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.

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.

Games are capable of helping students learn any number of different skills. Likewise, simulations can be used to help students from one discipline learning something more intuitively than they would from traditional classroom instruction.

One of the most general outcomes for games-based learning is the development of student’s soft skills. These are skills that can be used across a number of different areas, industries, and outlets.

So what soft skills can games be used for? How are games used for soft skills development?

This article will cover the different areas that games-based learning can be used for addressing soft skills development. This article will cover cognitive internal development; relational development; as well as how games can be used to develop students’ communication and creativity. This article will close with actionable items for using games-based learning to achieve these skill competencies.

Cognitive internal development

Digital games often don’t provide any wait time for players. Individuals take single actions and then are immediately awarded. This helps with the feedback loop of players in traditional game design. However, table top games offer a different perspective for players. They often require players take actions now that won’t produce any measurable effects until much further along in the game. In this way, table top games reward students’ patience for continued and engaging play.

Likewise, table top games also test students’ applications of logic and strategy. I recently spent this holiday playing a large and diverse array of table top games with family my same age as well as much younger cousins. Despite the age difference, I saw many applications of logic and strategy in games as simple as Doce and as complex as The Manhattan Project. Each one was challenging in their own right; but the amount of effort needed to excel at both was considerable.

The Manhattan Project is available on Amazon

Lastly, games also facilitate students’ critical thinking and problem solving by posing the most basic question in most scenarios: what moves can I make to help me win the game? These can be as simple as just continuing to survive in endless running games like Temple Run or in heavier games like FTL: Faster than Light. In both scenarios, players must problem solve on the fly and think critically about how decisions they take now will affect their player later on throughout the game.

Relational development

Games do not exclusively help students develop their own internal cognitive development. They can also facilitate their relational development: specifically how their actions affect the state of the game as well as their relationships with other players.

One of the most common types of relational development is through spatial reasoning:

the capacity to think about objects occupying a space and then draw conclusions about how those objects fit in relation to one another.  One of my all-time favorite games Blokus is the king of this genre as players are challenged to get all of their pieces on the board to score the most points. Though other games like Patchwork and Convert also test players’ spatial reasoning capacity.

Blokus is available on Amazon, as is Patchwork

In addition, games can test and reinforce players’ collaborative skills as they work with and for other players in order to achieve their goals.  One of the best table top examples of this is the Matt Leacock line of collaborative games like Pandemic, Forbidden Island, Forbidden Desert, and Forbidden Sky. Each one tests players’ abilities to collaborate and cooperate with one another in order to achieve a common goal. More serious players might consider games such as Mage Knight, Gloomhaven, and Spirit Island as options that further push the limits of what is possible from table top cooperating gaming.

Pandemic, Forbidden Island, and Forbidden Desert are all available on Amazon, as are Mage Knight, Gloomhaven and Spirit Island.

Lastly, games test players’ abilities to manage limited resources to achieve their game goals. This is most prominent in modern euro games where any number of player actions are disguised as different things that players can do that turn one thing into another thing which turns into victory points. While that description alone doesn’t sound that enticing, there are entire communities of players who are enthralled by it. Modern classics such as Agricola and Settlers of Catan rely heavily on resource management as a way for players to excel and win the game.

Agricola is available on Amazon, and so is Settlers of Catan.

Communication and creativity

Perhaps one of the most salient aspects of games-based learning supporting soft skills growth is in players’ development of communication and creativity. Both of which come through more highly social and creative games.

Returning to one of my old standby games Balderdash reminded me of the kind of creativity needed to not only think of definitions to obscure words; but to write them in a such a way where other players would vote for them. Likewise, new entrants to the field like Just One require that players take the simple action of selecting just one clue to reveal to a teammate. But the commonality and creativity of that clue is what helps set players apart from one another.

Balderdash is available on Amazon and so is Just One.

Creativity alone doesn’t have to be about creating made up definitions. Working in uncertain conditions where negotiation and interaction are prioritized definitely fall within the domain of games. A favorite large group game of mine Empires relies on the negotiation aspect in order to move play along. The Sheriff of Nottingham emphasizes this even more where interaction and negotiation form the hallmark of the game’s core loop.

Empires is available on Amazon and so is Sheriff of Nottingham.

Communication and creativity seem to be one of the most promoted ways of utilizing games-based learning as games are seen as a way to replace traditional media like lectures, audio, and video. This is particularly relevant when using something like roleplaying and simulations. Both of these represent real life scenarios where students will need to put their learned skills into practice.

While many games can be re-purposed for games-based learning; almost all table top games can be used in one fashion or another to promote communication skills between players. Effective communication is perhaps one of the most important soft skills to develop. And if you ever need a forum to practice it: try explaining 4-5 different board games a week to different players on a regular basis.

Actionable items

Games can be used to meet a great many learning outcomes for educators. The most salient of which is to address communication barriers between students and players. Playing games provides a structure from which educators can scaffold the interactions between players.  Games’ involved formal elements and structures already form the method where individual players can interact with one another.

In addition, educators can praise students’ agency, efficacy, and perseverance in a games-based learning environment. Of course players will want to win; but in most circumstances winning will not be the most important outcome. Therefore, equal focus on making sure that players continue to play and engage is just as important.

Takeaways

This article covered the different areas that games-based learning can be used to address soft skills development. The article covered cognitive internal development; relational development; as well as how games can be used to for students to develop better communication and creativity. This article was about using games for soft-skill development. To learn more about soft-skill development in 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.

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The core loop is what most players engage with and remember when they are playing your game. The core loop is the most engaging and active element of your design. The core loop matters whether creating the next great video game; table top game; or games-based learning application.  You’ll need to carefully examine how the core loop attracts and engages your player in order to keep bringing them back to the game.

But what is the core loop? How do you design around it? What are some key mistakes to avoid?

This article outlines what a core loop is as well as provides direction in its design.  Examples of core loops are provided as well as some fatal mistakes to avoid in the design process.

What is the core loop?

The core loop is the primary game system or mechanic which defines your game. This is the element of the game that players remember most frequently or engage with most often. You can think about this as the “engine” for your game and what empowers individual players to keep playing.

The core loop comprises the most basic kinds of actions that players can take. Whether that is moving around the map in League of Legends; drafting cards in Splendor; or platforming across the screen in Super Mario Bros. The genre of your game doesn’t matter. What does matter is making sure that your players continue to engage over time through a well structured core loop.

Splendor is available on Amazon

You can think about your core loop as the lowest level activity that players engage with during your game. In rouge-like learning; you can define these basic actions as something that players engage with and develop over the course of a run. Educators can also use the core loop to develop core competencies for their students. These are competencies that students will return to time and time again during your class in order to progress further in the course.

Design direction with the core loop

The core loop is both a simple design as well as a complex one. But it’s something that many designers struggle with. Especially when establishing a core loop and then designing a game around it.  It’s also important to ask yourself “what kind of experience do I want my player to have?”  That player experience is essential to define in order to convey its essence through your game’s core activities.

A well designed core loop can create a myriad of senses for your players. It can help them feel attached, engaged, or accomplished. Keeping your players challenged through similar activities in your core loop is important to retaining them in your game.

Think about some of the most enjoyable and memorable mobile games you’ve played. They are most likely built around some enjoyable repetitive actions that trigger rewards (feedback loop) for you before you are presented with a new challenge.  That feedback is another loop which forms the larger framework within your game. Those other loops work in tandem, parallel, and in a hierarchy to create larger dynamics in game play.

The development and showcase of your core loop to both players and students is important. Their first interaction with your game is often through the demonstration of your core loop. So if their first impression is not a good one; it may also be their last.

So what makes a good core loop?

In the end your game could have incredible graphics; great table presence; fantastic components; deep mechanics; and a satisfying narrative. But if the core loop is not fun and engaging, then your players will eventually lose interest.

When developing your core loop, you must define a clear goal; keep it short; and connect it well to the theme of your game.

Having a clear goal is paramount to making sure that the loop is a tight one.  Players must relate and equate their actions in the game world and how it affects their status; ranking; and progression.

You can do this best by making sure that your loop is a short one. Have your player take action ‘A’ to get rewards ‘Z.’ That’s it. That’s the only benefit that you need to show players in the meantime. Now building off that loop and reward structure is what will continue to keep players engaged over time.

Best of all: if you can create a clear goal that is connected to a short loop that is ALSO thematic then you have the foundation for a great game on your hands.

One of my favorite gaming memories is playing Super Punchout. It’s a game that doesn’t <ahem> pull any punches. Because it’s a boxing game: it’s about punching your opponent. Everything that the player does in the game goes back to the core loop of the player punching opponents until they win or lose. Everything else is built around the punching core loop. 

Designing around the core loop

Now that you know what makes a good core loop, it’s time to design around it. Those steps revolve around picking an idea that has potential (your mechanic or theme); creating a prototype; and then testing and evaluating it.

The first thing you will want to do is pick out an idea that has potential. That could be a thematic choice or a mechanical element. I’ll use a game that I’m developing right now called Shelf-Life that’s about buying and selling groceries at the super market (exciting right!)  That’s the theme I want to use.  I want this game to be a tableau builder with items going into a common “store” shelf from players’ individual storage shelves. Moving goods from their personal shelves to the store shelf is the main mechanic.

I’ve built my prototype using paper and cardboard components and tested it out with friends and colleagues to determine if this core loop (moving items from personal shelves onto the store shelf to score points) is a solid one. I’ve justified the theme of players taking this action because they all play super market stockers.  Their job it is to keep the shelves stocked as shoppers make their purchases.

After a few play tests I’ve gotten some information about the core loop and its effects on players. They seem pretty engaged with it so far; but sometimes it’s not as simple as I would like it to be. So I’m currently working on changing it up so that there is a stronger connection between player actions and the feedback they receive from it.

Other examples of core loops

There are as many examples of core loops as there are games. So it’s important to play as many different and varied types of games as possible.  This will help acclimatize yourself to the different possibilities and varieties of core loops available.

You don’t even have to play “traditional” video games and table top games. Take classic sports such as soccer, hockey, and basketball. The core loop of those games is to get the ball or the puck into the opponent’s net to score points. Baseball’s core loop is similar in that all plays originate from the batter hitting the ball. That simple element brings much strategic depth to the game given teams, players, and specific scenarios.

Even simple games like Tic-Tac-Toe have a core loop of placing your symbol in one of the starting nine squares. You continue to place your symbol in one of the available squares until one player has achieved three in a row. At its face value it’s a simple core loop of placing your symbol and then evaluating the game state. But you can create and build a game off of this same core loop. Think about Scrabble.  You have a hand of several symbols (letters) that you must place on the board (in a specific order) to get a result (points from words created).

Fatal mistakes to avoid

Now that you know what a core loop is, as well what makes one great and engaging, it’s necessary to review some mistakes to avoid in your design process.

One of those mistakes is forgetting to include a core loop. Rather, some designers collect a series of disparate and unrelated “activities” that don’t keep a user engaged while demonstrating progress. If you can’t demonstrate to players why they are playing and why should continue playing with the core loop; then you may already have lost them.

However, if you are going to keep players around, you also have to reward (or reinforce them) for their activity. The core loop should end with a pleasurable experience. A player should get something; improve their position; or otherwise advance the game state to where they can see their own progress through their actions.

It’s the lack of evidence of progress that dooms many other games in general. A game can have a significant core loop; but without a demonstration that they’re making some headway they can quickly become disengaged.  A classic educational example of this is not returning students’ work in class with substantive feedback in the form of notes or a grade. Without that kind of feedback; students don’t know where to go next; what to prioritize; or how to improve their position in the game (i.e. your class).

Takeaways

Excellent core loops make it a priority to entice and engage players more and more so that they continue to play and stay involved.  Understanding the core loop is a critical part of designing your game. Having a core loop as the base of your game makes it so that all actions; activities; rewards; and outcomes originate from the same place.

This article outlined a core loop is as well as provided direction in its design.  Examples of core loops were provided as well as some fatal mistakes to avoid in the design process.

To learn more about core loops in 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 Core Loops in Games first appeared on Ludogogy.

This paper can be read in full at https://research.tudelft.nl/files/105030829/3474663.pdf

An archive of all currently available infographics can be found in the Research Infographics page.

The post Game Mechanics in Serious Games first appeared on Ludogogy.

Engine-building games are reliant on making systems of resources that become more efficient and rewarding as the game carries on. As with any type of system, there is a cost of setting up, which is difficult to reason for when there is an alternative that brings immediate benefits. Let’s take an example of a railway system. In Delhi, the capital city of India, there was a lot of resistance towards building a metro train infrastructure to support the growing traffic and population. Many citizens and opposition parties reasoned that the government should simply focus on improving roads and buses, blind to the environmental and operational benefits of urban trains. Also cited were reasons of initial cost and change of habits required in citizens. More than two decades have passed since these debates were put to rest. The evidence has made a strong case for efficient systems, as trains require significantly less energy and fewer human operators even as the city grows. However, some other cities like Jakarta and Karachi
have suffered from myopic views which have led to disastrous congestions on their roads.

[Make sure to check out The Ludogogy Podcast interview with Elizabeth Hargrave, the creator of Wingspan, soon to be published on the Podcast Page.]

As it stands, most of the games around us are an exercise in planning. Engine-building games are slightly different in the aspect that they reward behaviors that force us out of reactionary ways. Mastering these games requires a farsighted approach. The most approachable example is chess. Chess players often plan their moves and the opponent’s a few turns in advance. Gradually, the placement of pieces starts becoming more meaningful – to the untrained eye, some moves may look random, but the later stages of the game usually justify why the knight was placed centrally, why the bishop was placed on a diagonal without any apparent benefits immediately.

Even though carrying the discipline to build engines seems like a utopian habit, the decisions involved are no cakewalk. There are checks and balances involved in games which ensure that engines make sense, and are not a win-all trick that will get you guaranteed success every time you play. The difference between leading and trailing teams has to be fair enough, a difference that can be recovered in a few critical turns of a game. No resource has to be overpowered, neither should a type of strategy be too penalizing. Let’s discuss some of the experiences from top board games that shed light on the design of engines.

Gizmos

The objective of Gizmos is to build an engine by picking higher cards to add to your pipeline, with the goal of eventually acquiring all the necessary components to achieve victory. This type of engine-building mechanism allows for a lot of experimentation and flexibility in terms of strategy, as there’s less focus on rigidly following a set structure and more opportunities to try out different approaches.

In terms of real-world applications, this style of gameplay can be seen as a metaphor for product management. Just like in Gizmos, product managers must build a pipeline of components that work together in order to bring a product to market. They must experiment with different strategies to determine the most effective approach, and constantly adapt their plan as the market changes. By allowing for a lot of experimentation in a quick time frame, this type of engine-building mechanism can enable managers to try out different strategies and approaches to product development, helping them to find the most efficient and effective way of working.

Additionally, by focusing on strategy rather than structure, this mechanism can encourage managers to be more creative and innovative in their approach to product management.

Gizmos is available on Amazon

Spice Road

Spice Road is a deck-building / tableau-building game where players acquire and trade spices and gems to collect victory points. The engine-building mechanism in “Spice Road” involves constructing a deck of cards that can generate resources and victory points efficiently and consistently. This requires players to carefully select which cards to acquire and when, as well as plan for how to best use their resources to maximize their points.

As a learning game, Spice Road can teach several skills and principles, such as resource  management, planning and execution, and risk management. By playing the game, players can learn how to optimize their resources and make decisions that will lead to success in the long term. Additionally, Spice Road can be used as a tool to teach economic principles, such as supply and
demand, trade, and market dynamics. The game’s mechanics simulate real-world market conditions and can help players understand the consequences of different economic decisions.

Century: Spice Road is available on Amazon

Splendor

Splendor is a board game where players collect and spend gems to purchase and reserve cards representing mines, transportation, and shops, in order to gain victory points. A typical player will usually start by purchasing cards at low cost and reserving cards that will help them acquire gems more efficiently. As they progress, they aim to purchase cards that provide more prestige points and build a well-rounded engine to efficiently acquire and spend gems.

The best players in Splendor focus on building an engine, meaning a set of cards that generate more gems or points with each turn, allowing them to make more powerful moves. This often involves carefully selecting and timing their card purchases and reserves, as well as anticipating their opponents’ moves. The result of these different tactics is that the best players tend to have more efficient and powerful engines, allowing them to outpace their opponents and win more frequently.

Splendor is available on Amazon

Azul

Lastly, Azul is a tile-laying game where players collect tiles of different colors and place them on their player boards in specific patterns to score points. The game is known for its simplicity and elegance, making it a popular choice for families and casual gamers. Players of Azul also use different strategies and engines to maximize their points. For example, some players focus on maximizing points from rows by completing them with the same color tile, while others prefer to collect all tiles of the same color to score big in the end.

The effects of playing Azul according to an engine will depend on the player’s overall strategy and the particular game state. By focusing on the middle column specifically, a player can minimize negative points and restrict their opponents, but they may also miss out on other opportunities to score points by completing rows and columns.

Azul is available on Amazon

Conclusion

We want to conclude this article by paying a special acknowledgement and note of thanks to our guest contributor Aakrit Patel. He is a seasoned meeple himself and moderates games regularly. Aakrit was our source of understanding Azul in particular for this article, as he demonstrated the benefits of playing through the middle column. He also revised some of our observations in the other games, telling us the benefits-versus-costs analyses in some situations.

The post The Power of Compounding in Games first appeared on Ludogogy.

Game Mechanics and why they are employed (2018) can be read in full at ResearchGate

An archive of all currently available infographics can be found in the Research Infographics page.

The post Learning Online through Gamification first appeared on Ludogogy.

Understanding Gamification is available on Amazon.

An archive of all currently available infographics can be found in the Research Infographics page.

The post The MDA Framework – Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics first appeared on Ludogogy.

Such learning is necessarily very loaded with content. If a master is to be able to pass down all they know and are able to do, and to ensure that pupils become upstanding citizens with no undesirable ideas or behaviours, then there need to be artefacts for them to teach from. This would certainly have been imparted verbally (lectures), or in writing, if the pupil could read; from examples of work, which should be copied to learn skills; and through commandments, and rewards and punishments.

What is content free learning?

Increasingly however, there has been a shift towards learning models and pedagogies which shift the focus away from the ‘Sage on the Stage’ and onto the role of the learner. Terms such as ‘learner-centred’ and ‘facilitative learning’, have come to the fore, and techniques such as problem-based learning, social learning and, of course, games-based learning are now widely used.

If we imagine that all learning experiences are on a continuum. At one end are highly passive experiences, where the educator is responsible for ‘filling up’ the empty vessel that is the learner. The learning has little or no agency, and there is little requirement for them to exercise creativity in what or how they learn. They need to simply apply themselves to absorbing and emulating the learning content that are presented with.

Most learning experiences today, fall somewhere in the middle, with a mix of instruction from a ‘Sage’ and a variety of activities where the learner is encouraged to exercise some creativity and autonomy, and to take a greater degree of responsibility towards their own learning. This is a more facilitative model, where the educator is there to guide but not ‘teach’, answer questions if they arise, and point them towards resources from which they can construct their own learning.

In the example above, while the learner is ‘set free’ to discover and construct learning, it is still likely that there will be content, related to the domain of learning, and potentially even more of that than if they had attended a lecture from a ‘sage’ – case studies, Internet scavenger hunts, simulation games, videos to watch etc. – all of which have originated, maybe not with the sage who is in the room with them, but with some sage somewhere.

At the other extreme of the continuum, there is what I like to think of as ‘content-free’ learning. The learner will be given access to resources or process, but these may be generic, and have no relationship to the knowledge, skill or attitude that the learner is accessing. In this case, the learning is entirely constructed from the interaction of the individual or group with the activities and reflection which these resources facilitate.

Content-free learning – pros and cons…

There is no assumption that any point on the continuum is ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than any other point, simply that educators and learners are able to access the appropriate level of learner creativity and autonomy for whatever learning needs to take place. It would be inappropriate, for example, for learners to ‘discover’ for themselves the proper safety procedures and checklists for parachute jumping, just as would be inappropriate for a facilitator to ‘instruct’ a learner about the learner’s own lived experience, in a session exploring mental health issues.

‘Content-free’ learning is therefore most suited to situations where the learners are the ‘experts’.  Coaching is a good example of this. A coach does not tell a coachee what to do or think, but simply facilitates the drawing out of knowledge, wisdom (new insights constructed from existing knowledge) and ideas for action, from the coachee.

Another excellent use-case for content-free learning is facilitative group work, where it is assumed that the group contains wisdom (and collective skills) that is greater than the sum of the individual wisdom contained within it.

In both these cases, there is no need for an educator to bring any ‘content’ to the situation. So, what do they bring? What does content-free learning look like?

At the heart it is about process, so a skilled facilitator may be needed to set that process in motion and to ensure that it stays on track. Some content-free learning is nothing but process, while in other cases there may, in fact be content. This might seem contradictory, but usually this content will be unrelated to the intended learning. It is intended as stimulus, which will be used a lens through which the learner can approach the question in hand.

…And some examples

A well-known and archetypal example of content-free learning, that is all about process is Lego® Serious Play®.  The bricks on the table have no meaning attached to them at all until the process of putting them together in response to a stimulus begins. The stimulus is a question, and all the meaning, the ‘content’, is entirely derived from the minds of the individual model builders, and later from the interactions of the rest of the group with their own and each other’s models. Layers of process, each building on the one before can be applied, if appropriate, to facilitate everything from simple individual insights, to the extrapolation of strategic guiding principles for large complex organisations.

The greater the reliance on pure process, the greater the need for skilled facilitation. Content-free tools which are richer in stimuli can often be used with or without a facilitator. Because these tools do not need to transfer large quantities of knowledge or demonstrate skills, they are often very compact and portable. Cards are a popular choice of format, and pretty much any ‘facilitation deck’ you can think of will fall into this category, with images and questions often being the go-to stimuli.

Two of my own decks demonstrate different approaches, and show that slight differences in process or stimulus can make for very different applications.

The Gift Horse is available either as a PDF or a card deck on Deckible. It was inspired by Brave Sparrow, The Kiss of Walt Whitman, Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’, and Street Wisdom (mentioned below). It is quite introspective in nature, and is designed to bring about (either guided by a facilitator or individually) reflection on an individual’s questions. The player navigates the question(s) with the help of an animal, which has attached itself to them. It can be used a part of a finite game session or as a daily practice. For example, an individual faced with a dilemma might as themselves ‘What would my octopus do?’ or ‘What special abilities does my animal have to help me through this?’. This approach is designed to encourage divergent thinking by viewing questions through a different lens than one’s own everyday experience.

The Museum of Impossible Objects, on the other hand, is more outward looking. It consists of a set of cards, each of which shows an image and exhibit label for an item which is held in a strange museum. Many of the objects are supernatural, or in some way extraordinary. On the backs of the cards are open-ended questions about the exhibits, supposedly placed in the museum visitors’ minds by the museum itself, which has a strong psychic field.

The Museum of Impossible Objects is available on Deckible

The Museum cards can be used simple writing prompts, (probably in the weird fiction genre) but can also be used to start discussion around fundamental questions of ethics, politics and so on, and could be used in Philosophy, Critical Thinking and Personal and Social Development classrooms, among others. Speculative fiction, such as fantasy or sci-fi has always done an excellent job of allowing us to ask ourselves these difficult questions, with that one step of ‘remove’ which makes the discourse ‘safer’. For example, the Ghost Jar exhibit is a device which is used to trap ghosts carrying out ‘malicious hauntings’. It is displayed, complete with an occupant, in the museum. The questions on the reverse of the card ask visitors to think about who it is that decides that a haunting is ‘malicious’, and what rights, if any, should be accorded to the ‘sentient dead’.

Although the cards point learners towards certain topics, they don’t contain any ‘content’ on those topics, as such. While the questions and stimulus might lead to very deep discussions on crime and punishment; who makes the rules; the treatment of ‘the other’, including refugees, people with disabilities, or even other species; and the ethics of displaying the remains of living beings; the cards don’t provide the content on these questions. All of that must be sourced elsewhere.

Street Wisdom, is another highly process-driven form of learning, where the stimulus is a personal question of concern, and the surroundings experienced on a mindful walk. First the walker goes through a series of simple exercises to tune into their surroundings. Then holding the question in mind, they walk with heightened awareness of what they can see, hear, smell and touch around them, until some particular element presents itself as a complete or partial answer.

This has quite a lot in common with the Gift Horse, or indeed other tools of intuition such as the Tarot. While a road-sign (Street Wisdom), the fact that an octopus has three hearts (Gift Horse), or the High Priestess card (Tarot), do have inherent attached meanings, it is not those meanings, but the individual interpretations of them, fuelled by intuition, or previous experience or feelings of coincidence, which bring the learning.

Can learning be truly ‘content-free’

I have recently been experimenting with the idea of removing as much meaning as possible from the tools (in this case, again, cards) I am making for content-free learning. The idea behind this is to create tools that give the greatest autonomy and potential for creativity to the learner, when constructing their own meaning, and from that, their own learning.

Clean Language is a facilitation technique designed to remove the facilitators ‘content’ input when posing questions. It does this by using a fixed structure of questions in which the only ‘content’ is the respondent’s words mirrored back to them. In this technique, metaphor is seen as important in creating meaning, so the clean language technique seeks to strip out any of the facilitator’s meanings and suggested metaphors, to enable the respondent to discover their own without contamination. To contrast the use of non-clean questioning, with clean questioning, a non-clean follow up question to a respondent’s statement of ‘I feel odd’, might be ‘Do you think you have Covid?’ or more metaphorically ‘Are you under the weather?’. A clean question might be ‘And where do you feel odd?’, or ‘And what kind of odd?’

Clean Language: Revealing Metaphors and Opening Minds is available on Amazon

Deliberately Meaningless

The primary purpose of most presented images and text is to convey meaning, so trying to use those to create stimulus, while conveying the bare minimum of meaning, calls for some level of obfuscation and manipulation. Asemic text uses different character sets, and may change the text orientation, from that usually used by the person writing the text. Asemic text is different from a code, however, as it deliberately has no meaning, and cannot be decoded or translated into something which has meaning.

Some artificial languages are ‘codes’, in that they have meanings and can therefore be translated. Klingon, for example, can be learned on Duolingo, and poems written in Tolkein’s Quenya can also be read and enjoyed in other languages.  Other constructed languages, are, or may be, completely asemic, like the writing in the Codex Seraphinianus or the Voynich Manuscript. In the case of the latter, we simply don’t know if it is translatable or not, and it is this ambiguity which makes asemic text so good for content-free learning.

The Codex Seraphinianus is available on Amazon

The Voynich Manuscript is available on Amazon

The deck I currently have in development uses asemic text, and deliberately ‘strange’ images, to encourage learners to construct their own meanings when they interact with them. I also want to make the nature and purpose of the deck as a whole as ambiguous as possible. Is it a game, a method of divination, a set of index cards containing a knowledge base, a holy text – or something else entirely.

It is this aspect of design that has been most challenging, because we recognise and associate specific formats and layouts with specific purposes. A card taken from a game looks like a card taken from a game, but I am hopeful that I can achieve an acceptable level of ambiguity.

But why would something without meaning be useful in learning?

It is precisely because human always seek meaning, even and perhaps especially, when there is none, that such ‘asemic’ tools are useful. We are pattern detecting creatures, and particularly when those patterns are important to us. This is seen most markedly in the phenomenon of ‘face pareidolia’ – seeing faces, which are not really there, in everyday objects.

The human need to find meaning in the seemingly meaningless has given us religious beliefs, creation myths and the scientific method, among many other staggering instances of creative imagination.

When faced with something which is without meaning, a creative impulse is sparked, and that is the intention of these cards. With no more information or instruction than ‘What are these? How do they work? You have x hours. Go!’, you free a team of people to ideate and create, to find meaning, and innovate in ways that are important and relevant to their needs and goals, without the burden of externally imposed ‘content’.

The post Unlocking Creativity through Learning without ‘Content’ first appeared on Ludogogy.

This article can be read in full at:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353451565_Learning_Models_in_Educational_Game_Interactions_A_Review

An archive of all currently available infographics can be found in the Research Infographics page.

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