Designing Analog Learning Games: Genre Affordances, Limitations and Multi-Game Approaches

This chapter explores what the authors discovered about analog games and game design during the many iterative processes that have led to the Lost & Found series, and how they found certain constraints and affordances (that which an artifact assists, promotes or allows) provided by the boardgame genre. Some findings were counter-intuitive. What choices would allow for the modeling of complex systems, such as legal and economic systems? What choices would allow for gameplay within the time of a class-period? What mechanics could promote discussions of tradeoff decisions? If players are expending too much cognition on arithmetic strategizing, could that strategizing alter the characteristics of those trade-off discussions? Could the designer devise a game system that promoted consideration not just of the difficult decisions made in a community that has to balance the needs of the community with individualized needs, but could they help find a way for students to discuss legal reasoning as well? The design examples in this chapter provide a case study in the exploration of these questions as well as the resulting published games. The authors suggest that for complex topics in social sciences and humanities that multi-game mechanic and multi-game approaches may provide the most fruitful avenues for games for learning designs

Proceedings of the CUNY Games Conference 6.0

The CUNY Games Network is an organization dedicated to encouraging research, scholarship and teaching in the developing field of games-based learning. We connect educators from every campus and discipline at CUNY and beyond who are interested in digital and non-digital games, simulations, and other forms of interactive teaching and inquiry-based learning. These proceedings summarize the CUNY Games Conference 6.0, where scholars shared research findings at a three-day event to promote and discuss game-based pedagogy in higher education. Presenters could share findings in oral presentations, posters, demos, or play testing sessions. The conference also included workshops on how to modify existing games for the classroom, how to incorporate elements of play into simulations and critical thinking activities, math games, and how to create computer games

Are there potential benefits to pupils from the introduction, learning and playing of modern card and board games in Ssecondary phase education?

Might the teaching and playing of board games within a secondary school context have benefits for pupils? To provide a baseline for this work, an understanding of pupils’ existing relationship to tabletop game play was sought. Differences in pupil experience were revealed, linked to favoured ways to learn, frequency of play, favourite games, and access to games at home. There was found to be a lower exposure to games for pupils eligible for Free School Meals, for those receiving SEND support and for boys. In response to this data, a group of post-16 mentors were trained in an experiential method for teaching games, utilising the concept of Magic Circle as a basis for developing a structured culture from which instances of a well-played game might arise. Pupils’ responses to subsequent tabletop game play experiences were surveyed, suggesting potential beneficial outcomes for pupil wellbeing, and sense of social connection

Games Are Not Coffee Mugs: Games and the Right of Publicity, 29 Santa Clara Computer & High Tech. L.J. 1 (2012)

Are games more like coffee mugs, posters, and T-shirts, or are they more like books, magazines, and films? For purposes of the right of publicity, the answer matters. The critical question is whether games should be treated as merchandise or as expression. Three classic judicial decisions, decided in 1967, 1970, and 1973, held that the defendants needed permission to use the plaintiffs\u27 names in their board games. These decisions judicially confirmed that games are merchandise, not something equivalent to more traditional media of expression. As merchandise, games are not like books; instead, they are akin to celebrity-embossed coffee mugs. To borrow a British term, games are “mere image carriers.” Although the last of these three judicial decisions disclaimed any intent of offering a “hard and fast rule,” three consecutive losses in three different courts offered a plausible basis for predicting how future courts would respond to similar claims involving games. These three decisions confirmed the “settled order of things”: a license is required to use someone\u27s name or likeness (or identity) in a game. The leading treatise on the right of publicity and the Restatement (Third) of Unfair Competition subsequently endorsed the results in these cases. In 2007 the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upset the settled order of things. In C.B.C. Distribution and Marketing v. Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the Eighth Circuit held that the use of professional baseball players\u27 names and statistics in fantasy baseball games is protected by the First Amendment, the right of publicity notwithstanding. Some courts are resisting further erosions of the right of publicity. The issue remains substantially unsettled with multiple courts now considering whether permission is needed to use the identities of athletes in video games. We argue that the rule produced by the three classic cases is an anachronism. The licensing custom created-or at least reinforced by these decisions should carry no weight. These cases were questionable when decided. They are even more so now. The gaming medium has evolved significantly over the past four decades, calling into question the longstanding treatment of games for purposes of the right of publicity. Tedious, uncreative games marketed to children may not evoke much First Amendment sympathy against right of publicity claims, but since the three cases were decided in the late 1960s and early 1970s, several categories of commercial games have become significant, including historical wargames, role-playing games, video games, Eurogames, and other hobby games. Games in these categories do not constitute a few odd counter-examples to the same well-known games seen on retail shelves year after year, but many thousands of counter-examples. And unlike outmoded stereotypes of games, adults play these games too. These games communicate ideas, allowing players to interact with fiction and non-fiction, fantasy and history. Game designer Jane McGonigal thinks games can change the world. Her claim is unlikely to have ever been made about coffee mugs, but one need not go as far as McGonigal to recognize that games are a significant medium of expression. The Supreme Court\u27s recent decision in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association recognized the expressive similarities of video games to books, plays, and movies. Arguably, Brown moved at least video games out of the merchandise category and into the same category as more traditional media of expression. Games in general, however, are ready to be considered alongside other expressive works. While it is possible for a particular game to be a mere image or identity carrier, games are often much more. For purposes of the right of publicity, games are not like coffee mugs and should not be treated as such

Intellectual Property and Tabletop Games

There is a rich body of literature regarding intellectual property’s (“IP”) “negative spaces”—fields where creation and innovation thrive without significant formal protection from IP law. Scholars have written about innovation in diverse fields despite weak or nonexistent IP rights, such as fashion design, fine cuisine, stand-up comedy, magic tricks, tattoos, and sports plays. Instead, these fields rely on social norms, first- mover advantage, and other (non-IP) legal regimes to promote innovation in the absence of IP protection. As a comparison to these studies, this Article comprehensively analyzes the role of IP law in facilitating innovation in tabletop gaming, including board games, card games, and pen-and-paper role-playing games. Over the past several decades, the tabletop gaming industry has seen a proliferation of innovation, but there is surprisingly little in the academic literature about IP and tabletop games. IP rights, including patents, copyrights, and trademarks, each protect certain aspects of games, while at the same time being constrained by doctrinal limitations that leave considerable flexibility for others to develop their own games and adapt or improve upon existing ones. There are also numerous examples of user-based innovation in tabletop gaming. This Article concludes by contending that IP rights, as well as their limitations, play a significant role in facilitating the robust innovation presently occurring in the tabletop gaming field

Rerolling Boardgames: Essays on Themes, Systems, Experiences and Ideologies (Studies in Gaming)

Despite the advent and explosion of videogames, boardgames--from fast-paced party games to intensely strategic titles--have in recent years become more numerous and more diverse in terms of genre, ethos and content. The growth of gaming events and conventions such as Essen Spiel, Gen Con and the UK Games EXPO, as well as crowdfunding through sites like Kickstarter, has diversified the evolution of game development, which is increasingly driven by fans, and boardgames provide an important glue to geek culture. In academia, boardgames are used in a practical sense to teach elements of design and game mechanics. Game studies is also recognizing the importance of expanding its focus beyond the digital. As yet, however, no collected work has explored the many different approaches emerging around the critical challenges that boardgaming represents. In this collection, game theorists analyze boardgame play and player behavior, and explore the complex interactions between the sociality, conflict, competition and cooperation that boardgames foster. Game designers discuss the opportunities boardgame system designs offer for narrative and social play. Cultural theorists discuss boardgames' complex history as both beautiful physical artifacts and special places within cultural experiences of play

Board games for natural science education

Gry planszowe poza funkcjami rozrywkowymi mogą pełnić istotne funkcje edukacyjne. Istnieje wiele gier zdolnych nie tylko do kształtowania kompetencji społecznych czy logicznego myślenia, wnioskowania i planowania, ale też do przekazywania wiedzy oraz formowania umiejętności z zakresu nauk przyrodniczych (fizyka, chemia, biologia, geografia). W nauczaniu tych przedmiotów pojawia się wiele kłopotów łączących się ze zrozumieniem treści, często nowych lub abstrakcyjnych, oraz z ich powiązaniem z posiadaną już wiedzą. Istotne jest również przekazywanie informacji na temat działania nauki i zasad nią kierujących. Bogactwo tytułów o różnorodnej mechanice i poziomach trudności pozwala stosować gry jako narzędzia dydaktyczne w klasie oraz, co kluczowe, poza nią

Using games in geographical and planning-related teaching : serious games, edutainment, board games and role-play

This paper reviews the use of games in geographical teaching, including prior to the emergence of computer-based (digital) games. The growing popularity of ‘serious games’ and ‘edutainment’ is addressed, focusing on their perceived advantages in classroom-based teaching. The blurring between digital games for educational purposes and games primarily for entertainment is discussed, reflecting on the popularity of SimCity and the potential of these games for learning about urban planning. This analysis champions games enabling students to play different roles and produce realistic ‘real life’ outcomes. Two examples of non-digital board games, Participology and Geogopoly, illustrate how role play broadens students’ understanding of planning and human geography

The right way to play a game

Is there a right or wrong way to play a game? Many think not. Some have argued that, when we insist that players obey the rules of a game, we give too much weight to the author’s intent. Others have argued that such obedience to the rules violates the true purpose of games, which is fostering free and creative play. Both of these responses, I argue, misunderstand the nature of games and their rules. The rules do not tell us how to interpret a game; they merely tell us what the game is. And the point of the rules is not always to foster free and creative play. The point can be, instead, to communicate a sculpted form of activity. And in games, as with any form of communication, we need some shared norms to ground communicative stability. Games have what has been called a “prescriptive ontology.” A game is something more than simply a piece of material. It is some material as approached in a certain specified way. These prescriptions help to fix a common object of attention. Games share this prescriptive ontology with more traditional kinds of works. Novels are more than just a set of words on a page; they are those words read in a certain order. Games are more than just some software or cardboard bits; they are those bits interacted with according to certain rules. Part of a game’s essential nature is the prescriptions for how we are to play it. What’s more, we investigate the prescriptive ontology of games, we will uncover at least distinct prescriptive categories of games. Party games prescribe that we encounter the game once; heavy strategy games prescribe we encounter the game many times; and community evolution games prescribe that we encounter the game while embedded in an ongoing community of play

The Foreboding Campaign System

This project creates a new campaign setting compatible with the Dungeons and Dragons system utilizing the SRD Open Game License content as a starting point. The campaign setting created establishes mechanics allowing for narrative interaction between the past and present timeline of events in the world of Lunaria. This new system, entitled The Foreboding, utilizes a shift mechanic to alter the player characters in several possible ways, ranging from changes in race or character history to interactions with past time periods and events that alter the present timeline of the narrative. New character options for race and class were also developed to enhance the immersion within the world of Lunaria. The project includes a short adventure to provide a guided experience into the world of Lunaria and the Foreboding system. This project report provides and overview of the current state of game design with regards to board and tabletop games, as well as detailing the methodology used in creating and playtesting the final product of this project