Story: Gamification's Secret Weapon

I've become more and more keen on gamification, fancy talk for applying the principles of gameplay to other contexts to enhance engagement and, in the case of education, understanding.

These two articles, one from Matthew Farber, one from Vicki Davis,  provide both a nice overview of the concepts of gamification as well as direction for the future of this transformative pedagogical framework.  (Ahh, there's the academic voice again.)

In reading both, I noticed a little gap in their discussions.  One element surfaces in every compelling, cognitively-engaging game I've ever played -- whether digital or no -- and that's story.  Great games are thick

Vicki Davis makes reference to the emergence of story in games when discussing a student's relationship with gaming and learning.

My so-called "killer" student (and we really should rename this when applying it to education!) simply saw things as a battle between good and evil and wanted to fight on the side of good in an epic quest to make the world a better place. Points don't matter in gameplay, and grades don't matter, either. But when we tweaked the kinds of work he was doing in ourGamifi-ED project to focus on "world-changing games," he was suddenly engaged.

 "Gamification in Education" on Edutopia

And I think it goes even further than that.  I'm of a mind, and mind you I'm just starting to explore these ideas, that if you've got a great story, you've got a great game and vice versa. 

Mario.  Full of pathos?  No.  On a mission?  Yes.  Lowly plumber fights against a tyrant and legion of minions to rescue a princess.   Mario-centric games require not just hand-eye coordination but strategy, management of multiple variables, quick recall of information and such.  Why do players keep playing and keep wanting more?  Why does he continue to be relevant: the story.

Pac-Man the original is fun, but simplistic.  And every effort to make him relevant again?  Fails. Really.  He's a bit of nostalgia.   Why hasn't he endured?  The story is just four ghosts want to get him and he wants to get away.  Who cares?  No one.  Why? There's no story.

Think of games you've heard students talk about lately.  Minecraft. Assassin's Creed. Animal Crossing. Call of Duty.  Halo. World of Warcraft.   Titanfall. Even if these games do not feature singular stories, they provide worlds in which players create their own narratives.  Produce their own stories.  Play out the scenarios that interest them.   (One should note, Assassin's Creed has a rich mythology, as do games such a Bioshock and Portal.)  

Sandbox games such as Minecraft offer huge opportunity.  Players literally build a world and the journeys through them.  As players, they start right in the middle of things with little available to them.  They build skills.  They acquire materials and tools.  They achieve.  They face struggles and conflicts, with opposing forces and themselves.  There is story.  And players craft protagonists to their specifications.  

And they may keep coming back because it is fun.  Why is it fun?  I believe it is because with every restart, they are telling another story.  Every restored saved game is a chance to continue the story.

If the game mechanics stink, you can't craft an effective story.  You can't tell the story you want to tell.  That's what really drives players nuts -- when they can't make the character DO the things, experience the things, go through the narrative arcs, they have shaped in their heads just moments before.

Can this explain Cookie, Candy and Tooth Decay Crush?  No.  Does Cookie Crush have the opportunity to teach us much?  Not really.

However, pattern-recognition games have been developed to help map genomes & explore possible cures for cancer.  What makes people want to keep playing those more meaningful versions?  Well, the game play is familiar and "mindless" fun, yet now people are part of a story.

And becoming an active part of a story?  That's what excitements me about bringing gamification to students.  

UMF EDU 571: Boxes & Storytelling

Boxes are great. 

They hold things very well.

They protect things very well, as well.

They keep things hidden and easily stored.

They provide structure where there is none and create order where it is needed.

Watch this short film.

The Adventures of a Cardboard Box from Studiocanoe on Vimeo.

Several of you may have seen this film and that’s okay.  It’s good to watch things again after having not seen them in a while, informed by new experiences and new purposes.

How many stories did you see in this film?  One?  Three?  Seven?  Fifteen? More?

What would this story have been without a box?

What would this story have been without a camera?

What would this story have been without music?

What would this story have been with dialogue?

How might this story inspire a scientist hoping to prove a theory?

How might this story inform a mathematician trying to solve a problem?

When I watch this film, I see possibilities.  I see who we are before we become encumbered by expectations and self-awareness.  I see empathy and tragedy, acceptance and nostalgia.  

And I see a filmmaker who knows that we don’t need to see every detail to know the entire story.  I see deliberate camera framing that creates a box into which we look to see outside of that box.  I see a well-chosen handheld camera shot to capture the chaos of the moment and the ease with which an audience may recognize grief at a distance.    I see the power of silence.

I don’t know that writing this story would achieve the same goal.  I don’t know that drawing it into a comic book would have the same emotional resonance.  I am inclined to think that an oral telling of this story, in hands and lips of a deft storyteller, might come close.  And then I watch that final montage and I’m not sure.  Showing students the power of effective piece of editing, then providing them the opportunity to exercise the same power, makes them not just the audience for the films they watch, but critical colleagues in the culture of meaning making.  

And then I watch the film in a classroom full of students who have not seen it.

I gauge their maturity, sensitivity, empathy, discomfort, insecurity by their responses to a single moment.  Whether a tear or a laugh, both provide an opportunity for me to learn more about those individuals.  Why the tears?  Why the laughs? Conversations rather than judgements.  (A laugh can come from a sad place, just as well as it can from cruel place; I learned this the hard way.)

Gifts sometimes come in boxes.

One gift we may provide our students is the opportunity to think outside of the box.

It is a gift we may present to ourselves, as well.