Gamification

My childhood leisure time was spent on the computer playing Flash games. It was easy for me to access these games using my online browser, and they were well-liked since they were straightforward and addictive. I enjoyed browsing various websites to discover new games to play, and I had a few go-to sites that I frequently visited. My childhood was largely spent playing Flash games, which gave me great delight and entertainment. There are now, however, games that are entirely focused on teaching children. These games can cover a wide range of topics, from basic academic subjects such as math and language, to more complex skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving. There are websites which provide these services such as
Starfall

GamestoLearnEnglish
We were tasked with reviewing a few of the games available on these websites in order to examine how the games were created with the sole purpose of educating kids.
The games that were reviewed are:
  • Zac the Rat
  • IXL Year One Maths
  • Ballon Phonics
Some of the game's designs were good, while some were bad.
Good Design:
  • Zac the Rat - Straightforward, inventive, and informative. Provides detailed information about the game's topic and goal while also including animations that provide indications as to what must be done.
  • Ballon Phonics - Simple but rewarding when the objectives were accomplished by providing a sense of accomplishment.
Bad Design:
  • IXL Games - The website was very plain, with minimal design that looked essentially like a basic webpage. No bright colours to get the attention of the kids and provided no information of what needs to done when playing the game.
Following this activity, we divided into groups to create a game geared toward children's learning. Here is the storyboard for our game:

The goal of our game is to teach children how to cook without the use of potentially dangerous utensils. By playing the game, children can learn to prepare simple meals for themselves.
What I learned from this module was that even though the games made are simple we have to design it in such a way that the game fits the theme as well as make it engaging.

Afternoon Class:

In this class we were tasked with analysing some games such as:
  • Portal and
  • Space Invaders
Portal:
Here is the analysis made for the Portal game,



For Space Invaders instead of looking at the design of the game we analysed the behaviour of the game and were tasked with creating control statements for the game objects,




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