GAM 382: Serious Games

Project 1: Serious Game Analysis

Due Sunday, April 26, 11:59PM via COL

Objectives

Introduction

This is an individual project.

"Mudcraft" is an environment-oriented game created at the Games for Entertainment and Learning lab at Michigan State. It can be downloaded from http://www.mudcraft.com, or played online.

What you will do

• Play the game for at least an hour and a half.
• Determine the learning objectives of the game, by reading the related information on the website and/or by inferring them from the game.
• For each of Gee's and Clark and Mayer's principles, state whether or not that principle was followed. If it was, give examples from the game.
• Answer the discussion questions below.
• Write a report with your findings, and submit it via COL by the deadline.

Discussion questions

1. Was the game fun ... for you? Maybe for someone else? If not why not? If so, what do you think made it fun?
2. Was the game effective for achieving the learning objectives? If so, what contributed? If not, why not?
3. To what extent did Gee's and Clark and Mayer's principles contribute to the learning effectiveness of the game?
4. What design changes would you suggest for this game to make it more effective for learning? To make it more fun?

What to hand in

Your report should include the following sections:

• Introduction: A brief description of the game and its learning objectives.
• Results: A table or listing including all of the principles, and examples from game of how they're followed, or an indication that they are not followed. For your convenience, here are slightly modified versions of the tables that we used for Gee (rtf version) and Clark and Mayer (rtf).
• Discussion: Answers to the questions above.
• Conclusions: Your final analysis about this game.