Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game

While I was mowing my lawn, I started thinking about what I’d been reading in Gee’s book about his perspective on games and I started adding things up; reading, playing, learning, researching, remembering a local news piece I saw last week (more on that later), thinking about how the military values gaming experience… and I realized that gaming might be a good thing!

Huh?  What?  Bloody he|| No!  No chance, no how… were my next thoughts.  But indeed, there is enough research for me to conclude that yes, there are positive benefits to the person and most importantly -- their mind -- by taking part in the playing of video games.  I had to swallow my early misgivings of gaming and think about how I am actually learning while I play video games.

Later I got into a conversation with my 15 yr. old daughter about all the stuff I’ve been reading and studying about games.  I told her about the Pain Squad example from Brian Burke’s book Gamification.  I explained that I feel like I am learning anytime I’m playing.  Learning the ins-and-outs of the games I’m playing through trial and error.  While playing, I am constantly learning and making adjustments to try to achieve better results.  She mentioned that it is amazing that we are capable of learning very complex/difficult tasks in a short amount of time when playing games.  Not just amazing, astonishing.  I showed her the Dino Hunter game and she picked it up right away and was dropping dinosaurs with accurately placed rounds.   

I am finding that I play better when I am really into it; raised heart rate, supreme focus on the objective, and serious concern for what my virtual player character is doing or feeling.  Moment by moment my brain is making a ridiculous amount of calculations and corrections while I adjust to what the game is throwing at me.  However I may have thought in the past about gaming is forever changed.

I mentioned that I watched an interesting news piece last week.  The story was about a study that found that video games can be beneficial to children’s health.  The study found that children who play video games an hour or less a day scored higher in mental and social health assessments then kids who did not play at all.  Interestingly, “life satisfaction scores” was one particular area they saw differences in scores. Life satisfaction score? Sounds like a happiness scale.  We don't play games because they're fun or make us happy.  So maybe the study’s just a bunch of malarkey.  You can read the associated article here.

Pet Dino Rescue Adventure

I decided to fix my gaming study woes by getting a couple of the (mindless) simplified single-person games to see if my amusement is peaked.  After playing a few of them for a bit (okay quite possibly it was several hours,) now I can say… WOW!!  Good move dude!!  I got some apps on my kindle, specifically; Dino Hunter: Deadly Shores, Hungry Shark Evo, Pet Rescue Saga, and SAS: Zombie Assault 3.  I was sure that one of these few minutes per play, type of games would peak my interest and enjoyment. 

Specifically, I would like to discuss Pet Rescue Saga and Dino Hunter.  Pet Rescue Saga is a kids type of game (a la bejeweled,) whereby one must move tiles to line up successive colors to unlock paths in order to free birds, domesticated, farm, and other assorted ‘pets’.  I had thought I was getting a children’s game with a flavor of Steven Kings Pet cemetery, but while the name clearly implies this… it was not the case.  This game was ultra-elementary with a cute little game board representation to display a player’s progression through levels.  Each of levels 3-9 (or 21?) introduced new implements that the user could employ to expedite safe passage of the aforementioned pets.  And yes, embarrassingly I played off-and-on repeatedly until I had completed 21 levels.  It was enjoyable and silly funny.  I believe I remarked several times ‘Don’t worry, I’m going to save you and free you little pets’. 

The significant learning takeaway from this game was two-fold. First, the layout was obvious and intuitive as to the goal of the level and when specific items are introduced, (i.e., implements such as rockets, balloons, bombs, wire-cutters, etc.) they were accompanied by a short, clear set of directions how to use them.  Secondly, while the beginning was easy (probably even for a 7 yr. old,) it was fun to complete levels and the challenges of each level were enjoyable to finish.

Now onto the really fun one… Dino Hunter.  This game was just plain fun.  The first couple of levels introduce tips and instruction on how to use various weapons and sights to hunt various dinosaurs.  This instruction was not overly technical at all.  It was simply offering the player ways to dial a scope in, how to use iron peep sights, specific areas to target, and implied notes onto the attributes (strength and stability,) of the weapons at your disposal. 

In large part, the learning attributes present early on in this game were largely educational about how to employ weapon strengths to achieve level success.  Some of the levels have the player engage docile, non-threatening dinosaurs, and some require judicious use of firepower to subdue violent, evil, Doug-eating dinosaurs.  As a firearms enthusiast this game definitely strikes a nerve and is quickly addicting.  I do not like the prospect of being seriously injured, maimed, or devoured.  In a game or otherwise.  All of these things will happen to players while playing this game.   

Interestingly, it was because of my many deaths while playing that I resorted to using the internet for ways to succeed.  Surprise!  It happens in real life too!  Interestingly, after learning a bit from some reading online it brought me back to what I have always known fundamentally as a shooter; outfit the weapon you have to suit the threat(s) you will be confronted with.  This (BIG SURPRISE!!) require you to play more, get more contract hunt money and outfit yourself more suitably for the dino at hand.  Give Dino Hunter a try, it's worth 49 minutes, or 3.79 - 7.13 hours.

Portal Part Deux

This week, I have thought a lot about why I have fun playing Monaco, but I can’t stand Portal.  The most significant points I could come up with are that Monaco uses a 1-dimensional birds-eye-view while Portal is first person and is more spatially challenging for me.  In addition, Monaco has obvious tasks (it lays out the game-plan so you enter each stage, knowing what the objective is,) while Portal has a more you’ll figure it out approach.  Even more importantly, I do not like the theme of Portal where the player is a test subject, and being surveilled continuously is unnerving.  Since I find this dissatisfying, now when I enter rooms in Portal I shoot every video camera (hanging from the ceiling typically,) with my portal blaster or indiscriminately blast other test equipment.  I have found that this brings me joy while playing.  We’ll see how round two goes.

I managed to re-launch Portal last night.  I use managed because I have been dreading playing it again.  I completed levels 5-7 which are a series of levels with slightly harder puzzles to figure out.  The game sometimes gives users a colored mapping of paths (located on the floor, a sort of ‘yellow brick road’,) which provide help to show users paths and colored connections between the objects and tasks to complete.  Maneuvering was much easier the second time playing the game.  In addition, levels are a bit more obvious in their scope, or the task that needs to be completed.  Simply put, the techniques a user will have to (exasperatingly in my case,) learn in the first few levels make the following levels significantly less challenging than the first few.

Having played numerous levels, it is easier to see that each level has a specific task that the game demands that you achieve before moving to the next level.  Levels appear to alternate in the scope of the task, for example one may be more difficult spatially (requiring more use of the portal blaster,) while the next may require more patience, timing, or calculation of angles.  Levels build on the skills the player has learned when accomplishing previous levels and their challenges.

This game has gotten a little easier the more time I have on it.  It is not what I would deem fun but the last 3 levels were more tolerable than the first 4 levels.