Pietro Polsinelli

@ppolsinelli

For

Applied and Persuasive:

Playful Learning

APPLIED AND PERSUASIVE

EXAMPLES

Autography is a playful

persuasive application

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With Autography people can

draw digital graffiti

in the context of the Opera

del Duomo locations and

works of art.

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It’s a locally available service

and mobile application

integrated with Opera’s web

site.

Created by Opera del Duomo

and Open Lab.

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People are creating wonderful drawings using a limited set

of tools and surfaces: those used in the “real” world...

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Also very classical graffiti

Details matter: the tools are those used for “real”

graffiti. [Perception of unseen depth.]

Autography is a playful

persuasive application,

meant for

influencing behaviour and

creating participation.

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How did we get to it?

There was a “removing

graffiti” app idea, how to

remove them.

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But… there is something

POSITIVE in graffiti.

An intention, a form of

expression.

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Let’s make it

easier to create

graffiti!

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In place, as app, on the web (desktop and mobile). 13

Enter the doubts phase.

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Will they understand that it

is a positive message?

Or… will it encourage real,

damaging graffiti?

Or… will people ignore it?

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Took the plunge.

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Alice Filipponi

Web-Marketing Director @ Opera

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Francesco Pallanti

Marketing & SEO research @ Chorally

Yes they are creating them. Today its almost a

hundred per day. 18

Why? Why care?

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Surprise, curiosity. The thing there is totally

unexpected.

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“Uh, its super cool” – but...

Its just a drawing app.

But it looks nice.

I can have informal fun in a

formal CONTEXT.

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From digital to… paper! 22

More applied

games / apps

Addressing a real world

problem with games.

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Keep Me Safe in Europe A game for learning how to prevent neglect and abuse

Feel Better Help young cancer patients learn about their therapy path.

Once Upon A Tile An innovative mobile game for educating on sustainable development

Redesire Collaborative definitions of new urban spaces

The Workplace Challenge Learn to meet IT problems in a systemic way.

Decameron (Allegra Brigata) Classic litterature work by Boccaccio presented through narrative puzzles

Offshore Safety Learn how Italian offshore platforms are kept safe

Applied games work.

This was a surprising

personal discovery.

Sometimes in unexpected

ways.

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DOMAIN ANALYSIS AND

LEARNING MODELS

Let’s try to learn more

about applied games.

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Games are about

complexity, because they

are about people.

You may be making

systems that are

interactions with NP hard

problems.

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Even Mastermind is NP complete!

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Systems of play

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How are games and

persuasive apps

connected to

learning?

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Relationship to learning is

key in defining applied

games.

Also in defining what

applied games are not.

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Designing Games for Health

RE-DESIGN

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Category, competition,

avatar, war, reward, levels

Vs.

Inclusive, mentor, path,

story, transformation

A language change. 43

Ian Bogost: gamification is

bullshit.

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Ian Bogost writes:

Gamification, I suggested, is primarily a practice

of marketers and consultants who seek to

construct and then exploit an opportunity for

benefit. …

As I’ve previously argued, “-ifying” things

“makes applying that medium to any given

purpose seem facile and automatic”

(From Why Gamification is Bullshit)

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But this actually has nothing

to do with what we do.

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PRINCIPLES

Develop from scratch a

custom built game or more

simply interactive

application that will

progressively familiarize

the player about a non

trivial topic.

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Progression is built in the

application mechanic /

game loop, using an

analogy represented in the

graph below:

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Learning in games is not

“by trial and error”:

its by “fail and retry”.

Games, not simulations.

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CREATING APPLIED

GAMES:

THE PROCESS

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Applied games as intended

here are about complexity,

so

their production needs to

follow a loop of ideas,

prototypes, tests and

feedbacks.

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Working on an applied

game concept,

I always start from asking

“why would anybody care”.

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Its probably very much a

problem in the context of

museum initiatives too.

At least, it should be

People are actually

hungry for knowledge.

In the right form:

“surprise me”.

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The advantage of intrinsic

depth: otherwise, no

museum!

You have it! Enough of

zombies, sci-fi, D&D or

birds!

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Museum curation

experience probably also

means familiarity with

inclusiveness,

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Knowledge Base

The very first step is transforming the

available knowledge in a form that is

atomic, so that gameplay episodes can

express such parts.

Such atoms can make sense only in a flow,

or in a flow tree.

They can be in narrative form, as

dialogues, as questions / answers, any

form actually.

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Game as labs: careful, games

are not simulators.

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Game mechanic:

an interaction of whole game

elements that can be described

by a very short algorithm

expressible in a short natural

language paragraph

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Loop until:

Second-to-second

Minute-to-minute

Session-to-session

Day-to-day

gameplay is clearly defined.

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And:

Define learning progress

Define the audience

Define the devices

Define data collection

As a customer:

do not do this

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“Let’s just clone that great

success and change the

words.”: the worst possible

smart idea.

Creating applied games by cloning existing

games is a very bad idea for a host of reasons.

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-You will end up creating a uglier version

of an existing game, the latter acting as a

quality reference for the players who will

expect your applied game to be at least of

the same quality as the cloned one.

-The topic you want to lead the player too

is an obstacle to game play instead of

being built inside the mechanics.

- There will be a dis-alignment between

the game topic and the topic you care

about.

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“We just need a

playable prototype, not a

complete game!”

A playable prototype of

the Space Shuttle is very

close to being the

finished Space Shuttle. 73

Lets do some minigames!

≈

Lets do some ugly games!

Lets hint to a mechanics

without developing it!

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“We need the game’s

total cost upfront!”

Just pay for the (first)

game design and

concept. Minimize risk,

we both win!

#noestimates 75

“I am an art expert, hence I have

such cool ideas for the game

design.”

You didn’t consider:

inclusiveness, this game your

very kids are playing, NP-hard

combinatorics, that this and that

will cost immensely…

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“We have to change this simple

thing and you ask for more

money?”

What kind of change is it?

Mutual understanding about the

difference say between change

of data and change of behaviour.

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“The game is not teaching what I

wanted it to.”

“I am scared that they will accuse

the game of teaching the

opposite”

Pair with the designer. Connect

knowledge, learning and the

specific core mechanic and

narrative. 78

SO...

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How to deal with complexity?

The burocratization of work

or ...

prototypes, short narratives

and conversations.

A process compatible with

change

LEARN MORE

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Steffen P. Walz

and

Sebastian

Deterding,

An Introduction to the Gameful World

in The Gameful World,

MIT Press, 2015.

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My twitter stream is

mostly dedicated to

game design

@ppolsinelli

A blog on game

design

designagame.eu

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