Learn the value that learning games can have - and how games link to learning and remembering. Discover the power of playing games to learn how to design games and "high-power" game elements to include.

1. The Fundamentals of
Learning Game Design:
Playing to Learn
By Sharon Boller
A presentation from

2. 2Bottom-Line Performance
Sharon Boller
Game-lover(!), learner,
instructional designer, book
author, game designer, dog-
lover and owner, Mom, wife,
cyclist…and president, Bottom-
Line Performance.

3. NOT “WHEN ARE
GAMES…?”
INSTEAD “WHICH KIND OF
GAMES…?”

4. Game 1: Sequence
Game Goal
Align the cards into the specified sequence
within 90 seconds.
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Set up & Rules
• Each row in the room has a 25-card deck.
• Person #1 within a row deals out these 25 cards to every other
person in that row.
• Hand out all cards.
• Make sure cards make it all the way to other end of row.
• This might mean you need to leave two spaces between card holders.
• It may mean you need to give some people two cards.

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Set up & Rules
• You have 90 seconds to re-arrange the cards or yourselves so the
words on the cards match the order they appear on your handout/the slide
I’m about to show.
• Discard cards that do not belong.
• For your team to win, Person #1 should hold the first card on the list. The
rest should be held by Persons 2 – 14 in the row. Person #15 should have
all discards. If your row has more than 15 people, not everyone will have
cards.
• Card holders may not talk. Nonverbal cues are allowed.

7. Correct Sequence
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1. Activity
2. Explicit
3. Goal
4. Challenge
5. Rules
6. Players
7. Interactivity
8. Players
9. Game Environment
10. Feedback Mechanisms
11. Cues
12. Performing
13. Quantifiable outcome
14. Emotional reaction
30
60
90

8. AGAME IS…
• An activity with an explicit goal or challenge
• Rules for players and the system (computer games)
• Interactivity with other players, the game environment
(or both)
• Feedback mechanisms that provides players with
clear cues on how they are performing.
• It results in a quantifiable outcome (you win, you lose,
you hit the target, etc.) and often triggers an emotional
reaction in players.

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Turning this into a learning game…
Game Goal
Stay in business and minimize costs. Align
the cards while using the least amount of $$
and time to accomplish the task.

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Set up & Rules
• Each row is a business. Your business is working on an essential project.
Each 30 seconds used costs your business $300,000. 30 seconds = 1
month.
• The person in the left-most chair is the project manager.
• Each person in your row contributes $10,000 to this cost.
• Finish the task within 90 seconds and earn a bonus for each team member.
• If you need more time at 90 second mark, the PM must eliminate at least
two jobs.
• If you are not successful within 2 minutes, your company goes bankrupt.

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Game 2: Newton
Game Goal
Make the other person’s feet move within 17
seconds.
17

12. WHAT “FUN” WAS IN THESE
GAMES? HOW DID THIS
“FUN” ENGAGE US?

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Motivation Relevant Practice Specific, Timely Feedback
Spacing & Repetition Story Ability to retrieve

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So how do you get started designing them?
We’re here

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Game 3 (commercial): Timeline
Game Goal
Work collaboratively
within your team to
create the longest
possible correct timeline
w/ the cards you have.

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Let’s Get Started
1. Place a card with the date face-up in center of table
where all can see it.
2. Distribute remaining 9 cards date side down to the
people at your table. DO NOT LOOK AT DATES!!!!!!

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How to Play
1. As a team, evaluate one card at a time and decide where to place it
onto the timeline. Once placed, turn card face up to reveal the date.
2. If card placement is correct, card remains. If not, discard it. It is no
longer in play.
3. Select another card and repeat the process.
4. As you use additional cards, your team can 1) insert them between
two cards already placed on the timeline; or 2) place the card left or
right of the other cards.
5. Game ends after 5 minutes.

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An Example
Wrong!
Remove Card

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Evaluate Timeline
1. What was the game goal? Was it fun?
2. What was the core dynamic? Was it fun?
3. What were 1-3 mechanics (rules) that stood out? Did they help – or
confuse you?
4. What game elements did you notice?
5. How did you know how you were doing? (What feedback did you
get?)
6. Any ideas you could pull into a learning game?

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Q. How do you get started?
1. Play and evaluate games to expand your game design
ideas.
2. Consider all kinds of games: board games, experiential
games, digital games. When you need digital, consider
going outside a rapid authoring tool. “Will the world
collapse if a game doesn’t get tracked in the LMS?”
3. Think cooperative instead of just competitive.

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Play games…all kinds of them.

22. Example of re-use…
Knowledge Guru – Sales
to Implementation
Process:
• 4 roles, 28-steps in
process from start of
conversation through
support of product
• GREAT re-use of
concept from Timeline
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Q. How do you get started?
4. Embed within a curriculum; don’t make the GAME =
COURSE.
5. Go beyond points, badges, leaderboards (PBLs); recognize
the power of aesthetics, story, and theme; be more
intentional about game elements you choose.
6. Decrease complexity.
7. Link game elements to real-world job constraints or
challenges when possible.

24. Embed game within
something bigger
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“Go beyond PBLs”
theknowledgeguru.com/ATDGameDesignGuru/
PBLs are fun…for
awhile. This Guru
games uses them – but
goes beyond them as
well. Check out
ATDGame Design Guru
to see what else we
used.

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Recognize power of aesthetics & themes
Adds element
of fun; sets
context, sparks
emotion

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Choose game elements with more intention
Time Cooperation
Chance
Strategy
Levels
How could you use these?
Work in teams of two: Think about commercial games you play – and how they
use these elements. How do you fit these same elements effectively into a
learning game?

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How to use 5 game elements to enhance learning:
• Time – to compress real-world time, to provide element of stress that mimics real-world, to manage
duration of learning experience, to serve as a resource that must be managed (much like it must be
managed in real-world).
• Cooperation – to foster collaboration and teamwork (assets in real-world, to increase and / or maintain
learner engagement, to mimic real-world cooperation required in a job or process
• Strategy – to encourage problem-solving or use of judgment, to force people to manage limited
resources (a frequent real-world constraint)
• Chance – to help “balance” a game so people don’t opt out if they fall too far behind; to mimic real-world
“chance” events such as a person getting sick, someone quitting, a natural disaster, etc., to force people
assess and manage risk.
• Levels – to help balance a game so that different experience levels can play; to allow people to learn via
play by having an easy level precede harder levels, to increase complexity as players gain experience.

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30. Thank you for letting me play and
share with you!
Sharon Boller
President
Bottom-Line Performance, Inc.
Sharon@bottomlineperformance.com
@Sharon_Boller (Twitter)

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Game 3 (commercial): Spot It
Game Goal
Spot the matches so you
can be the first one to get
rid of all your cards.

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Let’s Get Started
1. Place one card face-up in the center of table.
2. Deal remaining cards to players at your
table. Make sure each player has an even #
of cards.
3. Once the dealer says “go,” you each turn up
your first card. Keep your others face down.
4. Compare the card you turned up to the one
that’s face up. Look for a match. There will
always be one.

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Spot It
I turn this card up in my personal deck. I see a match
and call it out. I place my card on the face-up card.
Spider!

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Spot It
I have another match! I call out the match and play it as
fast as I can.
Skull!

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Evaluate Spot It
1. What was the game goal? Was it fun?
2. What was the core dynamic? Was it fun?
3. What were 1-3 mechanics (rules) that stood out? Did they help – or
confuse you?
4. What game elements did you notice?
5. How did you know how you were doing? (What feedback did you
get?)
6. Any ideas you could pull into a learning game?

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Let’s Change It Up
30
60
90
1. Replay Spot It. This time work
cooperatively at your tables to
beat the clock.
2. Deal out the cards, place one
face-up in center. When I say GO,
you have 90 seconds to get rid of
all your cards. Every team that
succeeds wins.