readable.

For quality assurance make sure that you print out your rulebook and read it aloud. I’ve spent years writing and often think that I can complete all of my edits on my computer screen. However, nothing really beats a final edit on printed paper being read aloud. Typos, voice, and punctuation mistakes often come to light when reviewing your work this way. For a more sustainable approach to editing, consider formatting your document as a PDF and using an app like Goodnotes to review your rulebook on a tablet to replicate that paper feel.

Its best practice to list critical information redundantly throughout your rulebook. If your game has phases or stages that are broken down even further with individual turns, then identify the phase names, stage names throughout your rules explanation. This is especially important if scenarios in your game have to be resolved in a particular order.

Finally, take into account the reader’s experience reviewing you rulebook. Paragraphs in the middle of your rules are more likely to be skimmed over compared to paragraphs’ at the beginning or end. That means that the most critical information should be stated at the beginning and end of your rules. Striving to get the most vital rules into these locations is the practice.

Takeaways

This article reviewed game rulebooks in depth. It covered the purpose of your rulebook; striking a balance; and the process of writing and revising. The structure of the rulebook was covered from different sections including statistical information, components, theme, overview, setup, core loop, and game end.

Remember: the way that you organize the contents of your rulebook is important for informing the player experience. Your voice in how you write your rulebook is as important as testing it out with your players. Finally, edge cases; applications of rule books for games-based learning; and action steps for writing your rulebook were covered in detail.

I hope that you found this article helpful. If you’d like a sample template for your rulebook in addition to information on how to explain theme; glossary of terms; and an anatomy of game components then click here.

This article was about what makes a great rulebook.  To learn more about gamification, check out the free course on Gamification Explained.

If you have enjoyed this article – consider getting yourself lifetime access to Dave’s Games-Based Learning Digital Library containing all of the content from the past two Games-Based Learning Virtual Conferences; past webinars and courses he’s created; as well as his complete back catalogue of articles; podcast episodes; and videos. And more content is being added all the time.

Readers of Ludogogy can get a $50 discount on this valuable resource by using this link.

The post What Makes a Good Rulebook? first appeared on Ludogogy.

Most people know games as vehicles for fun, entertainment and socialization. Elements of games – through :gamification – can also be used to augment, change, and influence individuals behaviors. Those behaviors can affect the way that they interact, shop, and travel.

Games-based learning is the use and adaptation of games as a medium for learning. As such, educators are often called upon to adapt existing games as vehicles for teaching and learning.

But how do educators start with games? How can they approach the adaptation of games for teaching and learning?

This article will address the steps necessary for adapting games for learning. It’ll cover why educators should first adapt games for games-based learning. Challenges that educators often face with adaptation will be addressed as well as how a strategy can be outlined for game adaptation.

There are specific considerations to take into account prior to adapting a game for learning. Those will be outlined as well as how different approaches can be undertaken in order to smooth out challenges in the process.  Examples of game adaptations will be discussed as well as well as how learning can be supported in game adaptation through the use of assessments.

Why Adapt Games for Games-Based Learning?

Many games are fun. It’s the primary reason why people play them. Educators can use and capitalize on that fun through the adoption of games-based learning. Games can be used as an experiential framework in order to help learners achieve multiple different outcomes including the promotion of teamwork and the application of new concepts in practice.

Therefore, it is important to note that games-based learning often begins with a game adaptation as a medium for teaching and learning. Specifically, games are not meant as temporary adoptions; but rather as part of a more holistic pedagogical approach to teaching and learning.

This pedagogical approach in games-based learning is focused on learning through experience or experiential learning. Though game play, learners can apply concepts to practice in an environment where failure can be tolerated, scaffolded, and corrected. Likewise, this is done in an environment where, engagement, play, and interaction are achieved in a way that makes the activity intrinsically motivating and fun.

In addition, games can be applied in multiple different formats. Those include a solo approach to games that often includes puzzles and scenarios. Games can be also be applied in a socialized environment with other learners and/or the instructor. Such group efforts can be undertaken as either a cooperative or a competitive format in which the interaction with others can help reinforce learning outcomes or demonstrate difficult concepts.

Challenges with Adaptation

Any educator who is interested in adapting games for teaching and learning through games-based learning will run into challenges with the adaptation process. One of which is qualifying the game selected to make sure that it aligns with the desired learning outcome. Such a process can be difficult when examining games that are appropriate for specific learners as well as considering the time commitment and modality of the educational environment.

An additional challenge is managing and meeting pre-conceived notions of applied games. Learners may come to expect something from a game dependent on their backgrounds and experiences despite the fact that educators are not prepared to deliver.  Likewise; educators can also be challenged by their expectations of games-based learning that doesn’t meet the outcomes achieved by peers and other colleagues.

Often the case for adaptation of existing games is such that it’s easier and more focused to create a new game from scratch that better meets the needs of the educator and learners. However, this process can be expensive, time consuming, and involved.  Despite those shortcomings; often that route is more preferable than adapting an existing game for educational purposes due to the limitations included with commercially available games.

These challenges can be further exacerbated by teachers in the elementary, intermediate, and secondary schools as logistical problems ranging from limited classroom lectures, facility access, and overall lack of time pose real and present challenges to adapting existing games for teaching and learning. This is further compounded by the additional role that educators must play in supervising and monitoring play: activities that they may not be comfortable implementing and adhering to in addition to other educational responsibilities.

Finally, one of the most challenging aspects due to games adaptation is the requirement that both educators and learners remain flexible throughout the process. Games are not linear tools for teaching and education. Rather, games provide an open ended process through which students create meaning through interaction, experimentation, and engagement. As such, flexibility could be required from all parties at times when patience or resources are in short supply.

Strategy for Adaptation

Despite these challenges, there remain some viable strategies for adapting games for games-based learning. One of which is to curate and select games that are appropriate from a mechanical and emotional standpoint for the learners served.  This has more to do with the individual educator who can best interpret and judge the needs and capabilities of their students and select games that serve, and don’t undermine or exceed their means or capabilities.

Likewise, educators can also use games as means to augment traditional forms of instruction and to break up and punctuate existing lesson plans. Primary and intermediate school educators may choose to use more physical, visual, or kinesthetic games that better impact and serve younger learners. This is compared to those learning and development professionals working in adult learning environments where application of abstract and theoretical concepts to practice are much more welcome and  relevant use of applied games.

Furthermore, educators can adapt and apply games in concert with different pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning. Exploratory learning focuses on learning where individuals learns by exploring environments. These can be physical as well as virtual environments that are experienced with peers as either a competitive or cooperative activity. Many massive multiplayer online games (MMOs) fulfill this type of approach. However, certain and specific table top game such as role-playing games can be applied to meet this end.

Additionally, specific game dynamics such as competition and cooperation can provide an engaging classroom experience that changes and augments the relationships between learners, the content, and instructor. Such change could be jarring for some learners who are used to and have only experienced orthodox approaches to teaching and learning.  However, this can be mitigated through low-stakes activities which explore the modality of games-based learning in greater depth prior to attempting more challenging activities.

Educators can better integrate their application of games for their learning environments through the use of story and narrative which links game activities to learning outcomes and course structure. Such an approach provides a different – albeit familiar – aspect of communication and education through allegory.

No matter how educators adapt games for teaching and learning, they should continually rely on the malleability of games for their purposes. Games used in this respect do not need to necessarily entertain individuals. Rather, different forms and aspects of applied games can be used in concert with more traditional teaching practices that best meets the outcomes of learners. Such adaptation of games for these purposes ensures that the outcomes of play align with the learning outcomes defined by the educator.

Adaptation Considerations

There are certain factors to take into consideration when examining games for learning. One of the most important things to note is that games alone cannot completely replace traditional learning. Of course, there are some outcomes in which games are used to augment more orthodox approaches for learning. However, games by themselves (without structural learning support and scaffolding) are poor replacements for entire learning programs.

Furthermore, the use of games doesn’t necessarily entail better outcomes for learners. This is particularly true if learner populations aren’t ready or don’t see the use and benefit of applied games for learning.  Fun, enjoyment, and entertainment are positive benefits for using games for learner interaction – but alone they do not constitute a learning program.

Additionally, educators should consider the drawbacks of poor game adaptation. Specifically negative impacts could be encountered if adaptation activities for different educational outcomes, linguistic considerations, language, cultural, and societal aspects aren’t taken into account.

Furthermore, educators can often overextend themselves with their adaptation procedures. Often, a common mistake made is adapting the entirely of a class, course, or program to games-based learning. A more approachable strategy would be to start small and incrementally convert learning content, structure, and materials to games-based learning.

These small steps for adaptation should first consider how games, game elements, game :dynamics, and game mechanics can serve as complementary aspects to different learns and learning models.  Such an approach prioritizes the learner’s experience as part of the holistic outcome of their education and engagement.

Learner engagement should take a priority in this process as examining how individuals receive, interpret, and act within a games-based learning environment could provide insightful advice on how an educator should proceed with an adaptation initiative. An example of this is how primary, intermediate, and secondary school educators can use games as means of breaking up a static lesson plan with different games and activities which require involvement through different modalities. Some of which can involve physical movement while others require more cognitive applications.

Adaptation Approaches

Game adaptations are often undertaken from an educator’s standpoint. That individual could be someone who has both much game playing and teaching experience whereas others could be attempting an adaptation for the first time. Despite this, individual educators should note that players require a reflective period in concert with game play in order to gain the most from the experience.

This reflection period serves two purposes. The first is to reinforce and promote metacognitive behaviors in experiential and games-based learning. The second one is for the educator to evaluate the scale, scope, and impact of the games-based learning application and determine how it be changed, augmented, or adjusted to better fit their outcomes and goals.

This is perhaps an area were games-based learning has an advantage over digitally applied and experienced gamification. Such gamified applications can be inflexible with their use and application for learner populations. Conversely, analog applications and adaptations of table top games and other non-digital games provide the educator with agency, malleability, and the ability to personalize the experience to fit the needs of their learners.

While gamification alone relies on the implementation of individual elements of games in non-game settings; games-based learning and applied games utilize the entirety of the game for the purposes of teaching and learning. In this vein, educators can more wholly apply games for their long term educational outcomes rather than short term entertainment and engagement of learners.

Examples of Adaptations

The number of games that educators can adapt for teaching and learning are only limited by the number of games that are published and available. Despite this, it’s often easiest to approach games-based learning adaptation through familiar game :mechanics that players might already know. For early childhood education using games with familiar themes such as  Go Fish and memory components can be easiest to adapt.

Likewise, most players can identify with the visceral and excitement involved with randomization and rolling dice. Therefore, games that include some sort of entropy with physical components such as dice and cubes could serve as attractive components for learners.  In this vein, digital games such as Minecraft capitalize on the sourcing and building aspect of games that empower players to construct n various environments.

Game adaptation often revolves around familiarity with game structures, components and aesthetics. This can make adaptation for complicated, lengthy, or complex games more difficult compared to simpler ones. Therefore, common components such as playing cards can be introduced to learners as an application of both a game component and a :mechanic. This is because they can serve as both components to store information as well as serve as a means to randomize it.

However, not all games require components for implementation. Argumentation, debate, or negotiation games can be implemented in the classroom with minimal investment into physical components. Such applications of games with structures like FunEmployed, Taboo, and Bohnanza, capitalize on these mechanics with a minimum number of physical components.

FunEmployed is available on Amazon

Taboo is available on Amazon

Bohnanza is available on Amazon

Following this, reenactments, role-playing, and other forms of situational narratives could be used with minimal components in order to better connect learning content with students’ own interoperations and applications. These can be further developed into other learning activities such as reflection exercises or writing prompts such as StorySlam which give students a means for further exploring content more viscerally.

Word games such as Boggle and Scrabble embody some of the most well known properties in gaming. As such, word games make students’ inclusion, adaptation, and utilization of letters, words, and vocabularies more engaging. Put out the Fire is such a game where teams of students work with each other to name something within different categories based on the same letter.

While many of the games discussed here can only be implemented in a traditional and physical classroom environment due to their component limitations; there often exists digital adaptations of them that can be used in a distributed and online environment.  Such applications of games like Just One, Codenames, and Wordle make it so that these games can transcend the digital boundaries included by hosting classes via web conferencing.

JustOne is available on Amazon

Codenames is available on Amazon

Lastly, there also exist specific platforms aimed at digital student engagement both online and in person via different devices. Kahoot!, Quizizz, Quizlet Live, Gimkit, and Blooket, exist to provide educators with different gamified applications of quizzing and assessment that can be applied in different modalities.

Supporting Learning in Game Adaptations

An emphasis always has to be placed on learning, no matter what games educators choose to use and adapt for their students. This support can come in multiple different formats. The most common of which is the use of debriefing and reflection of learning activities. Games don’t need to be the only activity in which metacognition is emphasized; but they are a very powerful medium for examining the “learning of learning.”

Additionally, the use and application of simulations for teaching and learning have the added benefit of utilizing theme to connect learning content to specific learning outcomes. The Model United Nations makes it so that students embody the politics, motivations, goals, and collective needs of the planet in a microcosm of the actual organization. As such, learners can more viscerally empathize with nation states as they act and interact with classmates who serve as their counterparts.

Finally, educators can best support learners engaging in games-based learning by helping utilize and apply their agency within the game in their pursuit of different actions and strategies. Such options don’t necessarily exist with more traditional forms of learning through orthodox means.  Therefore it’s most useful for educators to prioritize and emphasize the unique approach that games offer.

Incorporating Assessment into Game Adaptations

Possibly one of the most important and critical things to incorporate into the application and adaptation of games for games-based learning are assessments. These assessments can be summative or formative. No matter what the educator chooses to use, it’s critical to make sure that the game is applied to ensure that learners are meeting the desired outcomes.

Such assessments should be implemented in order to meet the needs of both the educator and learners. Some assessments are easier to implement compared to others. This includes smaller more traditional ones such as test and quizzes which challenges learners to apply their learned skills in practice. Other content areas may require students to pass “quests” or “challenges” that are in line with the game’s theme that require learners to apply their new knowledge. No matter how these assessments are implemented, educators should examine how learners are making cognitive sense of their new learner behaviors. This metacognition (learning about learning) helps individuals  shift their own behaviors and adapt to change from games-based learning.

Games-based learning is more challenging to implement assessments because the educator must usually adapt a commercially available game for teaching and learning. Games are usually excellent at challenging players throughout play with different objectives, missions, and “boss fights” which demand players to put their skills to the test. However, educators using games-based learning must take appropriate and incisive measures in order to relate game content to their own learning objectives.

Educator intervention is especially important when it comes to supporting learners’ overall engagement and progression. That’s because it can very easy (especially for younger learners) to become despondent and demoralized from difficult game progression – especially as it relates to their own realization of self-determination and competency. This could be realized when a player gets “stuck” at a certain point in the game and is unsure how to progress or how the activity relates to a particular outcome.

Instructors can make use of these teachable moments in order to connect game content and activities with the specific learning outcomes from the material. Ideally, such connections encourage the player to apply different approaches with the objective of learning from their own shortcomings and failures. Such behavioral changes stem from the experiential learning cycle applied in games-based learning and the effect that active experimentation has on developing new approaches and strategies.

Lastly, the future of serious games and educational learning game development centers on the dynamic adaptation and change of the game to meet the learners’ needs and shortcomings. This is most likely achieved through the use of digital games-based learning which can detect and adapt to players’ behaviors and match their skill level with appropriate challenges to that helps them maximize learning while also assessing their outcomes.

Takeaways

This article covered the adaptation of games for games-based learning. It began with determining the reasoning behind the adaptation of games. Challenges with game adaptation were discussed as well as strategies that educators can undertake in order to help them with their process.

Specific game adaptation considerations were explained as well as some strategies that could be adopted when selecting and adapting games for teaching and learning. Special considerations for adaptations were covered as well as how educators can approach the game adaptation process. Finally, this article closed with examples of game adaptations as well how the adaptive practice can be accomplished in ways that best support student learning and assessment.

This article was about how to adapt games for learning.  To learn more about

gamification, check out the free course on Gamification Explained.

If you have enjoyed this article – consider getting yourself lifetime access to Dave’s Games-Based Learning Digital Library containing all of the content from the past two Games-Based Learning Virtual Conferences; past webinars and courses he’s created; as well as his complete back catalogue of articles; podcast episodes; and videos. And more content is being added all the time.

Readers of Ludogogy can get a $50 discount on this valuable resource by using this link.

The post How do I Adapt Games for Learning? first appeared on Ludogogy.

The key to designing board games is to set the core mechanism which will provide the fun in the game,  and then connect the sub-mechanisms to make various interesting interactions.

When we design a board game, the core mechanisms, and paper prototypes are the key to continuously providing feedback and improving the game, and to ensuring that the experience of play will be fun.

I will explain what the core mechanism and paper prototype are, and provide a way to structure the core mechanism, and the checklist of the paper prototype.

Core mechanism

In board game design, the core mechanism is the most simple and yet most complex one which the designer will have to think deeply about. This will be the part of the game they will consider most, even when, and probably especially, when several mechanisms are applied.

The core mechanism is what the player recognizes as the most notable feature among the structured systems in the board game, and the most frequent driver of behavior from the start to the end of the game. This is the heart of the game, and all players will get the opportunity to continue the play as new information becomes available to them through the game narrative.

The core mechanism is a model for implementing the major behaviors and progress activities in the game, as well as providing the fun. We can see this is in the core mechanic diagram model which Charmie Kim published in Gamasutra, which is a useful guide to design. In the early stages of board game design, this diagram is useful for communicating the key ideas of the game to others, and for defining the interaction and complexity in the play mechanisms.

The center of this model is the core mechanism which is the key of the game. There is a layer of secondary mechanics, and then progression around the core, and the narrative is outside of that. This comprises the system through which the core mechanism interacts with the game. So, we can easily understand how players can communicate with the game through the interaction.

• The core mechanism is the key to the game and the system through which players interact most frequently in an intentional way. It’s an expression of the game theme or genre. Also, it should be selected to be effective in achieving the game objectives.
• Sub-mechanisms are optional or infrequent interactions. They need to be selected and designed to support the core mechanism.
• The progress system is the source of change in the game. This could be achieved by using events or hidden information.
• Narrative must be designed to be consistent with every other internal layer and to provide a way of eliciting emotion from the player.

Paper prototype

A paper prototype is a tool to use at the early stages of game design to test ideas and check that the experience is fun. It’s necessary for developing board games.

And not only in board games, but in digital game development, the paper prototype is very useful in the early stages of game design to ensure the success of the project and minimize losses through development cost and wasted time. Paper prototype has become very popular in many companies because the many variables in development projects can be immediately analysed, redesigned, and iteratively modified. Also, there are many other positive aspects of the paper prototype.

• Flexibility – Expression of interaction can be quickly confirmed and modified.
• Quickness – Ideas and fun are quickly tested.
• Economical – Development cost is low because only paper and pen are required.
• Accessibility – Everybody can make the prototype because purchasing the materials and developing are easy.
• Scalability – Ideas are freely modified and developed.
• Mobility – It can be implemented anytime and anywhere.

The board game designer has to select the core mechanism for the fun of play and connect the sub-mechanisms for various interactions in game design.

Questions to ask when using paper prototypes

When using paper prototypes to test game concepts, checking whether the game components function well together to create fun experiences is very important.

1. Who is the player? Is this a playable game from that player’s perspective?
2. Are the rules clear? Are they understandable and how easy is it to arbitrarily change and break them?
3. To what extent is the prototype complete? Can others play the prototype?
4. What kind of fun can this game provide? Does this fun have the power to attract people?
5. Is play duration appropriate? Is it too long or short?
6. What games are similar to this one? Are those too rare or similar?
7. Does the player need to prepare a lot for playing the game? Can player easily participate without difficult preparation?
8. What meaning does this game provide to individuals, organizations, or society? What is the balance of Fun and Meaning?

Everybody wants to make a fun board game, but many people fail to do this because they ignore the importance of appropriate mechanism design, and the prototyping and testing to ensure these work well.

To make a good game, we have to experience various games, analyze the original games, and correctly select the ideas and mechanisms that work for our game idea. In addition, making a prototype and getting external feedback through play tests is most important. So, repeating this is the most important task.

The post Core Game Mechanisms and the Paper Prototype first appeared on Ludogogy.

The number of tools available is growing at an amazing rate, but this article will focus on real-life prompt examples in two popular tools – ChatGPT for text output and Midjourney for image creation.  These prompt examples should provide you with some ideas for using AI at every stage of game design and production, but the only real limit in how you can prompt these tools is your own imagination.

The below also assumes, for the most part, that we are looking at designing and creating an analogue, tabletop game. A broader overview of tools and capabilities will follow soon, as well as details about how AI can be used in digital games.

AI for Developing Game Concepts

During the concept phase, AI can help designers generate new ideas by analysing existing games and user preferences, and by rapidly trying out different tweaks to prompts.

Existing games – ChatGPT is very ‘well-read’, so you will probably discover that it ’knows’ about well-known games. If you want to draw on an existing game you could simply prompt “Create a description for a game, based on Terraforming Mars, but with a theme of building a new town”

But prompts like this are generally less likely to achieve what you want, because they have little guidance from you.  The result is really just a description of Terraforming Mars with the word ‘Town’ substituted.

:Click here for Terraforming Mars prompt – click again to close

Successful prompts are generally longer, and contain carefully chosen detail. Create a description of what it is you want to bring from ’Terraforming Mars’ (and omit what you don’t). Add your own needs and ideas. Be very specific.

:Click here for better prompt

Take advantage of ChatGPT’s ‘memory’ for what has gone before in the Chat to build on ideas, or ask for more detail on a specific piece of output. Here I have asked for new ideas on the game, based on who will be playing it. I have prompted with Bartle’s Player Types, but could have just as well in put job titles, demographic information such as age or location.

:Click here for Player Types prompt

It’s never too early to start working on game visuals, and if you get compelling images from Midjourney, they may well inspire your text prompts too. Try creating some concept art. Two useful prompts here are ‘character design sheet’ and ‘multiple item sprite sheet’.  Although these two things are usually generated for digital games, they are also great for producing small images to be used on things like counters and tiles.

For larger, more ‘complete’ images, if you want to be able to (potentially) separate them from their backgrounds later, make sure to include ‘concept art’ and ‘plain white background’ (or whatever colour is appropriate) in your prompts – the ‘character design sheet’ and ‘spritesheet’ prompts do this as a matter of course.

The prompts for these were

• “character design sheet, woman in her forties, short grey hair, jeans, long sleeved teeshirt, slim, different poses and expressions, full colour, flat colour, childrens book illustration style, –no text –v 5”
• ” multiple item spritesheet, household and office items, full colour, flat colour, childrens book illustration style, –no text –v 5″
• “multiple items sprite sheet, isometric view, tiles for a game, landscape, trees, flowers, grass –v 5”

From scratch – although I recommend being lengthy and specific with prompts to get anything really useful, if you just want to do some low-level brainstorming (at very early concept stage) feel free to play with shorter prompts to get ChatGPT to produce large numbers of ideas around single concepts.

Such prompts will inevitably produce generic and derivative responses, but they can form the basis for further explorations.

:Click here for generic prompt

One very useful technique is to take one suggestion, and ask ChatGPT to elaborate.  It is a good idea to give it more input in the form of your own ideas. This approach can be iterated as many times as you like until you get useful responses.

:Click here for extended German Games prompt

In a similar way you could try out different styles for the same idea in Midjourney. This might also be a good time to experiment with what prompts give you and refine your prompting so that when you come to the design stage you have a good idea of how to prompt to get the images you need.

Generic prompts will get generic output, and it is best to be specific about what the image should look like rather than what it represents conceptually. Midjourney will get less out of the idea of ‘Settlers of Diversity’ than it will out of a clear description of the desired image.

Using AI in Game Design

During the design phase, AI can help designers generate new game content, such as levels, puzzles, and characters. Remember that if you are developing the same concept from the concept stage into the design stage, it is a good idea to remain in the same chat, to take advantage of what ChatGPT will ’remember’ of what has gone before.

You can prompt using well known game mechanisms and components, confident that ChatGPT will ‘know’ about them.

:Click here for Terraforming Card prompt

ChatGPT can also use well-known ‘content’, although you should always check carefully that what it produces is correct, as Large Language Models (LLMs) can be prone to ’hallucination’. The following was a follow-on prompt after ChatGTP had ideated a set-collection game called ‘Dickensian Tales’.

:Click here for Dickensian Tales Locations prompt

It is highly recommended that you create and use ‘templates’ to get the output you want from ChatGPT. This is done by creating prompts which have ‘placeholders’ for content that will be populated by ChatGPT. Such prompts are usually quite generic, and you instruct ChatGPT to process them with specific content or subject requests. For example, here is what it produced when given part of a template for ‘Wretched and Alone’ games

(This work is based on The Wretched, product of Chris Bissette and Loot The Room, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.)

It was given the description of how cards work in Wretched and Alone games, having been asked to populate the Hearts suit, in a game about being a shelf stacker in a supermarket.

:Click here for ‘Wretched and Alone’ prompt

Prototyping using AI

During the prototyping phase, AI can rapidly try out widely, or narrowly, differing ideas for games, and producing new content and materials based on those models.

As well as refining ChatGPT’s output, by further prompting and feeding it additional ideas, or asking it to amend or delete aspects of its responses, it is also useful to feed its own input back in.

:Click here for Sustainable Towns Cards prompt

Once you have working ‘templates’ of a game, for example, card formats, it is pretty simple to generate new versions for different entities in the game and / or indeed, different subject matter to create as similar game on a different topic. Here it was prompted create part ofa ‘Orwell’ version of the Dickensian Tales game.

:Click here for 1984 prompt

In Midjourney, a really useful feature to create new images with the same characteristics but with some differing topic, focus or style is the Remix functionality, which can be turned on in Settings. This means that prompts can be edited when using the Variation buttons.

The greatest power that AI has as these stages of design, is the ability to ‘try out’ many different concepts or different versions of materials. This is a way of working that previously would not have been feasible without a great deal of time and a large team of people. Now this capability is available to small teams and individuals, and many of the tasks involved in ideation, design and prototyping can be carried out in a fraction of the time it took previously.

If you are interested in exploring how the above can be used for you to achieve a functional design for a learning game in under two hours – please sign up for my course – and don’t forget to use the code GPT10 for a 10% discount if booking before 19^th April.

The post Create Games Faster and Smarter with Generative AI first appeared on Ludogogy.

Gamification and Games

What’s the relationship between gamification and games?  Some people think that the term ‘game’ includes gamification. On the other hand, other people think that gamification includes games. From the gamification researchers’ perspective, they generally think that the wider meaning of gamification includes games. I have a slightly different perspective on this. Gamification and game are not mutually inclusive, but are different concepts with some relatedness.

The definition of gamification which I use, is that it is a way to improve achievement by changing unamusing or boring things into interesting ones, through applying game formats or elements in non-game settings. The prerequisite in this definition is that it happens in non-game settings. The picture representing this definition is as follows.

From the gamification design perspective, game elements are used. So, a deep relationship with games is required. However, the game industry itself, doesn’t have much need to have a similar and reciprocal relationship with gamification. In terms of expanding games into other areas, it’s positive and encouraged – games are often seen being used in other fields. But currently, games have little to gain from gamification. So, in most cases, it isn’t necessary for game designers and developers to get interested in gamification.

If gamification means adding parts of game formats or elements in non-game settings, it follows that adding game elements into games is not needed. In terms of the definition of gamification, gamification and games are related but separate. In addition, there is a limitation that the relationship is not bidirectional but unidirectional.

For developing gamification, the broad participation of game developers or researchers is necessary. But, I think that this participation is small. The reason why gamification doesn’t get much support from the game industry, is because the gamification side thinks that gamification includes ‘games’ in its broader meaning. From a game industry perspective, it can be viewed as insulting that games are seen as just part of gamification.

So, I think that gamification and games are currently separately considered. But if there will be more cooperative and equivalent stances between gamification and games, the games industry may get more interested in gamification.

Purpose and Fun, Gamification is harder than games

Gamification has to seek both objectives and fun, unlike games. Therefore, in considering my background as a game developer and Ph.D. in games, game development itself is very difficult, but gamification development is even harder than game development. The game just covers pure fun and play characteristics without achieving specific objectives. Gamification aims to make achievement easier, for the end user, by iterating the objectives in a fun way through the addition of game elements. But, for the designer, satisfying both objectives and fun is very hard. I think that’s why there aren’t many successful gamification use-cases.

Although many areas try to seek gamification by applying game elements, the most important thing is the objective that should be achieved. In the education sector, learning effects are the most important ones. In the medical sector, health improvement is paramount. If there aren’t many effects of learning or improvement in health, despite being fun, it’s meaningless. So, game elements in gamification are auxiliary tools to prompt the achievement of objectives and make it easier.

In current situations, it’s hard for the game industry to get attracted to gamification. If many successful gamification cases are made, the game industry may be interested. But, I think that the gamification industry itself has to learn about games deeply. People should learn the game theories, apply them in various fields, and make many successful gamification cases. This is a starting point.

If possible, I want to share various stories as a game researcher in the future. I hope that shared game information will be helpful in making many successful gamification cases.

** The above article may not match the opinion and editorial direction of Ludogogy (or the Gamification Journal). It intends to show various perspectives on gamification in the game industry and its academics in Korea.

The post Gamification is Harder than Games first appeared on Ludogogy.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in learning and gaming design has revolutionized the way content creators approach their craft. AI-powered tools provide game and learning designers with efficient and effective ways to produce high-quality content that engages learners and gamers alike. In this article, we will focus on two AI-powered tools – Midjourney and ChatGPT – that can be used to create game and learning content. We will also look at the burgeoning development of third-party apps and tools which utilise, in particular, the various GPT models, and which provided highly-focused resources.

Check out Ludogogy Learning’s offerings around AI for Learning and Games Design

Midjourney is an AI-powered image creation tool that can produce various types of visuals which can be used in game and learning materials. ChatGPT, on the other hand, is an AI text generation tool that can produce text-based content in a huge variety of formats and contexts. Both these tools are capable of creating high-quality content in less time and with less effort. This post will explore the features and applications of these two tools in detail and discuss how they can be used to create personalized and immersive games and learning experiences.

First – The Pictures – Midjourney

Midjourney is an AI-powered platform that can create high-quality images for games and learning materials. The platform employs machine learning algorithms that can generate images based on specific parameters. Midjourney’s algorithms go beyond mere image manipulation by creating new, original images in different styles and formats.

Like most of the well-known AI tools, Midjourney is moving fast, and is constantly being updated with new modes and capabilities. In the last few months, for example, we have seen the addition of version 4 of the image generation algorithm, which generates images without many of the problems (long necks, double faces, general distortion) of the previous algorithms.

And where particular styles of artwork have proved to be popular, Midjourney has sought to smooth the path to creating quality images in those styles. The new Niji mode, for example, is especially designed for creating images with a Manga feel.

There are some limitations on size; a Midjourney image currently has a maximum size of 2048 x 2048 pixels. You can change the aspect ratio to make something of a different shape but still subject to the same size limit. Different versions have different limitations on size and which aspect ratios will work properly. But once you have a grip on that, the only other limitations are your imagination and your skill in creating prompts.

Midjourney can be used create different background images, icons, characters, and more. These images can be used in a variety of applications, including games, educational videos, e-learning courses, and instructional materials. My own experience of using Midjourney in learning game design includes:

• Realistic photographic images of people of various ethnicities, genders and ages for a diversity and inclusion game.
• Creation of photorealistic but ‘impossible’ exhibits for ‘:The Museum of Impossible Objects’.
• A tarot style deck of cards with illustrations which look like they have all been created by the same artist
• Illustrations for a high-fantasy style RPG game
• Cartoon style illustrations of modern office life
• Creation of an :asemic ‘alien’ script

Particularly useful in the context of game and learning design are the following capabilities:

• Being able to apply a consistent aesthetic across a large number of images – ideal for creating card decks
• Create images based on existing images, such as using a photograph for the basis of a new image of the same subject with a different theme
• Merging two or more images together to create a new image containing elements of all of them.
• Creating variations on a preferred image – for example dressing a character in styles of dress from different historical eras.

Midjourney allows you to choose from a dazzling array of art styles, image subjects and even replicates photography down to the level of camera and lighting settings.

It takes some effort to learn to use it really well, but the savings in both time and money in sourcing appropriate images for your projects will be well worth it.

Then – the Words – GPT and ChatGPT

ChatGPT is an AI-powered tool that can generate pretty much any kind of text-based content you require. The platform is built on the GPT3 family of large language models, developed by OpenAI, and seeks to create human-like text output.

Like Midjourney, there is a requirement to get to know the platform, and spend some time  learning to create effective prompts if you are to use it well, but the potential returns in automating ideation and content creation are life-changing for people working in learning and game design.

GPT3 is not connected to the Internet (GPT4, underlying the Bing bot, is, but is outside the scope of this article), but nevertheless, its training datasets were massive, even though it ‘knows’ little about anything since 2021.

So you can, for example, be reasonably confident that it will have read most well-known books, which underlies this great set of tips on creating lesson plans for English Literature classes.

One thing you do need to do carefully, when asking ChatGPT to output material you are going to use with learners, is to check for errors. Because of the way that ChatGPT ,and the underlying models work, which is basically like a very sophisticated predictive text model, it simply decides what word to write next, one word at a time. It is an illusion that ChatGPT deals in anything larger than words. It certainly does not have ’facts’ at its disposal, and will frequently produce factually incorrect information.

For example, this is (part of) what it output about the year 1974 in British politics:

The year 1974 was also marked by tragedy. In the four and a half years leading up to the next general election, a total of 17 members of parliament died. This included some of the most prominent figures in British politics, such as former Prime Minister Edward Heath and Labour politician George Brown. The loss of these individuals had a significant impact on the political landscape, as it meant that new leaders had to step up and take their place.

Although most of the rest of the output was just what was required, it incorrectly claimed that Edward Heath and George Brown died during the years 1974-79.

GPT and Games Design

In games design, this ’hallucination’ is maybe less concerning, as we are frequently creating output which is fictional in nature. However, the hallucination aspect of this tool should always be borne in mind.

ChatGPT can be used in many parts of games design and production, right from initial ideation to playtesting, and there is pretty much no limit to the formats and types of output it will produce, from outlines, to finished prose, poetry, dialogue and stage direction, computer code, and even knitting patterns in both text and chart format.

One obvious application is to produce text-based components for games including:

• Narrative such as backstory and scenarios
• Character sheets and playbooks for RPGs
• Plot summaries
• Rulebooks
• Card rubric
• Etc

You can even play games directly in ChatGPT, such as text based adventure games, narrative games, including shared storytelling between the bot and a human, and even more complex games with dice throwing and tokens involved – if you get the prompt right.

ChatGPT’s ability to ’remember’ what has gone before in a chat means that played games can then be re-output in alternative forms, and I have done this previously, getting such output as a third person re-telling of a first person RPG, a screenplay with dialogue and even a report on how the player displayed leadership.

As the captain of the Star Explorer, the player has shown effective leadership throughout the game. They were quick to take action when the ship’s sensors detected a strange object, displaying a sense of curiosity and adventure. They also demonstrated effective decision-making skills when faced with the situation of the abandoned spaceship and the critical state of its reactor. The player immediately calls their second in command to discuss the situation and then ask their own ship’s AI to produce a risk assessment and to suggest appropriate personnel to send over if the risks were acceptable.

The player also displayed a sense of caution and safety when they decided to tow the ship back to the nearest space station instead of simply continuing the mission. This shows that the player is willing to prioritize the safety of their crew and the ship.

In terms of areas for improvement, the player could have been more proactive in communicating with other ships in the vicinity for assistance before attempting to repair the reactor. This could have been an opportunity to seek help from other ships and potentially prevent the high-pressure situation.

Overall, the player has displayed excellent leadership skills and judgement and has effectively navigated through the challenges faced during the mission.

…or code to play the game from a command line

…or code which can be copied and pasted into Twine to make a branching scenario game

Where ChatGPT really excels is being given templates to work with and then being asked to complete those based on a theme or particular content. Here is what it produced when given part of a template for ‘Wretched and Alone’ games (This work is based on The Wretched, product of Chris Bissette and Loot The Room, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.)

And then given the prompt:

Using the following template can you write the ‘Who’ and ‘What’ sections of a Wretched and Alone game about working as a shelf-stacker in a supermarket:

This is what it output:

Who?

You are a shelf-stacker at a local supermarket, working long hours for minimum wage in order to make ends meet. You’re not sure how you ended up in this dead-end job, but you know you need to keep it in order to pay the bills. You have a few friends among your co-workers, but most of them are just as miserable as you are. The store is located in a rundown part of town, and you often deal with shoplifters, angry customers, and other hazards of working in a low-income area.

What?

This is a solo GM-less journaling game in which you will document your attempts to survive your job as a shelf-stacker at the supermarket. You will face a variety of challenges, from dealing with difficult customers to avoiding the wrath of your boss.

During the game, you will roll dice, draw cards from the deck and read their associated events, pull blocks from the jenga tower, place or remove tokens from cards, and write about your experiences in character.

Failure is the most likely outcome of this game. If the jenga tower falls, you’ll be fired from your job and will have to find another way to make ends meet. If you draw all four Kings, you’ll be caught stealing from the store and will be arrested; the last King you draw will tell you how.

To win, you must draw the Ace of Hearts and complete the task that it specifies by removing tokens from it over subsequent days. For a shorter, easier game, place the Ace of Hearts on the top of the deck after you’ve shuffled it, so it’s the first card you’ll draw. The task specified by the Ace of Hearts will give you a chance to improve your situation, whether that means getting a promotion at work, finding a new job, or escaping the grind of retail life altogether.

What’s Next – Third Party Integrations

The use of AI in game and learning design has many benefits. For one, it allows for personalized and immersive experiences, enhancing the overall learning or gaming experience. Midjourney and ChatGPT both play important roles in this process.

Because of the speed of production and the ease with which many slightly differing versions of something can be made, this really opens up the options for creating differentiated learning – which was well demonstrated in the video at the beginning of the article.

This personalization can lead to increased engagement and motivation, ultimately leading to better retention of information.

One of the most frequent criticisms levelled at the use of AI in creative work is that what is produced is derivative and not very creative – lacking the human ‘spark’. While this is true to a certain extent, it is also true that AI has the potential to increase creativity. The actual production of text-based content may be the least creative part of the learning or game design and creation process, and if that can be automated and speeded up, it frees human designers to focus on the experiences they want to create, and indeed in coming up with yet more creative ways of using the tools to come out with innovative output

And nowhere has this creativity been seen more than in the 300+ third party applications which have integrated with the GPT API to produce targeted tools which further enhance capability in very specific tasks. A sample of these which might be of particular interest to learning and games designers are:

• GPT for Sheets and Docs  an extension for Google Sheets and Docs which allows you pull input directly from GPT into your spreadsheets and documents.
• AI Dungeon – Play in AI-enabled worlds-now enhanced with Stable Diffusion images.
• Charisma – Storytelling powered by artifical intelligence
• AIChannels – a social network platform which allows collaboration with AI agents
• Debuild – Generative AI to build wep apps

Takeaways and Next Steps

Midjourney and ChatGPT are powerful AI tools that have the potential to revolutionise both the game and learning design process. This article has necessarily just scratched the surface of what is possible. If you want to know more, and attend some short course that are specifically targeted on AI for learning and game design, then check out Ludogogy Learning’s selection of upcoming courses which include all new material on using Midjourney and ChatGPT in your design process.

The post The Bots Are Coming – Let’s Have Some Fun! first appeared on Ludogogy.

It has been more than twenty years since the board game culture, which had been very popular in Europe, was introduced into Korea. Board game culture in Korea has grown year by year, and various board game products have launched with more and more people enjoying them.

The high demand for education in Korea, combined with the rise in board game culture, has meant that diverse educational board games have been developed. However, we have often seen board games with problems in this area, such as being incorrectly structured.

In ‘Gemblo Company’, we consider several key factors when developing educational board games to ensure that they are useful for learners. I introduce these below, along with related examples.

The connection between theme and game method

First, the theme of the game should be education, but the gameplay should also be relevant to education. In other words, the game should look like it has an educational purpose, but if it does not include real and enjoyable gameplay, it’s problematic.

For example, if the theme is environmental protection, but the game method is just simply to collect cards related to environmental protection. It looks like ‘Environmental protection’, but the play experience is just ‘collecting cards’. If an educational board game doesn’t include a connection between theme and game method, this kind of educational board game is not recommended.

This kind of educational board game can be easily seen in Korea (and everywhere else too – Editor). It seems to have educational content, but in many cases, the gameplay or experience is just mimicking famous international games like ‘Halli Galli’ or ‘Monopoly’, etc.

“MY BRAND”

‘MY BRAND’ was developed with a clear objective, to be a personal branding game, rather than relying on typical board game styles. It’s based on the generally known psychological character model, BIG 5 (Big 5 personality traits), and education professionals from various fields participated in its development.

Through this game, players connect their personal branding identities with cards, and these are also connected with other people’s thoughts about them. Players can design and implement their brand identity through the game and its process.

My brand and style and others can be visualised through one hundred emotional brand cards. Also, players analyze the meaning of brand cards from various perspectives, and communicate with each other to increase the mutual understanding in this board game.

After finishing the game, the graph shows each of the characteristic of the players, leading to them obtaining their brand graphs.

The balance between the fun of the game and the system

Second, it is important that there is balance in the game. The educational content and fun of the game need to be balanced. A few educational board games include educational content where the level is almost equivalent to academic papers. This is because educational professionals, with a high level of domain knowledge, have made the games. But without games design expertise also, they can lack the system of the game, which would make them fun to play and successful in the marketplace.

From the opposite perspective, some board games include the fun or system of the game quite well, but there is less educational content, or no participation by education professionals. Simple domain research by game developers is clumsily included in the game, attracting criticism from education professionals.

Therefore, to develop educational board games, top-level education professionals in relevant fields need to review the board game or participate in the development process.

FL!P

FL!P is a communication game that was developed by TLP (TURNING LEARNING POINT)’s educational design research center and edited by the Gemblo Company. Experts in transactional analysis and board game developers co-participated in this development.

Players explain their negative points by indicating the cards, and it can help them find real-life negative traits. After shuffling their negative cards in envelopes, cards can be flipped by opening the envelopes one by one. Cards with negative points are changed into those with positive points, that are related to the negative ones. In this process, players guess who has these positive points once again.

By finding the negative points and connecting them with positive ones, each negative point is naturally disclosed to other players. And by flipping the cards, they develop the thought that each negative point can also become a positive one.

This board game covers the insights that self-selected negative points can be thought of as positive ones, and the type of characters being matched with each other.

Difficulty level being matched with learners

Finally, game difficulty and rules which are not matched with players must not be applied. I have seen an example where a history educational content was developed as a board game for elementary students, but the level of a board game was far beyond the typical competency level for elementary students.

On the other hand, I have also see business simulation board games for adults where the mechanics of party games or family games with comparatively low difficulty were used.

The board game has a long history because it was the first type of game that human beings developed. However, the play itself is not as complex as that seen in computer and mobile games. If developers try to push to make equivalently complex games systems and components, the level of difficulty in play is significantly increased. Therefore, if you want to include educational content, the level of difficulty in the game needs to be structured by considering the level of experience needed for the target players.

I have explained the key considerations in the development of board games and given two real development cases. By simply gathering and playing, players can recognize different personality traits, and together explore positive or negative points, and how negative points can be transformed into positive ones. These are the effects of FL!P, an example of how educational board games can include both fun and learning effects.

If you explore and study board games which meet the criteria mentioned above, you will discover a medium with great potential to present useful information to people and show relevant insights. Educational board games help people directly play, experience, and feel, while connecting people with emotions in a tangible analogue way.

In terms of directly experiencing and trying something together, communicating, interacting, and learning with inspiration, educational board games are an innovative area where we can expect a bright future.

The post Key Factors of Educational Board Game Development first appeared on Ludogogy.

The Museum of Impossible Objects is a ‘game’ consisting of a set of cards, each with an image, a label, as if the image were a museum exhibit, and a set of questions, to prompt further reflection.

The Museum of Impossible Objects is available on Deckible

As a game, The Museum lacks several components that one might expect. It has no rulebook, and is definitely very light on mechanics. The whole thing is very self-referential, in that clues are scattered among the cards themselves about the premise of the ‘game’, which in turn might give players ideas about how to play.

I have decided to write this article, partially because I hope people will find it useful, and that it may inspire the design of similar games, but also because my design process was a form of ‘play’ itself, which may give learning facilitators, who come to use the cards, ideas as to how they might use them.

Creating the Museum was itself a form of play

The process of creating the cards had a lot in common with the way I expect people will use them to play – responding to the images with stories and ideas of their own. The images definitely came first, and my response to the images suggested the text, and indeed the idea of the Museum itself.

The Museum would probably not have come into being at all if it had not been for a LinkedIn post (I forget whose, sorry) containing an image generated using Midjourney AI. I immediately began playing with Midjourney, and as a body of decidedly weird work started to emerge, so did ideas about how those might work as a ‘game’ utilising cards.

While many of the images were pretty strange, they did actually remind me of objects I had seen in real life, in the drawers and glass cases of the decidedly magical Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. I began to look back at the images created and devise labels for them. And as each new image emerged it suggested new ideas.

I had created about half of the cards in the deck, when I started to get a bit more ‘intentional’. I thought I had grokked how Midjourney was ‘thinking’ and started to reverse my process – thinking of the label idea first, and then trying to create the image to go with it.

Deliberate intent was not as effective as play

In practice, this proved to be much less satisfactory, than when I had simply been ‘playing’. The ideas seemed more forced, and indeed it became frustrating to try to get Midjourney to create a suitable image to accompany the text I had already written. This was the result of a combination of my own lack of experience and skills in using Midjourney and the capabilities of the tool at the time.

But I am glad that this happened. I feel that if I had started my (Mid)journey now, with the realism of the V4 algorithm, I would not have achieved many of the stranger images, or the flights of creative imagination which they prompted.

I soon reverted to the original method of creating images first. This was of course, not totally without direction. I was feeding Midjourney with the more weird and wonderful aspects of my interests – H.P. Lovecraft, Fae lore, ghost stories, magic, sacred geometry, Victorian and gothic art and literature and so on, but I was not trying to be specific about the images. I made a conscious decision to be ‘happy’ with the images that resulted and to adapt the labels to fit them – finding creative ways to explain the distortions and oddities of the pictures.

Making a virtue of the flaws

An example of this was the image of the ‘Spacebender Moth’. The prompt was simply ’a moth with arcane markings on its wings’. The resultant image displayed, as much output from MJ did at that time, considerable distortion. The best option seemed to be to make the distortion the point of the image, and the idea of a moth whose defining characteristic was an ability to bend reality, arrived.

The same principle was applied to the painting by ‘Hans Holbein’, which was an especially satisfying idea as it was so appropriate thematically. A well-known tenet of fae lore is that fae folk confuse mortals’ gaze and thoughts through ‘glamour’, and that fitted really well with the idea that an artist could both paint a picture that was so confused, and also that he would not remember doing so.

Coming across Midjourney seemed serendipitous, but there was also another piece of technology that was occupying my time and thoughts at the same time. I had just uploaded a card-based version of The Gift Horse to Deckible, an app which is to card decks what Audible is to audiobooks, so when I decided to create the Museum cards, I naturally decided to create the cards for the Deckible format.

Three-sided cards

This meant one important thing. Because Deckible is an app, card decks on it do not have the same physical constraints that cards have in real life.  The Museum cards are three-sided, having a back and two ‘fronts’.

It was this second front that allowed me to create something that moved beyond being a set of writing prompts – which was my first intention for the deck, to something with more learning potential.

I have always been interested in the way that speculative fiction – science fiction, fantasy, magical realism and even horror, allows us a way to more deeply reflect on what it is to be human.

It both opens up consideration what might be possible, and holds up a mirror to our behaviours, beliefs, values and foibles. As it does this, it seems to be capable of simultaneously making us uncomfortable, by asking the questions, but also more comfortable about answering them, because there is a layer of remove, when we are considering them.

When stories get serious

For example, I remember watching, when I was quite young, an episode of Star Trek where there was a bitter war being waged between two different peoples on the same planet (Let That Be Your Last Battlefield SE03 Ep15 TOS). All the inhabitants have faces that are half black and half white, except one half are right-white and left-black and in the other half of the population the colours are reversed.

It was the first time that I became aware that my favourite genres of entertainment were also capable of talking about serious topics – in this case, racism and slavery.

So, while the Museum cards can just be used as writing prompts in various (mostly weird fiction), genres, they can also be ‘turned over’ to look at questions which might open up more interesting and reflective discussions.

The Museum of Impossible Objects is available on Deckible

The Museum as a Learning tool

The Museum of Impossible Objects can therefore be used in learning settings in Education, from secondary school to higher education, and in workplace learning. Potential applications include:

• Educational ‘classroom’ settings
  • Writing prompts in Literature and Drama education
  • Critical thinking
  • Philosophy and Ethics
• Workplace and organisational learning
  • Organisational storytelling for vision, mission and discovery
  • Futures Thinking
  • Sustainability and Business Ethics
  • Diversity and Inclusion
  • Innovation and Creativity

It can also be played – just for fun. While many of the cards are likely to prompt quite serious discussions, and some of the questions have been specifically designed to do so, there are some ‘fun’ bits too. Can you imagine working in a place where the first rule in the Employee Handbook is ‘Do not eat the Goblin Fruit’ or where you had to contemplate the challenges inherent in operating a craft business in a premises outside of time and space.

So how would you play?

Many games present players with a story, but the premise behind the museum is different. There are no stories, but inside the cards, there is the potential for a literally infinite number of different stories.

The Museum of Impossible Objects is an exercise in Worldbuilding. There are glimpses of the artefacts that exist in the world, and the background behind those objects. But none of those is large enough or developed enough to qualify as a story. It is up to the players to create those as they play.

In reality, as I have hinted already, it is also up to the players to decide how the ‘game’ is played at all – if indeed it is a game. There is no rule book. While all games are an exercise in co-creation (of play experience) between designers and players, this one invites the players to design the game(s) as well.

With no rulebook, even the premise of the game is hidden within the cards themselves.

The Book of Exhibits is both an exhibit itself, and an explanation of the experience one has interacting with the cards. The questions on the (second) front of the cards are ‘put into’ visitors heads by the book, utilising the Museum’s psychic field. The book (if only we were able to peek inside) contains the answers (from the visitors’ imaginations presumably) in story form. And we are also told that it is very possible that the labels one sees on the exhibits are sometimes rewritten, based on these stories.

Learning from The Book of Exhibits

And just these few simple sentence gives us an immediate insight into how the cards might be used in a learning setting. There is so much to unpack, which could be used to reflect on, for example:

• Where collective ideas from and who or what puts them there
• The influence of mass media or social media
• Who or what ‘writes’ the stories that we all believe, and whether those remain constant
• The harvesting of data/insights by tech companies and how they use these to reflect back to us what we want to see
• The mutability of ‘truth’
• Etc.

And while these ideas can be pulled from the image and the label, turning each card over will reveal the questions, opening up more scope, or providing an easy route for educators to open conversation / storytelling without having themselves to prompt the learners.

‘Bottom Up’ Worldbuilding

The text, images and question represent an exercise in ‘bottom up’ worldbuilding, which is a practice whereby very granular aspects (artefacts) of a world (of which museum exhibits is a typical example) are used to provide a glimpse into that world. Broader aspects of the world; culture, politics, customs and manners, history – can then be extrapolated from these in the form of stories.

It works by inviting the storyteller:

“If there is a world in which this is true, then what else is necessarily / possibly true?”

(whatever the ‘this’ is that is demonstrated by the artefact).

As I mentioned the genesis of the idea for the Museum, occurred almost by accident, but once the idea was there, I was quite clear that I wanted to include certain particular ‘thises’ in the world of the Museum – because of the value they would bring from a learning perspective – and the kinds of issues they could address – albeit through a speculative fiction lens.

Accepting the premise of the world of the game and agreeing to play as if these things were true is an example of stepping into the Magic Circle of the game.

Without (hopefully) giving too much away the following are things that are true in the world of the Museum:

• Humans are not the only sentient species – and other sentient species, which include magical beings, have been involved in planetary decision making
• Magic and technology exist side by side, and have been combined to create innovations
• There is controversy around what should be exhibited in museums and where items come from
• Ghosts and demons exist, and can be a nuisance, requiring disposal or control, but are also, (somewhat inconveniently if you are looking to detain or destroy them), most likely sentient.
• Crows practise a shamanic religion
• Events do not always happens in the order you would expect them to, given our current understanding of cause and effect
• Etc.

So, what might ‘playing the game’ look like in practice?

It is not my place to prescribe the ways in which the game should be played. It is up to the players, and no doubt new ways to play will be discovered all the time – both ‘just for fun’ and in learning settings.  But here are a few ways I have discovered so far.

• Revealing cards one at a time as if you were walking around the museum – and telling the story of that day / visit as you go.
• Using a single card as a focus for discussion / activities, such as writing prompts in a Literature class or a debate in an Ethics class
• ‘What If’ activities in which new cards / artifacts / social systems are extrapolated from a card or cards
• Competitive storytelling, where cards are collected by those telling the ‘best’ story about them (with or without a target context)

I hope that you feel inspired to either visit the Museum, or to create your own similar decks/games. Find new ways to play, invent your own additional questions – even create your own cards.

There is a whole magical world inside and outside the Museum’s door, just waiting to be discovered.

The Museum of Impossible Objects is available on Deckible

The post The Museum of Impossible Objects – Educational Field Trip first appeared on Ludogogy.

Thi Nguyen’s book, ‘Games: Agency as Art’ is not about learning games or games-based learning specifically. But the viewpoint about all games that he advances has huge implications for games-based learning. It offers us a framework for learning games that focuses us on our tools and their potential, and opens up the scope of what we can do with, to and for players of learning games.

This isn’t a review of that book. Rather, I’ll explain his central argument in straightforward terms, and explain what I think it can offer games-based learning practitioners.

Games reverse the usual practice of choosing means to meet ends

Games are often seen as frivolous. Players are frittering away time; at best amusing or entertaining themselves. Even when people defend games against this criticism, it’s often by saying that games can serve some other, serious end. That ‘serious games’ can offer a social critique, or that games can be an engaging way to tell important stories.

But Nguyen argues that we don’t need to appeal to these higher goals, because games do something incredibly valuable in their own right: they get players to adopt particular ends and means. Bernard Suits defines games as a ‘voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles’. When we take up this attempt, we take up the goals and rules of the game – the magic circle – as a temporary end.

Although some players, for some games, play to win or profit, many of us play largely for an experience. This inverts the normal way of things: in life, we tend to define our ends and live by means to suit. When we play games for the experience of playing, we temporarily take up the game’s ends, specifically to give ourselves the experience of the means we use to achieve them. 

When the striving is the point, our agency takes centre stage

In this kind of gameplay, the particular quality of how we strive towards the game’s ends becomes central. We’re more likely to play games that offer experiences that we value. Often these are ones where we’re in control; where we have agency. Otherwise we may as well watch a movie or read a book. 

That agency can take many forms, but we often get a special kick when our actions, decisions and solutions have a certain elegance. When we spring a well-planned trap in chess, or finally solve a vexing puzzle in a game like Myst or The Room. Most of all, when meeting the challenge is at the very edge of our capabilities.

These kinds of experiences not only exercise our agency, but develop it. By acting and seeing the consequences of our actions, we learn. By testing our capabilities, our agency grows. In everyday life, this usually happens in arbitrary, random ways: many things are too hard or too easy, or develop our agency in ways that are not particularly useful.

Game designers can sculpt the agency of players

When we play games for the playing, we use our agency in the way suggested by the game: by its goal, its rules and its environment or obstacles. In chess, we develop our capacity for agency in strategy, tactics and anticipation. When playing poker, we develop agency in calculating odds, bluffing and reading others’ intentions.

The goals, rules and obstacles – by dictating the kind of agency that we use and develop – become the tools the game designer uses to sculpt. And the clay is no less than our agency. A tweak here or there in any of these three areas can dramatically affect what agency we exercise, and how.

The goals and obstacles of life can offer similar opportunities. But game designers can sculpt in a more focused way. Where life confronts us with a dizzying confusion of conflicting values and options, games work by narrowing our focus, telling us what to care about and offering us possibilities for getting it. Where life can frustrate or bore us, games can set the level of challenge to bring out a motivating and enriching sense of flow.

Shaping new agencies for players is a powerful way to frame learning

Nguyen goes as far as to suggest that games are a technology to hold different agencies, the way books might store lessons on different topics. And just as a collection of books becomes a library, the range of games available to us is a library of possible agencies – by playing more and different ones, we can expand the range and depth of our agency.  

All this, the book explores without specific reference to learning games, although Nguyen often frames this in terms of a benefit to humanity. But if learning is our focus, this way of looking at things holds extra power.

What is the agency you want your learners to exercise? Which games or experiences already exist that touch on that agency, and how might they inspire you? How can you extend more agency to your learners, so that they’re really acting out the skills and capacities you want them to take away and use beyond your game or experience?

Your tools are your goals, your rules and the obstacles you choose

And in terms of crafting the exact experience we want, we have three powerful tools: goals, rules and obstacles or environment. Thinking of these tools as settings that you can tweak, in design, in playtest and revision, can unlock creative flexibility to shape player agency.

What will you reward within the game, to make players care about it? What combination of rules will offer players the chance to generate ideas for, and then try out and develop, the kind of agency you want from them? What obstacles will inspire them to rise to the challenge?

We’ve always had these tools. But seeing them as sculptor’s tools, and specifically the agency of our players as our clay, unlocks our ability to focus on and work that clay. If our concern is learning, this helps us shape what really matters: the catalogue of agency our learners can access.

Games: Agency as Art is available on Amazon

The post Using Games to Sculpt Agency first appeared on Ludogogy.

Tabletop games on the other hand, are, or have been, generally social affairs. There are games that are specifically meant for solo play, Patience card games, for example, but finding a one-player game in your local games store requires a little more searching than finding a party game, or a 2-4 player game.

But we can’t always find others to play with, and the pandemic has made that problem more prevalent. This has led to the recent rise in ‘Automa’, both ‘official’ – included with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) games when they are published, and ‘unofficial’ fan-built solo play systems.

What is an Automa?

An automa simulates an opponent in a game. You may sometimes hear it referred to AI, but in reality, the ways that different automa work differ a lot. Some may make use of the game’s resources and mechanics (a more AI-ish characteristic), while others simply allocate actions to the ‘opponent’ at a similar rate to which a real opponent would play – less ‘intelligent’.

The term was coined by the man who is arguably the most famous automa designer, Morten Monrad Pedersen, while he was creating a solo game version for Viticulture, Stonemaier Games’ wine-making game. Following that he founded The Automa Factory, which works with other games design companies to create solo game versions of their games.

Viticulture is available on Amazon

The Automa Factory work extensively with Stonemaier Games, and many of the games listed below come from their stable. Their automa are simple to use, and are based on a small deck of cards. In Wingspan, for example, a card is turned over from the deck each time it is the automa’s turn and the action listed on the card (from one of four sections, depending on which round of the game is current), are carried out. End of round scoring is implemented through a ‘base value’ of a resource printed on the automa card, added to the number of action cubes on the current round’s goal tile – removing these cubes may be one of the automa actions that is taken in a round.

There is even a really simple mechanism for varying the Automa’s competiveness, by changing the number of points it is awarded at the end of the game for each face down bird card – and by including the ‘expert’ level automa card ‘Automubon Society’.

Wingspan is available on Amazon

The automa in Wingspan has much reduced capacity for action compared to a real player; does not have a player mat, does not collect food tokens, does not pay for anything, does not benefit from bird powers and collects birds and eggs only for the purposes of game end scoring- a charactieristic known as ‘streamlining’. Nevertheless, given that the winning condition in Wingspan is a final score, it can still win.

Automa as AI and other methods

But the Automa Factory cards is not the only approach to creating automa. If you take Board Game Geek’s geeklist definition of an automa (and why not), it A) stops short of being a full AI simulation, and streamlines out much of the complexity of those, B) should be able to win or lose in much the same way as its human opponent, and C) does not require decision making or intervention on the part of the human player for it to work.

Several games that were submitted to the automa geeklist have been removed by the list owner for failing to meet these criteria. For example, Power Grid: The Robots, lost its place for including a full simulation rather than a streamlined experience of playing an opponent. Imperial Settlers lost out because it changed the experience of ‘losing’, so that it was not the same as losing to a human opponent, and Churchill was excluded because it was not sufficiently automated, and required players to come up with ideas of how to play the opponent.

Perusing the list of games which remain reveal a wealth of different ideas for implementing solo play, and for the sake of completeness I also include some games which might have been excluded, purely because the mechanisms used might be interesting and useful to readers of this article.

Just play – Some games, most likely cooperative games, have no opponent as such, so solo play is simply a case of playing on your own. Terraforming Mars is a good example of this. In the official, included, solo version, it says that you have a ‘neutral opponent’ from whom you can steal resources and so on, but as they do not ‘play’ this is simply a case of taking those resource from the stockpile. In reality, you just play alone, and your only opponent is time – you are limited to 14 generations in which to achieve the triple goal of terraforming. This of course, does not really qualify as an Automa. It is certainly ‘streamlined’ (in that it reduces the need for actually carrying out the game actions), but is in fact so streamlined that is effectively the same as having no opponent at all.

Terraforming Mars is available on Amazon

However, there are some inventive fans of Terraforming who have stepped in to remedy that shortfall.

The cards for a fan-developed ‘AI’ type automa for Terraforming Mars along with the English version of the rules, and the French version too.

Ark Nova – arguably the stand out game of 2021-22 also comes with a built in solo mode, but it attracted a fair bit of criticism from players for being overly rigid, and therefore not replicating the experience of playing against a real opponent. The Geeklist features a couple of fan-built automa including ARNO – which must be one of the most compact automa around at only 5 cards. It uses a simple selection of decisions using dice. Several ARNO bots can be used in a game – to add a 3^rd or 4^th player in a two player game, and they can be played at differing difficulty levels. Unlike many automa, there is quite a high degree of interaction between players and automa, as ARNO can move cards in the display for example.

However, the prize for the most compact automa I have played must go to the fan-built solo play version for Snowdonia, which uses only the materials which come in the box and a six-sided die. This is an example of the randomiser style of automa, and places game resources according to the die roll and the availability of spaces on the board.

Snowdonia is available on Amazon

Designing Automa as a learning practice

The most obvious reason for creating automa would be to be able to play a well-loved game even when there is no opponent(s) available, but the process of creating an automa has value within itself.

The process requires that the automa designer studies, and really deeply, understands the mechanics of the game they are trying to ‘automate’. While the resulting materials which actually implement the automa may appear simple, the work behind them is not. Ironically, the more compact the output, the more hours of work have probably gone into the processes of:

• Streamlining the actions of the ‘opponent’ so that players do not have to ‘play the part’ of the automa
• Ensuring that the use of an automa does not overly restrict or change the experience for the player
• Thorough playtesting to make sure that the behaviour of the automa remains congruent in all likely game situations
• Ensuring that a win state can be reached despite the streamlining
• Ensuring balance in play that replicates the play of human opponents (that it is neither too hard or too easy to beat the AI)

In recent years, games-based learning has moved beyond creating games for learners to play, to offering the experience of games design itself as a valuable learning opportunity. The design of an automa for a particular game is a decidedly non-trivial task, which could provide learning in design thinking, systems thinking and mathematical modelling – as well as any learning related to thematic aspects of the game.

The benefit doesn’t only extend to learners. As a practice for games-based learning practitioners themselves, automa design can be a way to really grok how a game works, maybe with a view to modding for a particular learning outcome, or to explore how to design your own game using similar mechanics.

Games-based Learning and Automa

In practice however, many GBL practitioners do not have the time, to play with creating automa without a specific (commercial) goal in mind, so why might you want to think about creating solo play versions of your existing (learning) games, or indeed, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) games that you use in your learning practice.

The pandemic meant that many of us who used tabletop games in face-to-face settings, had to adapt those experiences to online environments. In many cases, and to many people’s surprise, this worked remarkably well. However, in other situations, there was a definite feeling of having ‘lost’ something. In those cases, it might well be better to offer learners the opportunity for a solo (physical) learning game experience, rather than a ‘less good’ online shared experience. Any non-game aspects of the learning (e.g. debriefs, planning and so on), that require people to actually get together, could still be implemented through online meeting rooms etc. It gives the GBL practitioner another option to offer the play, other than simply ‘f2f together’ and ‘online together’.

Asynchronous learning has often been carried out in online settings too. Where games-based learning has been used asynchronously, tabletop gaming has never really been considered. Well-designed automa would open up the market for physical games in asynchronous learning settings, and would also give distance learners the opportunity for learning through interaction with “others”.

The post Playing by Yourself – Tabletop Automa first appeared on Ludogogy.