As part of developing a participatory art methodology, I am exploring whether specific artistic processes may strengthen particular thinking capabilities. The following small selection of proposed activities are hypotheses about the link between art seeing and making and cognitive modes and capabilities, containing working assumptions that will be tested through participatory research.

Emotional vs Structural Reading

An appreciation exercise. Participants first respond to prompts designed to elicit emotional reaction. What does this feel like? Where does your eye settle? What mood is present? They then shift to structural analysis: How is the composition constructed? Where are the weight, balance and directional forces? How is this work put together? What processes and techniques can you infer?

This dual reading is assumed to strengthen integrative thinking, the ability to hold emotional and analytical interpretations simultaneously. It may also support metacognition (awareness of how we form judgements) and cognitive flexibility, as participants consciously switch interpretive modes rather than collapsing one into the other.

Iterative Collage for Composition and Value

Participants create rapid abstract collages focused on composition and tonal value. The pieces themselves have been made using a limited palette of black, white and greys and rapid mark-making. Pieces are rearranged, reduced and rebuilt across several iterations.

This process appears to model problem solving through visible trial and adjustment. It may also strengthen critical thinking (evaluating what works visually), reframing (restructuring rather than discarding), systems thinking (understanding relationships between parts), and prioritisation (deciding what to remove or emphasise). Because collage allows quick change, it encourages iterative evaluation and refinement.

Slow Looking and Narrative Framing

In this appreciation exercise, participants spend extended time observing a piece, first recording only what they can objectively see. Interpretations and narratives are introduced later.

The distinction between observation and inference is assumed to strengthen critical discernment and bias awareness. By comparing different participants’ narratives, the exercise may also support perspective-taking and recognition of perceptual diversity, revealing how interpretation is shaped by prior assumptions and context.

Drypoint Printmaking Using Recycled CDs

Participants are first shown how a drypoint print is made and are given access to a prepared plate to study. They can examine how the image sits within the scratched surface and how ink is held in the incised lines. They are then provided with a range of materials some or all of which may be useful during the process, and asked to work out how to prepare their own plate.

The shiny surface of the CD makes image transfer difficult. Participants must experiment: how can a design be transferred accurately? Some may discover that applying a thin layer of matt acrylic paint allows carbon paper marks to be discerned, making transfer far easier. Others may test alternative approaches.

This activity is assumed to strengthen problem solving under constraint, as participants navigate material resistance and incomplete instruction. It may also develop experimental thinking, hypothesis testing, and resourcefulness, as individuals test, fail, adjust and refine. The process foregrounds the relationship between observation, inference and practical adaptation, mirroring the way complex challenges often require material intelligence as much as conceptual clarity.

Layered Gelli Plate Collage Papers

Participants build layered papers through successive gelli plate prints, responding to what emerges rather than pre-planning a final image.

This process foregrounds emergent thinking, responding to evolving conditions rather than executing a fixed design. It may also cultivate ambiguity tolerance, adaptive iteration, and pattern recognition, as participants identify possibilities within partially formed layers.

Grid Drawing and Repeated Mark-Making

Participants work within a grid structure, producing a series of small compositions using the same limited colour palette and collage materials. Through repeated mark-making, patterns begin to emerge — some intentional, others accidental. Small shifts in pressure, spacing or placement generate visible variation across the grid.

This activity is assumed to strengthen pattern recognition, as participants notice relationships across multiple iterations. Repetition supports attentional discipline and sensitivity to variation, training the eye to detect subtle differences rather than dramatic contrast. Working within a grid may also cultivate structural thinking, as each unit must function independently while contributing to the coherence of the whole.

After completing the grid, participants are invited to select “favourites” and justify their choices. This stage introduces evaluative judgement, requiring participants to articulate criteria rather than relying solely on instinct. The act of comparing pieces supports reflective analysis, prioritisation, and metacognition, becoming aware of why certain solutions feel stronger or more resolved.

By combining repetition with comparison and justification, the grid becomes not only a compositional device but a training ground for informed decision-making.

From Artistic Process to Thinking Capability

These activities do not assume that art automatically produces better thinking. Rather, they begin with a hypothesis: that artistic processes contain embedded cognitive disciplines. For example, composition trains prioritisation; layering models complexity; iteration normalises adaptation; slow looking reveals differences in perception.

The next stage of this work is to test these assumptions systematically. If artists do “see differently”, it may be because they practise forms of thinking that are structured, embodied and materially grounded. By making those practices explicit and participatory, it may be possible to strengthen thinking capability more widely.

The post Do Artists See Differently? Art as a Training Ground for Thinking first appeared on Ludogogy.

More about Joe on boardgamedesigncourse.com.

The Ludogogy Podcast is the official podcast of Ludogogy Magazine. More about Ludogogy on linktr.ee/ludogogy
Hosts: Sarah Le-Fevre, Antonios Triantafyllakis
Coordination: Sarah Le-Fevre
Audio mixing and mastering: Antonios Triantafyllakis
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The Ludogogy Podcast is the official podcast of Ludogogy Magazine. More about Ludogogy on linktr.ee/ludogogy
Hosts: Sarah Le-Fevre, Antonios Triantafyllakis
Coordination: Sarah Le-Fevre
Audio mixing and mastering: Antonios Triantafyllakis
Music: Funky Logo 04 by TaigaSoundProd
Free download: filmmusic.io/song/6721-funky-logo-04
License (CC BY 4.0): filmmusic.io/standard-license

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More about Jenna on ninuan.org. Remember to support “The Far Roofs” on Kickstarter!

The Ludogogy Podcast is the official podcast of Ludogogy Magazine. More about Ludogogy on linktr.ee/ludogogy
Hosts: Sarah Le-Fevre, Antonios Triantafyllakis
Coordination: Sarah Le-Fevre
Audio mixing and mastering: Antonios Triantafyllakis
Music: Funky Logo 04 by TaigaSoundProd
Free download: filmmusic.io/song/6721-funky-logo-04
License (CC BY 4.0): filmmusic.io/standard-license

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With several different businesses to choose from as you play through the game, players can gain insights into the differing impacts that an attack might have, and the various approaches that organisations might take to minimising the cost of an attack, and regaining access to their own data.

The Chat GPT component of the game gives players the opportunity to enter into negotiation with a ‘real’ (or real-time, at any rate), ransomeware organisation, while the cards are used to let players decide what actions they will take to resolve the situation, and how to spend their available cybersecurity budget.

James can come and facilitate this game in your organisation, as part of your security training provision. There are advantages to having an expert like James there to debrief the game, obviously, but mechnically, the game is simple enough to be run internally (subject to having a pro GPT account), once you know how to play. Get in touch with James via LinkedIn or check out his other services at the Bores Group Ltd website.

Also, don’t forget to book your place for the upcoming Play Secure Conference on the 21st and 22nd June, 2024. James has been running this for four years now, and it was this event which inspired the creation of this game. This year’s event is also dear to Ludogogy’s heart, as I’ll be speaking there on the use of ‘Keepsake’ Games for Wellness.

Show & Tell videos will all accumulate at the Show & Tell Page as they are published.

If you would like to appear in a Show & Tell episode, get in touch at info@ludogogy.co.uk

The post James Bore – The Ransomeware Game first appeared on Ludogogy.

Flow is a really sought after experience in game design. It’s really engaging and enthralling because players lose a sense of time and space when they are in the flow state. They become lost and completely enveloped in the game world.

But designing a game to engage players’ flow states is not an easy feat to accomplish. So, just how do you design games to that take advantage of this flow state?

This article outlines and describes the flow state in the player experience. It’ll also explain the most important and influential reasons for designing for flow. Flow state is comprised of a balance of goals and feedback and how both are reflected and influenced by perceptual control. So, this article will examine how these disparate elements work together to help players engage in that state.

Difficulty modulation is an important aspect to flow state in players. Games can’t be so easy so that players just fly by on autopilot. Likewise, they can’t be so hard that they become discouraged and lose the motivation to play them. Therefore, balancing the difficulty of a game is a critical part of designing for the flow state.

However, competitive orthogames introduce another factor in designing for the flow state: other players’ actions and abilities. Therefore, this article will examine how pre-developed knowledge from players influences how they play, act, and interact with other players in these competitive orthogames.

Finally, this article closes on the applied flow state in its use in games as well as the most critical considerations for game design and the application of games-based learning.

Flow Described

So what exactly is the flow state? It’s often a very beguiling and seductive experience. Flow state often occurs in game play when the player’s attention is a completely captured by the game and they lose all sense of time and space. However, the flow state is not just limited to games. Instead, creatives such as artists, musicians, and writers often experience the flow state when they are completely engrossed with their work.

In addition, talented athletes also experience the flow state when they are tasked with performing at the peak of their abilities.  Students can also experience the flow state when they are studying or pursuing subjects that they are naturally interested in and are intrinsically motivated to pursue.

While flow state can occur for many different people through many different activities; the effect remains the same. Someone in the flow state is completely absorbed in the task and are wholly focused on the activity. They are not distracted by music, conversation, or even digital notifications.

So flow state can occur in individuals others than gamers. But gaming is one of the most common elements that engages players so wholly and fully in this feeling. That’s because really great, challenging, and engaging games require players to think and concentrate on a task or activity. Such is the critical elements for the flow state and why it’s such as sought after outcome for game designers.

Why Design for Flow?

So what would even be the purpose of designing a game for the flow state if it’s something that’s only achieved on the player’s end? It’s because, as the designer,  it’s your responsibility to provide a structure for interaction so that players can more easily enter a flow state.

In addition, players who enter the flow state demonstrate a higher level of game performance that also translates over to increased academic performance. As a result, players undertake more challenges as well as become more immersed in the interactivity of games: both of which result in more positive outcomes with games-based learning.

This immersion that is a byproduct of flow state is also closely tied with the development of a playful learning experience. Especially one that provides players agency in determining how they want to play, interact, and learn.

Of course, player agency is an integral part of successful games. But how exactly do other formal game elements influence and affect players’ development of flow state in games?

Goals, Feedback, and Flow

One of the main formal elements of helping players enter a state of flow is to design and structure clear goals for players. These goals should be clear as well as convey relevant meaning to players when they appear in the game. Sometimes these goals are dependent on one another: such as attaining a specific sword for a player in an RPG in order to slay a specific creature. In this way, the sword represents a clear goal in a linear path towards achieving the goal (slaying the creature).

Players should also be provided feedback in their pursuit of these goals. This feedback should be immediate and appropriate for players in order to help them more easily enter the flow state. This is especially relevant for digital games as even a minuscule amount of lag between player actions and results could break a player’s sense of immersion.

This represents an area where serious games, learning games, and educational games can close the gap with commercially available entertainment games. By providing an individual feedback that is related (but not completely connected to learning outcomes); players can more easily enter the flow state that supports their continued engagement. Such continued play should then link other formal game elements such as game mechanics and dynamics to the ultimate learning outcome for players.

Likewise, the game doesn’t need to be the only vehicle for feedback. Getting feedback from other learners and players provides yet another dimension for individuals to learn and adjust. This feedback can come from competitive play with other players; cooperative collaboration; or through comparison of individual results. In addition, instructors and facilitators can also change game settings, rules, and structures in order to better accommodate players’ performance and overall activity within the game.

Perceptual Control

One of the most critical parts of developing a flow state for players is making sure that they have both the agency and the ability to control the outcome of their circumstances via the formal elements of the game. This perceptual control refers to the actual systems that players use to affect these outcomes. This form of control is what makes games much different from watching a movie, reading a book, or other forms of narratives. Perpetual control gives players the ability to affect and change outcomes.

However, this control is not monolithic. Instead, designers should set elements and structures through which players can exact that control in the game. This makes it so that while players may attain “mastery” of the controls in the game, it may not always indicate mastery of the game. An example of this are games may have very rudimentary controls (i.e. Guitar Hero). But the use of those controls, and how they are combined with other game dynamics, make it so that there exists an opportunity for players to enter a flow state through the use of more challenging formats to augment those controls though more difficult songs, challenges, and changing rhythms.

The development of player controls is perhaps the most difficult and critical for designers for helping players enter a flow state. That’s because really intuitive controls can make it so that the players become more easily engrossed in the game versus ineffective control schemes which cause players to lose interest in the game.

Player interest can be increased even more when player’s decisions cause different outcomes and impacts in the game based on their selections. As such, the game becomes more repayable as specific outcomes based on specific player controls are not guaranteed. This can come about through game design (i.e. rougelike games with procedurally generated levels) or it can come about through competitive games such as playing against opponents whose actions may not be as predicable.

Difficulty Modulation

Opposing players actions and reactions to others in the game represents one facet of difficulty modulation. This is because not all players have the same level of skills and interest in the game and therefore react differently according to game conditions. For designers this means creating games that have a “sweet spot” in its difficulty that doesn’t make the game too hard (or too easy) to master. Such pinpointing is part of designing games for players to more easily enter the flow state.

This represents a main challenge for designers of single player digital games. That’s because these games must change dynamically accordingly to the player in order to keep them engaged in this “sweet spot” of difficulty modulation. The same can be said for games-based learning as games that are too easy also don’t represent an adequate challenge for the player. They therefore risk falling into boredom. Likewise, games that are too hard make it so that they may stop playing the game out of frustration.

This doesn’t mean that players enter games at the sweet spot of difficulty modulation. On the contrary, players must start out at a level that is easy for them to adapt to the mechanics and dynamics of the game and then ease into more difficult challenges that further engage them in play. Specifically in instructor lead games-based learning; individuals can dynamically change the difficulty of a game in order to provide a negative feedback loop where the experience will adjust according to the performance of the learner.

Pre-Developed Knowledge and Flow

Sometimes players pre-developed or pre-achieved knowledge will be useful or important for determining if they enter a flow state when playing a game. While subjective experience with other games or other experiences can be helpful, knowing how one’s actions affect and influence the outcome of game play is also important to know.

This can be particularly impactful for games that require a high degree of coordination and difficult learning curve to perform well. These occur frequently in MOBAs (multiplayer online battle arena) which is a type of video game where two teams compete against one another to achieve in-game objectives. Games like DOTA require a significant amount of foreknowledge in order for participants to play and compete effectively. This high requirement can often be a barrier to players from entering the flow state; but can produce an experience of flow akin to what high performance athletes experience when they are performing at the top of their abilities.

The amount of foreknowledge can change considerably based on the application of games. For educational, learning, and serious games, this amount of pre-development knowledge should only minimally affect game play as learning the mechanics and dynamics of the game often go hand in hand with the learning outcomes of its design. However, care should be taken that if a when a flow state is entered by students in serious game design; that it serve the greater purpose and learning outcomes intended by instructors.

Competitive Experience and Flow

While games like DOTA and other MOBAs often require a high degree of pre-developed knowledge; the same cannot be said for other directly competitive games. Some specific abstract games require only knowledge of the game’s formal structures; while others require this as well as some advanced knowledge on tactics and strategy in order to be successful.

Perhaps the most important thing to consider when applying competitive games for teaching and learning is to pair players together of equal or similar skill level. Doing so ensures that players are provided with the correct degree of difficulty and are augmenting the game so that it is not too easy nor is it too difficult for players. The result of which is structure in which the flow state can be more easily entered for individuals.

This ranking and matchmaking should ideally change and increase to provide more competitive and able players more difficult opponents and challenges to attempt. This makes it so that the difficulty is increased relative to players abilities and the abilities of their competitors.

Unlike single player or campaign games, competitive games rely on the experience and interaction with a player with like or similar skill levels. This also relates and is connected to the social nature of games and how play provides a structure of interaction with other students, learners, and gamers.

Applied Flow

The use and value of flow in games was previously covered. But, how is flow applied in game design? The formal elements of games include mechanics, dynamics, components, aesthetics, and to some extent story and technology. Flow as a result is an outcome gained by players based on a careful construction of these formal elements that provides excellent feedback through difficulty modulation and goals through player control.

Flow is an important process to design and uphold in games, because it can often mean the difference between a widely successful commercial game and a mildly successful one. Ultimately, flow state is in the hands of players. They can achieve this through thoughtful game design and is something that is sought after by players: even though they may not be that explicit about it.

Likewise, more hobbyist and enthusiastic gamers may embark on their own mission to achieve flow state. This can come about through their review and study of games, game elements, and game situations. Professional poker players and others who make their living playing and competing with games often necessitate this.  However, the individual student and learner may not be prepared to make this kind of commitment.

Despite this, serious game designers can merge the applicable and relatively addictive nature of commercial games with the learning outcomes and educational achievements that serious games have to offer.

Flow Design Considerations

Ultimately games-based learning is about using games as a medium for teaching and learning. Games-based learning is based on experiential learning which focuses on learning as the transformation of experience into knowledge. The purpose of designing for flow is to give a player a good gaming experience: specifically one that they can use to meet an expected educational outcome.

Therefore, when designing for flow, designers should consider how potential changes to game components, mechanics, and formal structures may or may not take a player out of a state of flow. This balanced approach to game design also includes providing a wide variety of activities and difficulties for players to engage and experience the game. These don’t have to be unique opportunities; as common game mechanics and structures can be used regularly and applied in different contexts to provide unique game dynamics to players.

Therefore, when designing for flow, creators target three levels of player patterns: feeling the aesthetics for the game; examining and discerning the game’s dynamics; and finally mastering the game’s mechanics and dynamics. Following this, the best designed games also augment and adjust their tolerances for players’ interactions in order to make the game relatively challenging for the individual.

Games-Based Learning and Flow

Flow is an outcome from the most successful and addictive commercial games. It’s something that can also be designed for with educational, learning, and serious games. When using games-based learning, flow can be utilized as a way for learners to become deeply engaged in the learning process. Likewise, flow can also be accomplished in other mediums such as traditional college and university classes when examining curriculum from a game designer’s perspective.

Instructors, teachers, and professors educating in a more orthodox environment will highly prize the state of flow engaged by students as they become more deeply engaged with the learning material and the intended outcomes. However, like games designers, flow is achieved from two different perspectives: from players and learners engagement in the game and designers and instructors preparation of the game and learning materials.

Part of the way that educators can approach teaching and learning like a game designer is to focus on the experience of learning and game play. Specifically, they should focus on applications of learning outcomes outside of the classroom and game: thus providing learners with a wider perspective of what and how they can apply their newfound knowledge.

This is often best accomplished with serious games that are designed from the ground up with a learning outcome in mind. The closer that educators and designers can get to connecting cognitive activities in the game with both intended learning outcomes and practical applications; the better they can more wholly educate students while also emphasizing a prioritization of flow in game play.

Takeaways

This article covered how to design games for the flow state. Flow was described and defined in relation to game design. Specific reasons were offered for designing games for players’ flow states. The formal elements of games were identified: specifically goals, feedback, and perceptual player control as it relates to the development of the flow state.

Perceptual control was related to difficulty modulations and how changing challenges that adjust to player competency and efficacy help continue to engage players in the game and maintain their flow state. This was further complicated by games that require some kind of pre-developed knowledge in order to play more advanced games. Those advanced games also included competitive games where prior game knowledge is often necessary to compete and play at a higher level.

Finally, this article ended on applied flow for games as well as design considerations for integrating flow into game play. Lastly, the flow state in games-based learning was addressed in applications for educators and instructors.

This article was about designing games for flow state.   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.

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The journey I like taking my students through is the process of creating historical and narrative fiction. Just like a real journey, the process can be long, strenuous, unpredictable, and hopefully doesn’t end in tears. But not every time my class started a story, we finished it. While it’s satisfying to complete a student-made story with no loose ends, with a clear beginning, middle, and end, that’s not the main goal; the goal is the process. In other words, it doesn’t matter if you’ve not completed the story in your allotted time. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t perfected that compelling protagonist or figured out which friends become enemies, and which enemies become friends, or how your main character will be richer for the experience. What matters is you start the journey.

Why Stories?

The “journey,” or story-making process, allows educators to target and develop curriculum-specific skills while addressing students’ social and emotional needs. The process of creating rich, evidenced-based stories benefits students in several ways. First, we can use this process to build skills necessary for their future success, specifically analytical thinking, creative thinking, problem-solving, leadership, and collaboration. Second, stories are an excellent means of looking into the future, predicting, explaining, and understanding the world around us. We use them to encourage introspection, personal growth, and behavior change. Third, the process can be extremely fun. Literary devices such as hooks, character archetypes, and story archetypes allow students to customize their stories, increasing their buy-in, intrinsic motivation, and time on an assignment.

Skill Acquisition

The story-making process lends itself to skill acquisition in various ways. For one, educators can create situations where students must practice and develop targeted skills. Curriculum-friendly and highly sought-after skills such as analytical thinking, creative thinking, problem-solving, leadership, and collaboration can be woven into the story-making process; see the World Economic Forum’s list of Core Skills below. Second, different junctions of the “journey” allow for mastery checks, formative and summative assessments, and meaningful feedback. Third, students learn more when they are motivated. The creative process, in which students can express themselves and make crucial decisions, can be practical and fun.

How can you incorporate skills into the creation process? It depends. If you want students to conduct research or use primary and secondary sources, you can help students find and use reliable sources. If you would like students to practice analytical thinking, have them break a concept down into smaller parts, looking for patterns and underlying principles. Likewise, if you want students to collaborate, ensure they rely on each other. Stories are an exciting and effective way for students to learn new skills.

Growth Through Self-Expression

The story-making process is an opportunity to help students grow socio-emotionally through self-expression. This can start by simply encouraging students to make decisions along our journey. Which characters will be used? Where will they go? What will they do? According to counselor and therapist Janine Hodge, students who express themselves are likelier to experience good mental health, healthy connections, well-being, and respectful boundary setting within relationships.

Expression through stories allows students to test out their feelings and beliefs while maintaining plausible deniability. “It’s not me that feels that way; it’s our hero.” The creation of stories helps us achieve a deeper understanding of a given topic and also helps us make sense of the world and, more importantly, ourselves.

Starting a Story with Literary Devices

Start the story-creation process by choosing the general story context. As a former social studies teacher, this would be the time and place we discuss in class, e.g., The Aztec Empire in Mesoamerica. However, a science teacher may choose something like the Center for Disease Control (CDC) or “your immune system,” while a French teacher may choose a trip to The Louvre. The creative process has already started!

Next is research; make sure your students have some good primary and secondary sources to draw inspiration and ensure this work of fiction is as accurate as possible. This will improve a student’s ability to use reliable sources and extract information from a text. This can also be a fun time to start brainstorming ideas regarding a story’s who, what, when, where, and why.

The literary devices below will help you get a start on your story. They are by no means the only three things you may need to write a story, but it’s a good start. Use character archetypes, the shape of our stories, and hooks to draw inspiration and get the creative juices flowing.

Archetypes

One fun way of developing a story and allowing students to express themselves is using archetypes. Archetypes are the recurring symbols, people, and storylines in literature, painting, or mythology. Psychologist Carl Jung said archetypes are collectively inherited unconscious ideas and thought patterns universally present in individual psyches. Stories can have character and story archetypes, but it may be helpful to consider them story prototypes. Some evolutionary theorists believe archetypes result from evolutionary dynamics and personal experiences, adaptive responses to social problems. Classic characters and storylines emerge out of dynamics and classic problems. See the Character Archetype wheel to the right.

Character Archetypes

Character archetypes allow us to create rich, historically accurate characters that our students can love, hate, or relate to. You and your students can create exciting protagonists, antagonists, heroes, anti-heroes, and red herrings with backgrounds, flaws, depth, and arches. Think of the most compelling characters of all time. My list includes Dr. Hannibal Lector, Tyler Durden, Ellen Ripley, Lt. Aldo Raine, Mickey “The One-Punch Machine Gun” O’Neil, Jules Winnfield, Anton Chigurh, and Kaiser Söze. Do they fall nicely within one of the above classical archetypes? Or do they represent more than one classic archetype? And if you do not know who these characters are, I envy you, for you have some great stories in your future, but proceed cautiously.

To make sense of a character archetype, consider the stereotypical people you might see in a given context. Who were the people who inhabited Classical Athens; who would come to mind? The “sage” or scholar, a figure like Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle, the “ruler” or elected official or power-hungry politician. An “everyman,” in this case, could be a street merchant, sailor, or fisherman, or any sort of common person. If the context of your story is Japan in the 1500s, it may feature a young samurai seeking mastery over his craft, which we may classify as a hero. Likewise, in any culture or time, you may find someone seeking safety, classified as an ‘innocent”. An individual seeking liberation fits the classic “outlaw” archetype. But it’s not just the characters that make our story compelling; sometimes, it’s the shape of those stories.

Story archetypes

Story Archetypes, like character archetypes, are common themes of human experience. Classic stories of conflict, whether person vs. person or person vs nature, link to issues of survival and protection. Each structure may also model skills valuable to our prosperity, including communication, teamwork, and coordination. Consider the “hero’s journey,” in which the main character leaves what is known to him/her, finds mentors, and overcomes challenges. There is a reason this story has been told many times, in many ways, because it’s relatable.

Kurt Vonnegut argued in his Master’s defense that stories can be easily plotted on an X and Y Axis. The X-axis represents the story’s duration, from beginning to end, while the Y-axis represents fortune; near the top, you have health, riches, and prosperity, while near the bottom, you have poverty, disease, and despair. The University of Chicago rejected Vonnegut’s idea because it was “so simple,” but that doesn’t mean he was entirely wrong. Consider the classic story of “Man in Hole,” seen above. As Vonnegut explains, “It needn’t be about a man, and it needn’t be about somebody getting into a hole,” in which someone, considered above average, gets into trouble and then gets out of it again. “People love that story; they never get sick of it,” Vonnegut added. Some examples of this storyline are The Hobbit, Alice in Wonderland, and Finding Nemo. Another classic shape is Boy Meets Girl, but it needn’t be about a boy or a girl; that’s just a way to remember it. In this classic shape, the main character, an average person on an average day, finds something wonderful, then loses it and gets it back again, sort of. Think Romeo and Juliet or 500 Days of Summer. There are more classic examples of these story archetypes, including Rags to Riches Overcoming the Monster, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, Rebirth, Which Way is Up, From Bad to Worse, etc. The archetype, or shape, will have different names depending on the sources.

Archetypes are frameworks at our disposal to create rich and immersive stories with students. It’s an opportunity to create classic tales that have stood the test of time because of their cross-cultural relevance. They also allow valuable social simulations, a safe way for students to practice skills. For example, if you fail to recognize a character in a story as a charlatan, there are few consequences in the classroom, but if that happens in real life, it may take an emotional toll or cause financial loss. However, the character and story archetypes aren’t enough, its important to keep the story exciting. This can be done through a hook.

Hook

Lesson plans, like good stories, often include a hook, defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary as the “selling point.” The hook is where the story becomes meaningful, moving beyond attention to voluntary self-engagement. Teachers, writers, and storytellers use hooks to capture a wide range of emotions, including curiosity, uncertainty, anticipation, surprise, wonder, imagination, amusement, and amazement. Think of the beginning of your favorite story; what did the creator do to draw you in? Ray Bradbury starts Fahrenheit 451 with, “It was a pleasure to burn.” George Orwell, in 1984, opens with, “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking 13.” Not 15 minutes into the 3-hour Saving Private Ryan, the Allied troops land on Omaha Beach, giving the audience a horrific look into the realities of D-Day. The opening scene of Cormack McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men exposes the audience to the nature of Anton Chigurh, giving them a hint of why there is, in fact, no country for old men. Fueled by emotion, hooks heighten responses to stimuli, increasing one’s ability to learn and retain information, and not to mention, they’re very fun.

Conclusion

Writing historical or narrative fiction stories with students can be long, complicated, and exhausting. However, this process helps with skill acquisition and socio-emotional growth. Literary devices such as archetypes and hooks add rich details to the characters and storyline, making it relatable, the characters lovable or hateable, resulting in immersive, unforgettable stories that help our students empathize with one another while encouraging introspection and personal growth. Stories do take a long time; they are unpredictable, but like most journeys, you’ll be better for it.

The post Start the Journey first appeared on Ludogogy.

This deck has been carefully crafted to enable facilitators and business leaders to pick through specifi business objectives and evaluate any inherent risk.

Guided by the cards, you will facilitate an holistic conversation around all aspects of the objective, while drilling into the potential impacts of going ahead. The group will consider the implications of a range of universal risk categories as outlined on the ‘Risky Business’ cards to fully understand, measure and mitigate the risks.

The process will help the group to identify the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats contained within the objective and enable a confident transition to purposeful action.

Put simply, ‘Risky Business’ provides peace of mind when making those all important business decisions.

To coincide with each Show and Tell episode, Darren will be making the featured deck FREE for 30 days. So don’t forget to keep coming back to see what the featured deck of the month can do for you.

Free to use as often as you wish from the date this Show ‘n’ Tell drops, until early New Year (access via the ipsodeckso.com free membership option).

Ipsodeckso is a platform which is going to be of considerable interest to facilitators and coaches. It contains a number of great decks already, but also includes the capability for you to upload and use your own cards, for use on the same platform.

Show & Tell videos will all accumulate at the Show & Tell Page as they are published. You can also check out one of Darren’s games, ‘The Walking Dead’ which featured in a Ludogogy live play session.

If you would like to appear in a Show & Tell episode, get in touch at info@ludogogy.co.uk

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More about Richard Bartle on mud.co.uk.

The Ludogogy Podcast is the official podcast of Ludogogy Magazine. More about Ludogogy on linktr.ee/ludogogy
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O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.

A pile of random game-making materials. Two hour time slot. “Go! Make a game!”

For some, this is oxygen to their designer’s brain, feeding the spark that generates interesting games, but for other game designers like me, this type of game design jam doesn’t work. It’s akin to the blinking cursor on a document when it’s time to write a big paper for school. You know so much about your subject, and you’ve been working so hard to research and compile your ideas, but when it comes to actually starting the work–you blank. You have so many ideas, but which to pick and where to start?

There’s something about the temporary momentousness that can arise in game design jams–the time to design is NOW, with these materials, so procrastination and inaction cannot be entertained.  Game design jams are, in the words of Adrienne Ezell, graphic and game designer, “a great way to spark ideation and fast iteration.” Tim Blank, designer, says, “Game jams force us to use a different side of our creative brains that we don’t often use much as designers. We often do a lot of thinking when we iterate on a game, but game jams don’t give us the time to do that. They force us to design by trial and error, which is at the heart of experience design. They also require us to listen to what the game wants to be, as opposed to using our pre-set parameters for it.” Sen-Foong Lim, designer, says, “I thrive under pressure and work well with constraints, so jams are my… jam. I find the pressure cooker of a game jam so refreshing. My brain needs the strict deadline to force it to work on things.” Game design jams, just by existing, can launch designers from ideation to prototyping quickly.

Game design jams shove designers into the heart of the design process, but outcomes are not guaranteed.

Game design jams can have the opposite effect of sparking ideas; they can confound or even stymie them. The pressure of producing a working game in that time frame, whether it’s an hour or eight, coupled with the performative aspect of designing in front of strangers, is productive for some designers, not for others. Elizabeth Hargrave, designer, says, “My personal experience at the one game jam I have participated in was that it confirmed that I hate being forced to be creative in front of people, with time pressure. I’m glad other people enjoy them, am happy to watch, but my brain freezes and nothing comes out.” So how to create a design jam where designers can be successful?

When I was invited to present at Tabletop Network in 2019, I decided to run a game jam, a very specific kind of game jam. I had taught game design to middle school students for 17 years at that point, so I had a good sense of what worked to help others design games. As a teacher and designer, I had undertaken transformative professional development experiences that informed my thinking. The two guiding ideas that shaped my jam were “Bias Towards Action,” and “Fast and Cheap” from the productivity triangle. First, the design mindset “Bias Towards Action,” from the Stanford d.school method of design thinking, means that if you have a choice between thinking and doing, start doing, because you’ll be thinking as you do the work, and you will progress much faster. The second key idea is to avoid preciousness in design by iterating extraordinarily rapidly. Out of Good, Fast, and Cheap, designers can only choose two, and this jam embraces the concept of Fast and Cheap. In such a short amount of time, games won’t be Good, so designers don’t have to worry about that. They just have to make something testable, in any small part, so that they can work towards it being good later. When we spend a lot of time on ideas, they become precious, and often we don’t want to throw out an idea that has had a lot of investment, even with a low amount of payoff. When we develop the ability to toss out non-functional ideas, we get better at developing the ideas that have actual promise. With these ideas in mind, time became the determining factor in shaping the jam.

In a 45 minute session, designers were presented with three game design challenges, ten minutes each. They were provided the specific materials to use for each challenge, and could choose to collaborate or not with other designers. I presented the challenge, distributed resources, and set them off; and then I did it again, and again. I announced the time several times during each challenge to help with pacing throughout. There was no sharing of results afterwards, unless designers chose to do so outside of the session with me or others. I called this event “A Lightning Multi-Game Design Jam.”

Several key decisions guided my design process for the LMGDJ.

1. Design and material constraints remove some decision-making from the process to allow focus on other specific aspects of design.
2. Ten minutes is not enough time to design a full game, but it can spark an idea that could turn into a full game later.
3. If a designer hates any of the challenges or the format itself, at least it’s quick.

Design and material constraints remove some decision-making from the process to allow focus on other specific aspects of design. The first challenge was called, “This Race Game Is in the Bag.” Designers were given a paper bag with sets of bits inside. They could only use the paper bag itself and the bits. Limiting the resources is obvious; I removed choices about what to use, so they could focus just on what was given, not what was possible for components. The race game concept is one of the best I’ve found for helping anyone to design a game for the first time. First, most of the common kid and family games (Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, Sorry, etc) are race games in some way (moving around a track controlled by a randomizer) so it’s familiar structure. Second, race games have the same objective and victory condition–be the first player to cross the line. In providing the objective and victory condition, designers needed only to start with HOW players would move their pieces. By providing specific components and game outcome, designers can focus on the key aspects of the design challenge to iterate quickly workable ideas.

Ten minutes is not enough time to design a full game, but it can spark an idea that could turn into a full game later. The ten minute limitation is the most divisive choice in the design of this event, but in a sneaky way, it also serves to help people succeed. The reality of a game design jam, even for much longer jams, is that creating a full, working game is very difficult to do; and when you don’t create a full workable game in that time, it can really feel like failure.  Success in ten minutes isn’t a full game, but is the start of what could be a full game. Success is creating something that might be worthwhile to keep pursuing. Jay Bell, designer, says, “It blows my mind that 10 months after a game jam prompt, I’ve created a solid game outside of my normal genre. Sometimes jams can produce fantastic nuggets, diamonds even.” If designers came away with one really cool idea from each challenge, or even from one challenge, that can be enough to call it successful.

If a designer hates any of the challenges or the format itself, at least it’s quick. If you hate what you are doing in a longer game design jam, you have to spend much longer with that game idea than you might if you were working on something at home on your own terms. The ten-minute limitation allows you a very short tunnel before the light appears to free you from a non-functional challenge. The ten-minute constraint did not work for designer Cat Drayer, who says, “The very short game jams don’t work for me at all, because my brain isn’t ready. If I am inspired in the wild, I can kick out a game idea in seconds, and have done so over and over with loose prompts, but with very tight time pressure, nothing happens.” Cat continues, “A game jam is meant to make you uncomfortable in some way. It should push you out of your normal design zone to try new things. The challenge for me personally is to find how far outside my space I can operate, and the go/no go is currently time. If I haven’t got enough time to digest the prompt, nothing happens.” The time constraint can simply limit designers too much, based on their personal preferences and style.

Designers make choices, and in the Lightning Multi-Game Design Jam, I made specific choices that impacted designers differently. At best, the jam has sparked ideas that became published games; at worst, its format has been too limiting for some designers to generate meaningful game ideas. This format was chosen with very specific goals and outcomes in mind, and certainly there are many other possibilities for design jam spaces. If you are considering designing and running a game jam, the lessons learned from this style of jam can help you to see how employing different ways to use time, resources, and specific design constraints will impact the outcomes for designers.

May the muse of fire ascend your game inventions (and design jams) ever higher.

Appendix:

Since 2019, I have run the LMGDJ online during covid and in person close to ten times, and I’ve adapted the different challenges each time for each audience and setting, while usually keeping the race game challenge as the first. Here is an incomplete list of design challenges that I have used.

Design Challenges

The Race Game is in the Bag

As described above; this challenge was about focusing on HOW a race could be won using provided materials.

The IP Challenge

A real company’s set of characters was to be the basis of a buzzworthy, social-media-friendly game. Designers were given two pieces of cardstock that were the entirety of resources for a flatpack giveaway, so space for rules meant less space for components, and each designer was given a two page dossier on the IP characters for them to use.

The Player Experience Challenge

Designers called out emotions and I picked “Rage.” Using paper and additional components, designers had to create a game that elicited rage from their players.

Happy Valentine’s Day

Make a two-player game based on Valentine’s Day using pennies and index cards. Two player games  have great potential for complete interaction between players, and Valentine’s Day can generate a wide range of narratives for games.

Push It!

Designers had to come up with their “entrance song” if they were a professional wrestler or other sports player, and had to design a press your luck game using dice and other components to make a game based on that song. Since entrance songs can generate strong feelings, the idea is to match that feeling to a game that elicits the same, or to draw some other inspiration.

Pick a Direction

Using dice, toothpicks, and meeples, create a game where “Direction” is the driving theme. This was used at an academic conference with a wide variety of audiences from education to corporate, so the theme “Direction” was intentionally chosen to allow a wide range of interpretations, and the components were specifically limited to facilitate quick design ideas.

Think Outside the Box

Using game components and an empty game box, create a game where players must integrate the box into the design itself.  I just think game boxes are an underutilized resource.

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