This presentation covers: - Definition of a Game - What Makes a Game a Game - Learning Through Play (High Concept) - How To Start To Learn How to Design Games - Core Mechanisms of Games - Soft Qualities of Games - Survey of Different Types Of Games and Their Mechanisms - Overview of Educational Games - Gamification for Education - Educational Games In Context of Transmedia Storytelling

1. An Introduction to Educational Game Design
Presented by Michael Pinto | October 18th, 2016

2. What is a Game? Painting of Queen Nefertiti, c. 1320-1200 BCE

3. What is a Game?
“A game is a form
of play with goals
and structure”
This is my favorite definition:
Kevin J. Maroney

4. What Makes a Game a Game?
Sociologist Roger Caillois in his book Games and Men
defines a game as an activity which must have:
Fun: an activity chosen for light-hearted character
Separate: in a circumscribed time and place
Uncertain: outcome of the activity is unforeseeable
Governed by Rules: which aren’t from everyday life
Fictitious: awareness of a different reality
Non-Productive: doesn’t accomplish anything useful
I disagree
with this
last point

5. But How Can Games be Productive?
Learning Through Play!
Learning through play is an
education term which describes
how a children can learn to make
sense of the world around them:
This allows children to develop
social and cognitive skills.
Illustration by Carmen L. Browne

6. Game Design: Where to Start? Inside of a Pinball Machine Cabinet
Photo by Miroslaw Adamczewski

7. Game Design: Where to Start?
First study different types
of games, and learn about
their history and evolution
It’s very easy to get distracted by
the bells-and-whistles of the latest
technology, but if you really want
to learn about game design the
best place to start is with old
school analog games. Pong
Prototype,
1972

8. Game Design: Where to Start?
Then look at the inside
mechanics of games to
understand how they work
Many of the core mechanisms used in
old school games can still be found in
video games today.
In fact many video game designers
often start with what’s known as
“paper prototyping” to test their initial
concepts for a video game. A paper game
prototype by Johanna Jacob

9. Game Design: Where to Start?
What are some of the core mechanisms
that make a game work?
• Avatars & Personalization
• Easter Eggs
• Goals
• Hinting
• Levels (and Leveling)
• Medium and Genre
• Number of Players
• Obfuscation
• Randomness
• Rewards & Achievements
• Rules of the Game
• Skill, Strategy, or Luck?
• Timing
• Tools
Note: Some
games have
mechanisms
that are
specific to a
game genre

10. Game Design: Where to Start?
Games also have soft qualities:
Ease of Use
Playability
Interactivity
Fun
Replayability
Some of these terms are
overlapping and fuzzy,
but that’s fine. Terms
like this are good for
critiquing a game design.
For example: Can we
make the rewards in the
game more fun?
Mario and Daisy
cosplay photo by
NintendoStarKnight:
Clearly there was
something fun about
these characters

11. Game Design: A Reality Check Reminder
In the real world budgeting
often drives game design
The complexity of a game
will determine the cost of
a game. On a board game
this may not be a big deal,
but in a video game
factors like single player
vs. live multiple players
can have a huge impact.
A BuzzFeed quiz is a
great example of a
low budget driving
game design. Shown
above is the 2014
video game Destiny
which had a $500
million dollar budget.

12. A Quick Survey of Games (and their mechanisms) Vintage Game Adverts
and Catalog Pages

13. A Quick Survey of Games (and their mechanisms)
The Big Picture: What types of games are out there?
• Children’s Games
• Sports Games
• Tabletop Games
• Mechanical Arcade Games
• Roleplaying Games
• Electronic and Video Games
• Mixed Media Games
Note: It’s hard to do an exact
taxonomy of games because
many newer games evolved from
older ones. Also many games
overlap over several genres.

14. A Quick Survey of Games (and their mechanisms)
Children’s Games
• Apple Bobbing
• Blind Man’s Buff
• Duck, Duck, Goose
• Hide-and-Go-Seek
• Hopscotch
• Hot Potato
• Kick the Can
All of these games require more than one
player and that the rules are very easy to
understand. Also notice how the more simple
games use obfuscation techniques like Blind
Man’s Buff and Hide-and-Go-Seek.
• Musical Chairs
• Peekaboo
• Rock-Paper-Scissors
• Simon Says
• Tag Games
• Tic-Tac-Toe
• Truth or Dare?

15. A Quick Survey of Games (and their mechanisms)
Sports Games
• Ball-over-Net Games (Tennis, Volleyball, etc.)
• Basketball
• Bat-and-Ball Games (Baseball, Cricket, etc.)
• Catch Games (Dodgeball, etc.)
• Cue Sports (Pool games like Eight-ball)
• Equine Sports (Horse Racing, Polo, etc.)
• Football (American Football, Rugby, Soccer, etc.)
• Golf
• Ice Sports (Hockey as an example)
• Lawn Games (Horseshoes as an example)
• Mixed Discipline (Triathlon as an example)
• Motorized Racing (Cars, Aircraft, etc.)
• Orienteering Games (Geocaching as an example)
• Remote Control (Robot Combat as an example)
• Shooting Sports (Clay Pigeon Shooting as an example)
• Wrestling and Martial Arts
I’m mostly listing
games that tend to
have rules and may
require strategy,
rather than just
brute skills.
Notice how games
with solo players
(vs. teams) like golf
are based on turns.
21st Century
Sports: Geocaching
and Robot Combat

16. A Quick Survey of Games (and their mechanisms)
Sports Games
A Football Play Plan
Games with multiple
team members like
football may rely upon
strategy to win a game.
Notice how how this
diagram is a very
reminiscent of a
board game.

17. A Quick Survey of Games (and their mechanisms)
Tabletop Games
• Board Games
(Monopoly as an example)
• Card Games
(Solitaire as an example)
• Collectable Card Games
(Magic the Gathering as an example)
• Dexterity & Coordination Games
(Jenga as an example)
• Dice Games
• Domino & Tile Games
• Guessing Games
(Charades as an example)
• Pencil and Paper Games
(Crossword Puzzles as an example)
Notice how card
games are often driven
by the inventory of
which cards you hold.
While many board
games, tile games,
and pencil-and-paper
games are about
strategic real estate.
Thanks to KickStarter board games
are hot again: Twenty Sided Store
in Williamsburg, Brooklyn

18. A Quick Survey of Games (and their mechanisms)
Mechanical Arcade and
Carnival Games
• Claw Crane Games
• Fortune Telling Machines
• Gambling Slot Machines
• Shooting Games
• Skeet Ball
• Pinball & Pachinko Machines
• Weight Guessing Booth
• Whack-a-Mole

19. A Quick Survey of Games (and their mechanisms)
Mechanical Arcade and
Carnival Games
These sorts of games tend to fall into either
games of chance or games of skill. An
example of a game of chance would be a
gambling slot machine, while a game that might
involve skill would be a pinball machine.
Also notice how many of these games are really
driven by the rewards of the game. And how the
failure to get a reward inspires replayability.
A Vintage Kyoraku Pachinko Machine

20. A Quick Survey of Games (and their mechanisms)
Role Playing Games
• Tabletop
(example: Dungeons & Dragons)
• Live Action (known as LARP)
• Single Player RPG
Video Games
• Multiple Player RPG
Video Games
(some can have massive numbers
of players and be in real time)
What’s interesting about role playing
games is that the ongoing storytelling
can be a rewards mechanism. These
games may also may also make use of
inventory and group goals (like sports).
Dungeons &
Dragons, IRL,
in 2007 in
Indianapolis.
Photo by Ray
Stubblebine

21. A Quick Survey of Games (and their mechanisms)
Role Playing Games
Role Playing Games don’t
always have to be based on
fantasy, The Oregon Trail is a
great example of an
educational game that’s
based on history.

22. A Quick Survey of Games (and their mechanisms)
Electronic & Video Games: Mediums
• Arcade
• Console
• Desktop
• Web
• Mobile/Handheld
• Virtual Reality &
Augmented RealityMobile games aren’t new:
The MicroVision from 1979
What’s nice about video
games is that they have
unique mechanisms that
you don’t find in analog
games like built-in-
leveling, hinting, avatars,
and easter eggs.
Yet no matter how far we
come many of the basic
mechanisms still remain
the same like timing,
rules, goals, and rewards.

23. A Quick Survey of Games (and their mechanisms)
Electronic & Video Games: Genres
• Action Games
• Adventure Games
• Role-playing Games
• Simulation Games
• Strategy Games
• Sports Games
Notice how many of
these video games
genres harken back to
analog games?
Although something to
keep in mind is that
these games are very
much multimedia in
nature: So for example
a sound effect can be
used as a reward in a
videogame.

24. A Quick Survey of Games (and their mechanisms)
Mixed Medium Games
Lord of Vermilion:
This is a Japanese
game that combines
physical playing
cards with an arcade
video game.
There are some games that combine analog
and digital elements. So for example in
Japan there are collectible card games that
work with arcade machines. There are also
geo-location games like the recent Pokemon
Augmented Reality (AR) game.

25. Educational Games Left: An 1870 card game used to teach English royal history
Right: The Lewis chessmen from the 12th Century

26. Educational Games
A Noble History
There’s an established history of
games being used for education.
An example of this is the ancient
game of chess which was used
to teach war strategies. In more
recent time games like hangman
(which dates from the Victorian
era) have been used in
classroom settings.
Royal Revels for Learning The History Of England, 1870: This game consists of hand
colored cards which depicts all the Kings and Queens of England from William the
Conqueror to Victoria and includes the most significant events of each reign.

27. Educational Games
How is game design different
for educational games?
The first step in designing any
educational game is to first define
the the educational goal of the game,
followed by defining who the target
audience will be (grade level, literacy,
etc.). Then usually the game designer
marries this to an existing known
type of game.
How old is your audience?

28. Educational Games
Additional suggestions if you are interested in
designing educational games for museums:
There’s a long tradition of educational
games being sold in museum gift
shops. Most of these are board
games and puzzles, but they can
be a great starting point for
doing research.
There’s an annual educational games
festival in NYC called Games for
Change. This is a great place to see
what’s going on in the field and for
networking. You can also read up on
the field at gamesforchange.org.
Bonus Suggestion:
Join the International
Game Developers
Association (IGDA)
chapter in NYC

29. Educational Games
Gamification for Education
This is the concept of applying
game design elements outside
of game. A mundane example of
this would be a retail “rewards
card”. Gaming mechanisms like
rewards and goals can be used
for educational projects.
Activities like a Spelling Bee
or a Science Fair are good
examples of using rewards
in education.

30. Educational Games
Gamification for Education
A classic example of educational
gamification would be the
planetary weight scales at the
Museum of Natural History: If you
think about it this is a twist on the
classic fortune telling scales that
use to be found in drug stores.

31. Educational Games
Think of educational games as a key
element of transmedia storytelling, rather
than a peripheral activity
Often I’m brought in to create a game as an
after thought. But to get the best game
results I recommend that game designers be
brought into the early stages of any project.
This way a game may serve as an integrated
part of an educational experience (rather
than being a rushed after thought).