In week 6 we welcomed guest lecturer Rebecca Ly to teach us about the state of gamification in education. Rebecca is currently writing her masters on this very topic, and shared with us what she had found through her study and research. It was very interesting and I found myself agreeing with what she said based off my own experiences, and it was interesting to hear about the research that has taken place already in this field.
Rather than recount what Rebecca taught (which you will be able to find in her masters thesis), I would like to address an issue that she raised; the issue of scoring systems.
Scoring Systems are not Games
Unfortunately, when most educators approach gamification, they create a ‘game’ by simply adding a scoring system around the already existing tasks. In education, these can come in the form of a merit systems, stars and points systems. Rather than a game, you have simply created an award system. Unfortunately, many people mistake reward systems with games. Reward systems can be an ELEMENT of games, but they can not be a game unto themselves.
What is a game?
So, how to define a game? I have my own way of defining what a game is, but let’s look at some others first. Just a quick note that this is not a highly academic task, but rather just searching what people have written about in the big wide world. We have the following two ideas which I feel are good ways of defining games:
"A game is an activity among two or more independent decision-makers seeking to achieve their objectives in some limiting context." - Clark C. Abt (sourced from wikipedia)
"When you strip away the genre differences and the technological complexities, all games share four defining traits: a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation." - Jane McGonigal (sourced from wikipedia)
How do I define a game? I think in order to be a game, the activity must have the following:
An objective
Conflict
Rules and restrictions
Interaction and decision making
Win/Lose Conditions
Feedback system
My Definition of a Game
So now we have 6 elements of a game. Let’s break them down a little.
Every game must have an objective. In chess, the objective is the checkmate your opponent. In solitaire it is to place a deck of cards in the right order. The objective of a shooter is to score more kills than your opponent can in a period of time. The objective of the crossword is to complete the puzzle.
If the only aspect of a game were to be to an objective, everything humans did would be a game. There must be other aspects that make a game. The next aspect is conflict; something preventing us from just completing the objective. In chess and the shooter, you have an opponent actively trying to prevent you from achieving your objective, in the crossword you may have a time limit or difficult clues, in solitare you have the rules. And yes, the rules can be what creates conflict. As I say, conflict is anything that prevents you from just completing the objective.
The next aspect of the game are the rules and restrictions applied to completing the task. In video games, for example, this is called the game system. The rules and restrictions say what you can and can not do. In chess, you can only move your pieces in a certain way. In solitaire, you can only rearrange certain cards. In a crossword, you can’t just write down any set of words you like. In a shooter, the computer creates a game world with restrictions such as how fast you can move, how you can hurt your opponent, how much they can hurt you etc. It is the system that again prevents one just completing the objective, and it tells everybody how they can complete the objective.
Direct interaction and decision making is an important part of games. Without this aspect, you will reach the same outcome each time. Even games that rely mostly on chance have some level of decision making and direct interaction at their core. In monopoly, you have the decision whether you will buy properties and if/when to add houses. In black jack, the player can choose to take another card or keep their cards as they are. Even games with chance at their core rely on direct interaction and decision making to become a game.
It is also an important part of the game to be able to not achieve the objective. If there is no loss condition, then conflict only postpones the achievement of the objective. This is perhaps where the difference between a challenge and a game enters. A student is not playing a game if they decide to undertake a large project: although they have an objective, difficulties (creating a conflict) and restrictions (the rules of time, resources etc.), and decision making, there are no ‘win’ or ‘lose’ conditions. The student can not lose a project. They may not create a project as good as they had originally hoped, but they will have completed their objective. Furthermore, objectives for projects change throughout the project, so there is hardly the stability for clear win and lose states. As such, these are integral to games.
Lastly, players need to be able to get feedback from their actions. They have to see the connections between their actions, the rules/restrictions, and the win/lose state. Without this feedback, players are unable to make informed decisions, thus they can never know how they are going in the game. They can never know if they are winning or they are losing. This idea is particularly important as this is where the learning takes place. If a player can see their actions are helping them win, they can continue that action and see if it continues to help them win. If a player can see that their action or potential action could make them lose or they are losing, they can decide to do something different instead. Without feedback, one can not make informed decisions, and therefore one can not be playing a game.
A quick note on this last point. One might raise the point that in a game such as black jack, the player cannot make an informed decision as they do not know what the next card is. Similarly, one can not make an informed decision in poker because they do not know what their opponents hands are. But looking more closely at these examples it is possible to see the feedback that comes from the rules. In the black jack example, if a player is on a score of 18, they know they are much more likely to go over 21 than to be on or below it. They can therefore choose whether to take another card and potentially go over 21, or keep their current cards and maybe not be the closest to 21. The player can see themselves as closer to winning when their cards are closer to 21, but they can never be 100% sure. This is the conflict inherent in blackjack. A similar argument can be made for poker.
Games as an educational tool
So why did I just spend 1000 words defining what a game is on an educational blog? Because games, when used correctly, are fantastic learning tools. They provide an environment where one can experiment and see how well these experiments do. They encourage creativity and innovation to try and find solutions to problems while facing restrictions. If a player finds that an idea doesn’t work, they can try something new without it having a real life cost. Remember, often the most creative and useful ideas develop from limitations.
I find the place where teachers make the largest mistake is not having a clear idea of the objective. Many teachers will say they are making a game that, for example, will help a child learn their scales. But when implementing the game, they simply use a points system. This means the objective is no longer ‘learn the scales’ but ‘get the highest number of points possible’. This problem is then compounded by a lack of understanding around what a game is. The questions may not change, so the student can just learn the pattern and gain the points without any thought. Teachers are especially nervous about using mechanics that take away points from a student, so there is no lose condition or negative consequence associated with this tactic. Although a student may achieve their goal of getting as many points as they can by knowing their scales, there can be no way to be sure that a student has not just repeated the test over and over again. This is a similar gripe I have about many eLearning modules that have sprung up over the last few years, but that is something to discuss in another post.
Beat the Beat: What a good music game looks like
So, we know what a game is and why they are useful educationally. Do any good music education games exist? Well, indeed they do. Let’s look at a cool little game called “Beat the Beat: Rhythm Paradise” (BtBRP).
BtBRP is a cute rhythm game from 2011 that runs on the wii console and was developed by Nintendo. I will also say now it is one of my favourite party games. The game is made up of a series of minigames, where players complete tasks rhythmically, directly interacting with the music of that level. For this example, we will be looking at the robot assembly minigame. Let’s analyse it using the 6 elements of games we identified earlier. Check out some of the video below.
What is the objective? The objective is to construct correctly as many robots as possible.
What is the conflict? The player must time their holds perfectly in order to construct a robot correctly, otherwise they do not get the necessary points and are unable to correct their mistake.
What are the rules and restrictions? To screw, the player holds down the A and B buttons simultaneously. If the player holds the buttons for too short or long a time, the robot is constructed incorrectly.
What is the decision making element? How long to hold the A and B buttons for.
What are the win/lose conditions? If you do not correctly construct enough robots, or are not accurate enough in your timing, you can not pass onto the next level. If you do an ok job, you receive an ok award, and are able to move onto the next level. If you do really well, you get an excellent rating and move onto the next level. If you are perfect, you get a perfect rating marked for that minigame and can move onto the next level.
How does the player receive feedback? The player receives feedback visually and aurally. If they construct the robots correctly, the robots let out an “oh yeah” or “uh huh”, and they bop to the music with a shining pink heart. If the player holds the buttons too long, the robot cracks with an appropriate cracking sound, or just continues spinning with an appropriate spinning sound. If the buttons are not held long enough, the robot’s head is not fully screwed on and a different sound plays.
As we can see, BtBRP fulfils all the criteria to be a game. It does an especially good job providing the player with feedback, and uses simple and intuitive rules. The really important and interesting part for educators, as well as these features, is the objective.
At first glance, the game may not seem helpful educationally as the objective is not musical in nature. However, the reason BtBRP works so much better than most education games out in the world is because the player must develop the technique that the designer is wanting trained IN ORDER TO complete the non-musical objective. In this example, the player must be able to accurately hold down the buttons for a minum and crotchet in order to construct the robots correctly and thus achieve their objective. Students have learnt through the PROCESS rather than the OBJECTIVE. And we can see, therefore, why many quizzes and the like fail where BtBRP succeeds.
Games are not only digital
A quick note to make is that games do not have to be digital. Often when we start moving away from scoreboards as games, we move toward digital platforms. These are not necessarily bad, but we reduce the number of options available to us if we do. It also assumes that every teacher is confident creating a game digitally, which is far from true. As such, it is important to recognise analogue games as an option as well.
Let’s make a game together!
I realise this post is starting to stretch on and become a lesson, but I’m still under 5000 words so still under Angry’s word limit. Speaking of the Angry GM, much of what I have talked about is developed or ripped off directly from his blog on game mastering TableTop Role Playing Games (TTRPGs) - thinking Dungeons and Dragons. Although unrelated to music education and although he specifically states that you should not use his advice as life advice, much can be learned as an educator by looking at how interactive games work and don’t work. I highly recommend checking out his blog, although do be aware that strong language is used so if you don't like that, perhaps avoid it instead.
Let’s find where we are now. We have learnt that points systems and scoreboards are not games. We have defined what a game is and why they are useful educational tools. And we have looked at an example of a good educational game. Now let’s put this knowledge into practice and design a game, or at least what could be turned into a game, together. And, in response to my last point, it will be an analogue game.
Firstly, what do we want our students to learn? Let's decide that we want our students to learn what notes appear in which scales. What might a game that teaches students this look like?
I feel like a good game to model our game off is a card game called “Sushi Go!”. Sushi Go! Involves players trying to earn as many points as possible by playing cards from their hand in combinations. The trick, however, is that after every turn, that hand is passed to the person next to them. This means that players must strategically choose cards to play and when to play them in order to get the most points.
So, we have a model. We will have cards with notes written on them. If we want to train more than one skill at once, we can have the notes written in western notation in different clefs, or we could just have the note name written on it. For our example, it doesn’t really matter. Next, we need a way for students to earn points. I know I have spent much of this article talking about why points systems aren’t games, but they can be a part of games and when used with purpose, they can be effective.
Anyway, how to earn points? Before we ask this question, we must ask, which scales are the players working with? For this example, let’s decide that each player draws one card from a deck, and this card tells them which scale they need notes from. However, it does not tell the students what notes are in the scale. If we are concerned that students will struggle without this information, we can always put it in a rulebook. Also, let’s tell our players not to reveal this card to their opponents.
Let’s review our game so far. We have a least two players, each which have drawn a card from a deck that tells them which cards they need in order to earn points. They also have hands with notes written on them. Every turn, each player plays a card from their hand, then passes their hand onto the next player. Awesome, this game is starting to take shape!
Now, how does one win or lose the game? The person with the most points when there are no more cards wins the game. Or round. Or whatever. At this stage we could start working out points systems, combos (arpeggios come to mind!) and the like, but for our purpose here, this is unnecessary. Let’s discuss why this works (at least in theory!).
Objective: Earn more points than every other player by the time there are no more cards in hands.
Conflict: Other players are competing for the cards that are available.
Rules/Restrictions: Each player can only play one card from their hand each turn. Once each player has played one card, the hand is passed to the player on the left. Players get points if the card they played is in the scale they have assigned to them.
Decision making: Which cards to play and when to play them. Thinking about the scales other players may be working with, students can choose to play cards that are not in their scale to stop other players playing them, or can play a card from their own scale.
Win/Lose conditions: Players win if they have the most points, otherwise they lose.
Feedback: Students can see what notes other students are playing. They can look for patterns in their note choices, and compare it to their own, making judgements about the number of points their opponents are on in comparison to themselves.
So why does this work? In order to obtain the most points, students have to play the cards that correspond to their scale. Without the scale card telling them which notes appear in the scale, students must think quickly about which notes in front of them are available to them. This is even more so the case if we assign different point values to different scale degrees like 1 = tonic and 2 = dominant. Students also have to keep the other scales in mind as they look at what other players have played and guess what scales they might be working toward. In order to have the best chance at winning, students must learn their scales, and students earn more points by knowing the notes of the scales. Furthermore, more strategic options are open to them if they know their scales. If you see an opponent play an Eb and you have G major, you can be pretty sure that playing an Ab could be detrimental to your opponent, while hiding your true scale. Similarly, you may be aiming for notes from A major, but if you see an A# you could throw your opponent off the scent by playing it. And therefore, in an effort to get the most points, students learn their scales.
Summary
Whew, that was a long one! Games can be a great educational tool so long as they are used correctly. We must remember that just adding a points system to already existing tasks does not make them a game, and can instead reduce the quality of work. We talked about the elements of games, an example of a good music education game, and finished off by designing our own. I hope you now feel a bit more confident in how you can implement games into your teaching effectively, and I hope to see many cool games in the future!