Drawing on ideas from Sari Gilbert’s Gamified System Design (GSD), this study investigates quest design, and reward and motivation systems in casual games to extend Gilbert’s gamified systems for education. While Gilbert provides interesting ideas for game elements to support learning and curriculum, her early emphasis on the voluntary aspect of play (based on Huizinga’s extensive discussion of play) becomes irrelevant when required to support engaged learning. This study aims to rescue voluntary play when games become integrated within or run alongside curriculums.
This study focuses casual games to expand the possibilities for play. Casual games exist across platforms and for every age group. Games like editions of Sim City, iterations of FarmVille, Candy Crush, Angry Birds, and Animal Crossing ask players to engage with the game for short durations (anywhere from 5 minutes to a few hours) for longer periods of time (across months and in some cases years). This study investigates how goals, learning objectives, obstacles, opportunities, choice, and agency are deployed, supported, and kept meaningful across time. This study then maps these ideas to learning as it is often supported across the duration of a semester, to provide new ideas for developing voluntary meaningful play integrated within or run alongside content curriculum.
About the presenterA Nicole Pfannenstiel
Studier of play, the internet, videogames, digital rhetoric, and mostly writing. I enjoy exploring how play helps learners connect to understanding rhetorical situations for empowered learning and learners. Associate Professor of Digital Media, English and World Languages Department at Millersville University.