When well-conceived and executed, games can greatly enhance learner engagement, but randomly adding game principles to learning can result in colossal failure and many hours of wasted time. One way to assure a positive impact on learning is to approach designs from the game perspective first, rather than trying to gamify existing or planned learning.

In this session, you will learn about a proven approach to designing games for learning that maximizes the likelihood of success, especially when the games are built with a specific purpose in mind. You will explore how this approach works for both physical and virtual games, including game-based learning deployed on mobile devices. After exposure to the process and key principles, you will apply some of the core concepts to create a game for a fictional business problem.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to design games for learning
• How to devise an appropriate game metaphor that aligns with your culture and audience
• How to identify which game elements are appropriate for your game
• When and how to test and validate your game

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, managers, and directors.

Technology discussed in this session:
Paper-and-pencil design, Articulate Storyline, Articulate Studio ’13, Microsoft PowerPoint, and mobile devices.