Digital Design Process: A Reflection

The PrOCESS

Reflecting on the process for designing this assignment's game mechanics, it abundantly obvious that I do my best thinking in pencil. Sketching ideas, crossing some out, circling others-- the iterative nature of the process and the transient nature of what I thought I wanted to do is obvious, looking at the scratch paper on my clipboard.

Having a significant amount more narrative design experience that I once had, starting this project with Freytag's Pyrmid made perfect sense. It was much easier to build game mechanics around a solid storyline. In that sense, I'd have to say that using Freytag as a quick foundation to make sure a narrative could be spun up into a game is something I'd absolutely do again.

In Pursuit of Excellence:

A Playable Analog Prototype

Instructions:

Pursuit of Excellence: Nutrition Ninja Edition

Project DetailS

Analog Game Brief

Title: Pursuit of Excellence: Nutrition Ninja Edition

Subject Area: Customer Service knowledge of CompanyName value propositions, meal types, ordering & order types, billing, and shipping & delivery procedures.

Learning Domains: Declarative, Conceptual, Rules-Based & Procedural Knowledge

Mager Learning Objectives

Learning Objective 01: Using materials included with the game [condition], new CS Team members [audience] will find, state, and recall facts within the six knowledge categories [behavior], successfully earning a “belt” in each category [degree].

Food for Thought: a Narrative Learning Game

a companyname game

🥗 Food for Thought 🥗

Delivering Great Value to our Customers since 2009.

Project Details

Game Title and Intended Audience

The subject area and specific topic for the narrative game “Food for Thought” focuses on customer service employee training for an e-commerce meal service delivery company. 

The learner/player audience is typically under 35 and tech-savvy; has at least a high school diploma and may or may not have an associate's or bachelor’s degree; and always has some customer service or call center experience. The new team member will be working at a desk in the office of headquarters, taking a third-person POV. The learning objectives for this iteration of the game have been streamlined into two parts: building or deepening product knowledge and garnering an awareness of how presenting information to a customer impacts their decision making. 

Narrative Design Process: A Reflection

I am a fairly confident writer and earned an English minor in undergrad; so when I approached this assignment, I naïvely wondered “What could be so hard about putting together a little story for a game?” A lot. Actually, a whole lot.

The Process

I was fairly comfortable with ideation techniques and refinement. I’ve taken the rapid development class and also use iterative processes at work, so that was great background for this activity. Using the resources we were given to generate story ideas was helpful! Playing Rapid Fire was fun, but the Idea Cards technique left me confused, and after a few tries I gave up on that one. In the end I combined what I had from Rapid Fire with the What If Scenarios that highlighted training needs at work.

Figure 1. Freytag's Pyramid story arc

Planning the story was a matter of art imitating life. We’ve recently had several new hires at work, and training customer service personnel for the small e-commerce meal delivery company I work for seemed like a good fit for this game.

Initially I had the wrong idea, or maybe it was the right idea but the wrong approach. On my first take, I'd planned to allow

Decision Types for Learner & Player Agency in Text-Based Narrative Games: SPENT

It’s been years since I played a game that's largely text-based. I was curious to see what current possibilities look like and how they’ve evolved, so I decided to try all three of the narrative games this week's module. While Gods Will Be Watching (Deconstructeam, n.d.) and The Domovoi (Bravemule, n.d.) were both well done, I was drawn in by the simplicity and surprisingly strong realism provided by Urban Ministries of Durham game SPENT (n.d.).Links to an external site.

Gameplay

Figure 1. Screenshot from the game SPENT.

Focusing on the theme of poverty and its challenges, SPENT is an online game designed to simulate the challenges of living paycheck to paycheck by requiring players to make a series of decisions in the first person that directly affect their financial stability (Figure 1). Each choice is connected to dilemmas relating to health, education, and basic family needs, often presenting no ideal solutions. Non-player characters are introduced in limited cameos and can include bosses, landlords, neighbors, and immediate family members, among others. This game effectively models

Gameplay Analysis of Zoombinis

Mentor Game Details

Award winner “Logical Journey of the Zoombinis” was originally developed by Chris Hancock and Scot Osterweil, who were co-workers at the Technical Education Research Centers (or TERC) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (TERC, 2024a). The game was launched with tremendous success in partnership with Broderbund in 1996, but as technology evolved the edutainment software was unable to keep pace (Toppo, 2015). Ownership of “Logical Journey of the Zoombinis” changed hands several times, and the game all but disappeared in a stream of mergers. In a surprising twist, TERC was able to reclaim the software in 2011, and in 2015 launched a Kickstarter campaign; news of the game’s revival was received with glee by long-time fans who more than doubled the $50,000 funding goal for an updated desktop version. According to Toppo’s article in USA Today, “Zoombinis” re-launched on August 6, 2015 through the Android and Apple Apps stores, and on Macintosh and Windows desktop platforms shortly thereafter.