Reflect on your experience of using digital games and game building, what have you learned? What are the most important issues we need to consider when adapting game based learning? What are the challenges you’ve experienced?
After my experiences designing games for the "Name Game" project and the Game-based Learning project, and after designing a board game, I've discovered that while games may seem simple to play, they can be a lot trickier to design. I've learned that the most important aspect to be considered when designing a game is user-friendliness. It's extremely important for the directions of the game and the game interface to be well thought-out so that players can easily grasp the concept of the game, because otherwise they will quickly become frustrated and will not be able to access all of the learning benefits that the game-designer intends.
I found this aspect of game design especially challenging when designing a board game because of the time constraints that our groups were faced with. We had to design, create, and test a board game in the space of one or two hours that was easy to use and enjoyable for the player. To meet these requirements, my group designed a board game based on Disney's The Lion King, which was a "Candy Land" style game in which players were in a race to the finish and were guided on their path by drawing cards that directed them in their journey. Through testing this game, our group came to realize that while we found our directions to be clear and the rules of the game to be self-evident, when we viewed others playing our game, there were several places in which we could've made the directions more detailed. Thus, the most important step in game design is having someone else test the game and make sure that both the directions and the interface are user-friendly.
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