KS1 Essay

This is my essay I wrote on the design issues we faced during the development of our key stage 1 game this year. Enjoy!


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Key Stage 1 Game Development


'With particular reference to the readings you have undertaken this year what are the major design issues you have faced in developing a game for Key Stage 1 children '


There will always be design issues to face when designing and making games. This essay is about the main design issues we faced or had to consider whilst developing our game for Key Stage 1 children.
We decided to choose the part of the curriculum about Circuits and electricity;


‘Pupils should be taught:
About everyday appliances that use electricity
About simple series circuits involving batteries, wires, bulbs and other components [for example, buzzers, motors]
How a switch can be used to break a circuit.’ (National Curriculum:2011)


Very early during the development of our game we decided that the concept was going to be a circuit creation/completion game based on the already established “pipe dream” style game.
One of the first design issues we faced when developing this idea was the game idea and mechanics - or in short, what actually defines the game and makes it work. Due to the new ideas and concepts that needed to be added from the curriculum, the game needed to be very different from the game it was originally based from. Our design had so many new and different aspects that needed to be added, we almost had to completely make the game idea from scratch - and while doing so, made a game idea which was over-complicated and had lots of loose ends. We needed a minimum baseline for what was needed in a game. Costikyan splits games and gameplay into several separate chunks; 'Interaction', 'Goals' and 'Structure' in order to help us understand and break down games.
Costikyan defines interaction as how ‘the game state changes in response to your decisions’ (Costikyan, 2002: 11). Interaction could be as simple as a button to take you to the next page, or Movement of graphics with the keyboard. However, Costikyan also says that ‘Interaction has no game value in itself. Interaction must have a purpose’ (Costikyan, 2002: 11) and therefore goals are made to create a purpose for the interaction. For example, adding a high score, achievements or adding a time limit on top of some simple functions (such as clicking a few buttons) would give an aim or goal to the interactivity present. The addition of goals gives rise to decision making – players will start to make decisions based on which option will benefit them most in order to reach the goal. In order for the game to be interesting, there needs to be some aspect of Competition or struggle when making these decisions; Costikyan writes that there is no thrill in victory if there is no struggle to get there - What is the point in taking option 'B.' if 'A.' is always better. There are many ways to create struggle within a game – It can range from competition from a human opponent to puzzles or restrictions. Structure is also very important in games, Costikyan defines game structure as 'The means by which a game shapes player behavior' (Costikyan, 2002: 20), this may involve pushing the story along or any other type of progression toward the ultimate goal of the game. Costikyan believes 'A game’s structure creates its own meanings.' And he refers to this as ‘Endogenous meaning’ (Costikyan, 2002: 22).


Using the above we decided our game would be a simple drag and drop game using the mouse. It is comprised of a grid, a way to rotate tiles in 90 degree increments and a set of straight and corner tiles which can be moved and onto the grid and snap in place. This was the basic interactivity starting point.
We also decided some goals and rules to our game. these included; "Tiles cannot be placed unless directly or indirectly connected to a power source", "You must go through all electrical components", "You must complete a circuit to win". The main goal turned from a puzzle into a time trial; instead of finding a way to complete the circuit, you have to do it in the fastest time possible, changing the game from a puzzle to a competitive puzzle and simultaneously making the player struggle toward victory – Against time. Lastly, we added some structure to the game – We added a main character related to the theme (an electrician), and a related place he could work in (a house) and added toys that he could fix – The toys acted as levels and the rooms as “game worlds” – giving a basic structure and movement to the game. We decided that for good work the electrician could hand out medals, which would provide some much needed 'Endogenous meaning' to our game.
The fact that we did not have this knowledge when developing our game meant we had a problem because the game idea was missing or lacking critical aspects and was not at all simple – giving knock-on effects to the rest of the game.


Before we explored Costikyan's simple component guide to games, we had a very simple but reasonably unique game idea "learn, by designing and building circuits within a restricted area". This is a perfectly good game idea, but it will not necessarily make the game 'fun' to play. Falstein explores different types of fun and how it relates to our human nature. He talks about how 'Games are a specialized form of play' (Falstein, N: 2004: 1) and that play is so historic that it is found in other species. He splits games into three ancestral groups; 'Physical Fun', 'Social Fun' and 'Mental Fun'.


Falstein talks about how physical fun is related to survival skills and physical strength - 'Hunters'; Sports, for instance are a primary example of how the use and maintenance of strong muscles and co-ordination provides instinctual great interest for some people. Another aspect of 'Physical fun' is collecting and gathering things; whether it be hearts, coins, stars or Pokémon - 'Gatherers'. Other aspects which fall under Physical fun include Exploring - e.g. 'finding the best places to get specific resources', and tool use. Falstein doesn't just refer to tool use as the regular axe's and hammers that would usually jump to mind; 'abstractions of tool use in simulations of complex machinery like flight simulators, racing games and military vehicle simulations' (Falstein, N: 2004: 2) are also stemmed from ancient tool skills.


He describes Social fun as 'social gathering-type activities like shopping, trading collectible items of all sorts, chatting about where to locate bargains, or who throws the best parties, and even just pure social-bonding activities like going to parties or gossiping with friends' (Falstein, N: 2004: 2) . He states that in social activities, 'We don't have to see something first hand to learn about it, we can hear or read about it instead'. For instance you might learn through social activities that there are more fish in certain parts of a river, or that it is less dangerous to do something another way. Social activities can also involve storytelling which can include all types of learning which has been used to transfer knowledge throughout the years.
The last type of fun that Falstein refers to is mental fun. Mental fun refers to the exercise of 'perception and manipulation of patterns' (Falstein, N: 2004: 2). For obvious reasons, problem solving and finding patterns in things was a very useful trait in our ancestors. it just so happens that the use of mental fun was also very useful in our Key stage 1 game as it fit very well with the style of game. We also used some components from other types of fun such as collecting from 'social fun' and exploring from 'physical fun'. Falstein refers to this as 'blended fun' as more than one type is usually used at any one time. Before we applied these principals to this game design, we found it very difficult to make the game as educational as we might have liked - the use of Falstien's 'natural funativity' has meant that use of learning processes that have been used for thousands of years are being used in our game; And after all - If it has worked for that long, it is good enough for our game.
As well as Costikyan, Doug Church also talks about several aspects of games. One of these is ‘Perceivable consequence’ and describes it as 'A clear reaction from the game world to the action of the player.' (Church, D, 1999: 4). This basically means that due to the use of ‘Perceivable consequence’ within the game, 'When players attempt to do something and it goes wrong, they are likely to realize why it went wrong' (Church, D. 1999: 4). One of the huge problems we had during the development of our game was that it was hard to describe and/or show what the player could and couldn’t do, and why - which is very important for younger users in a game based around learning. There were many rules that were designed so that players couldn’t place circuit pieces that didn’t join, which either blocked off other parts of the circuit or were general "illegal moves"; but we had no 'perceivable consequence' implemented for if it was wrong. We used the main character as a mentor to give correction tips, and by making use of colour changes and sounds to give feedback on correct gameplay we made sure that the game had a sufficient amount of perceivable consequence for young learning children. An interactive tutorial was added to the game in order to back up ideas about how the game works and to generate some perceivable consequence before the game actually starts. This is mainly because it would be very frustrating for a small child to learn how the game works, while simultaneously trying to get a high score. By having an interactive tutorial it practically gives the player a level to play at their own pace in which they can begin to understand the game before moving on to the levels that ‘count’.
Doug also talks about the use of story in games – 'The narrative thread, whether designer-driven or player-driven, that binds events together and drives the player forward toward completion of the game.' (Church, D, 1999: 5). In this case, ‘story’ doesn’t just refer to the narrative seen in books; the narrative found in games is often influenced by the game itself, or different outcomes are created by different actions. Getting all these different events or options planned out and combined and coherent into a story is often a difficult task, especially when aiming toward younger audiences; as we found with the development of our game. One of the first things we needed to do was to find and decide why the player was putting seemingly random circuits together for no apparent reason. There were many ways we resulted in doing this; one of these was creating a story in which the target audience could relate to - In fact, the player actually became part of the story - Creating an additional 'immersive' aspect to the gameplay. We did this by creating a narrative in which the player was "Assisting" the main character by completing circuits and subsequently fixing things. This in itself is a simple idea but gives an effective meaning to the game. By using a setting such as a house in the narrative and familiar objects such as toys, means that the player can relate more to the game and its contents.
Of course, these are only a few of the problems we faced during the development of the design of this game - and we faced many more while working with the group, during communication and even during the creation of the game itself. However these other issues, unlike some of the above design problems, can often only be solved by perseverance and learning from mistakes. By reading and understanding the design of games themselves, most of the problems stated above, can be minimized - or even removed completely.


Bibliography


Costikyan, G. 2002. I Have No Words & I Must Design: Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Games. Proceedings of Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference. pp. 9 – 33.


Church, D. (1999) Gamasutra, Formal Abstract Design Tools. [Online] Available at:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3357/formal_abstract_design_tools.php [Accessed: 20 April 2011].


National Curriculum (2011) Science key stage 1: Sc4 Physical processes. [Online] Available at: http://curriculum.qcda.gov.uk/key-stages-1-and-2/subjects/science/keystage1/index.aspx [Accessed: 20 April 2011].


Falstein, N. 2004. Gamasutra, Natural Funativity. [Online] Available at:
http://www.jnoodle.com/careertech/files/funativity.pdf [Accessed: 20 April 2011].