GET YOUR GAME ON!
"Press any key to start"
STEP 1: OUTLINE YOUR GOALS
Before you begin, you need to know what type of gaming experience you want to - and feel comfortable - creating.
To begin, ask yourself these questions.
1. What main idea or theme do you want to center your game design around?
2. Will your game be plot-based or will your levels only revolve around your player rewards?
3. How many websites do you want to incorporate?
4. When do you want to implement it?
I'll tell you how I answered these questions as a guide for what options you have.
1. What main idea or theme do you want to center your game design around?
The game that you create is going to become a central part of your classroom, and there's no reason it has to be "just a game" to add engagement. You can use it as a content-teaching tool as well. Your options are as wide as your curriculum. So, what do you want your game to be about?
You will use this theme when designing how your game looks. You don't have to write a story based on your theme, but I chose to, as you'll see below and as we'll talk more about in question two.
For my middle school level game, Mistru, I centered the game around a character in a fantasy world (called Mistru). I chose this theme because I taught language arts and could use the story to help teach my students about literary elements. Additionally, writing in the fantasy genre gave me the freedom to make up my story as I saw fit without having to spend time researching content for accuracy.
I took a different approach to my elementary school level game, My Great Adventure. I knew that our
classroom focus would be on reading, writing, and math, so I wanted to spend some time enriching
science and social studies as well. In this story, the characters create a WeTAST (We Travel Across
Space & Time), which is a time machine disguised as a cardboard box. (Yes, there is a bit of Doctor Who
inspiration here.) This time machine will let them meet the historical figure we want to study as well
as see dinosaurs, get a peek at volcanos, and fly over the regions of Georgia.
Look at your curriculum and decide what you want your central theme to be. This will go a long way in designing the apperance of your game, though it won't actually affect how it's played.
3. How many websites do you want to incorporate?
Some people use several websites and blend them together to have students get points and badges. Other people have all of the parts of their game from one site. Others use only a couple of sites. The amount you use is up to you, but there are some things to consider. There are a ton of great sites out there! However, you have to keep up with and visit these websites regularly to use them all. How many sites do you want to commit to?
I chose to use a single website, because I know that I, personally, will not be able to keep up with a lot of websites - even if they are great. I'd rather use one site and feel confident that I can keep up with it as often as I need to. After getting more familiar with the implementation of gamification, I would probably consider using two sites: a centeral website (www.wix.com) and Edmodo (www.edmodo.com).
Some sites to consider incorporating are
Edmodo - this wonderful website allows you to create a virtual classroom and so much more. (I'm really a huge fan. You can learn more about Edmodo here.) In gamification, you can use Edmodo to offer missions/quests/tasks, to earn badges, and to track points.
Class Badges - this site allows you to give students badges as they level up (more on that later). I loved this idea, but feel this site is limited and does not offer enough to be worth the time to maintain it. In the past, I have given physical badges (printed and taped onto Player Cards) and issued badges through Edmodo, which I was already using in class.
Class Dojo - this is a behavior tracking website that many teachers love. If you use it already, you can incorporate Dojo Points into your experience points. Honestly, I'm not a big fan because you always have to be logged on for it to be effective, so you won't mentioned on my sites.
Classcraft - this site is similar to Class Dojo on steroids of awesomeness. Instead of just tracking student points, it lets students also create characters and work in teams. I have only just learned about this site, but I had a bit of a fangirl moment when I found it (Oh wow! EVERYONE must come see this!!!! Wow!). It's definitely a site I plan to investigate further.
4. When do you want to implement it?
This does take some up-front work, so decide where you want to begin. You can begin tomorrow, in Jaunary, at the start of the next grading period, or in a few weeks. When will you be ready to begin?
It's important to consider how much time you will have to create your game. I would suggest planning to begin after Thanksgiving break. It seem silly to start with only a few weeks left this semester, but there is a really good reason behind this decision.
First, you will need some time to create your game. Starting after Thanksgiving gave me two weeks of time after school plus the holiday week to get my game ready to unveil. It also gave me time to slip some hints and enticing peeks to my students to get their interest up for the unveiling.
Second, when you begin, you will need to learn how to make this strategy fit with you and your kids. You will want to make changes and tweak what you do so that it is more successful. I began with a Beta Version (a version of software that can still have bugs to work out) of my game. I told my class we would play the game between Thanksgiving Break and the Christmas holidays to see how well it worked. If all went well, I would release the final version in January. This let me begin the new semester with a version of the game that I was happy with.
Do you have to do this? Of course not! But it worked well for me. I would suggest not waiting too long or what you've learned and your motivation to act will fade and this will turn into a great idea that you always meant to do.
2. Will your game be plot-based or will your levels only revolve around your player rewards?
Some video games follow clever story lines, keeping the players engaged to find out what happens in the end, just like a good book. Other video games are all about action; there are no real stories and play revolves around leveling up a character. Which will be a better fit for you as a teacher?
For a purely level-based game, students will earn points to level up. Each level will have a specific reward that students want to achieve. We'll talk more about that later. This method is the fastest to create, but all of the motivation to advance levels comes from the rewards for leveling, which can make it less appealing if not done well.
I'm very much a language arts teacher at heart, so I chose to create a plot-based game. I wanted
to draw motivation from an engaging story. If you choose this path, it's important to choose a
story that students don't already know. I wouldn't model a game after Hunger Games or Diary of
a Wimpy Kid or Romeo and Juliette unless you are sure that students won't figure it out and "read
ahead".
To ensure my students couldn't do that, I decided to write my own story. If you are a writer yourself, I encourage it! If not, try to find a story that's interesting but obscure enough to serve as your model. You want something related to your theme, as well.
Now, don't get scared. I'm not asking you to write a book - at least not yet. My story was written a few paragraphs at a time. In the beginning of Mistru, I knew I wanted my character to have lost his/her memory and have to explore a fantasy land with the help of some new friends. When I started, that was all I had. This is actually all I wrote in the beginning.
Where am I?
You are surrounded by a thick, heavy darkness. It fills your entire vision and seems to swim inside your head as well. As you float, lost in the blackness, a light slowly begins to emerge in the distance. You feel yourself drawn toward it.
Opening your eyes, you find yourself staring at a clear, blue sky. You sit up to get your bearings and find yourself in a wooded area, surrounded by trees. Huge mountains loom in the distance, casting long shadows against the sunrise. As the sun rises, you also glimpse a ribbon of smoke against the sky. You listen for the sounds of people, but only hear the sounds of the woods.
Your head aches. You try to remember how you ended up here, but the darkness still sloshes around in your mind, blocking the memory. Realizing that you can't just sit here, you dust yourself off and rise to your feet. If you want to survive, you have only one option...Explore.
As I wrote, I built the story in my mind. Today, I can tell you exactly how my story will end, who the villian is, who the hero really is, and how the hero lost their memory. But I haven't actually written it yet. I write it as I need to create the next level. (Okay, sometimes I get inspired and write a few levels in advance too.)
I want to take a moment to point out the fact that the story above is written in 2nd person. I think that is very important. Your students are actually going to be players in the game. They will earn points, level up, and (in plot-based games) continue the story. They need to feel involved. Using 2nd person helps with that. It's part of what makes the Choose Your Own Adventure books so engaging.
Honestly, it's really no different than writing in 1st person. It's easy to avoid the use of he or she when talking about yourself because you use the generic you. But there is one challenge. You have to be careful not to let other characters refer to you as a boy or a girl. It's not that hard, really, but it is something to keep in mind.
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