Concept

Design Process

My research led me to initially not focus on creating participation through games but using games to just increase interest in subjects. This led me initially to want to use commercial video games and modify them to structure the play for a classroom topic. I had created 3 proof of concepts and gotten feedback from college professors on the viability of the concept and how they feel about it in their class.

Hooke's Law puzzle (Algodoo)

The Hooke's law Algodoo puzzle has users trying to find an object's weight, type the answer into a panel and if it's correct they get treasure. This is calculated by finding the spring constant of a spring and then working the formula on the unknown weight. This puzzle doesn’t require the user to know a lot of the Algodoo software nor is there a lot of room to meaningfully experiment in this level. The puzzle can only be solved one way albeit an interactive way.

This was the first proof of concept I have made and so I think it is the weakest. I do not think the correct way forward is puzzles that offer right and wrong answers. Rather a sandbox of some kind where the player can have a goal and be told how close they were to the answer and spark discussion around that.

Glider-Man (Algodoo)

The objective of this simulation is to generate discussion and practice hypothesizing, evaluating and rethinking. Players hit play and watch “glider-man” fly down. They can restart/pause or even slow down the simulation. The simulation can be watched as many times as needed and each learner guesses what the speed/time graph would look like for “glider-man”. These guesses are not to be calculated and are purely based on theoretical (common knowledge) reasoning.

This is the second proof of concept I had made. Rather than having an answer it is more focused on creating a "Hypothesis" , reasoning it out and converging conflicts that emerge when you see the "correct" answer. My thoughts on this puzzle are that it won't be traditionally fun when played alone, rather the fun in it will come from the whole class taking part in it and giving them an almost "scientist" feel, where they debate out hypothesis until they come to a common conclusion.

Failing Business Turnaround (Capitalism Labs)

This is a custom scenario of capitalism labs (a sandbox company simulator). The scenario has companies and markets pre-steup as opposed to the games normal blank start. Players are to look at the market landscape and use different strategic planning techniques and tools to evaluate what next steps their business should take to grow.

When it comes to my concepts I think that this one is the strongest as it provides ample "sandboxy" space for players to go down a variety of train of thoughts. The game alone provides most of the learning benefits, however re-framing it with a "modded" start helps focus in the learning on the concepts being taught in class.

A big benefit of a game like this is that it can create motivation for play when not in class, as the game is filled with traditional "game" elements that make it fun to play. But a very big down side is that learning the language of the game will take a long time (it has 1 hour tutorial), which could be spent just exploring the concepts of economics.
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Click Here for Full Proof Of Concept Document

Summary

My initial proof of concepts had lead to some insightful feedback from the professors. Overall the main points were

Keep it simple / streamlined.
Professors would like discussion/instructions before and after play.
Play could be for class or home, but discussion in class is always preferable.
The simulation has to be accurate enough to translate into formula reasonably well.
Games would be a great way of generating motivation.

I initially wanted to stick to subjects such as economics or physics however the issue that became clear is that these subjects require a lot of wrote practice to get comfortable not only with the theories but to really understand how these theories interact with each other. This made it hard to design a game for subjects that I wasn't an expert at. I instead turned my focus to level design. The main reasons were

Low simulation requirement - It will be easier to build as simulation accuracy isn't as important.
Familiarity - I have some experience with the subject matter.
Anecdotal evidence - I took a level design class where a big focus became learning the engine(Unreal Engine 4) and building a game. This game would reduce that requirement keeping the focus on level design.