GAME DESIGN: Five Elements of the Experience

From 1-8 August 2015, I was a member of a game design team at ISAGA’s Summer School for Game Design at the Thonburi University, Bangkok. My fellow members were Chollada Laochampa, Chattharn Limoubpratum (Em), Kanokwan Pornchuti (Nok), Matthias Puschert, Sepanut Seesaiprai (Yo), and Walailuck Thongsa-ard (Jeab). We had a tumultuous beginning, a highly interactive experience, and a memorable ending in the form of project management game on the last day.

Here are five elements of this experience that may guide other educational program designers:

REALISTIC Our design was focused on business issues, but we had too much range to choose from. For better understanding of projects, we began with examples of real issues, such as widening a road, building a bridge, an educational program for a course, and a rocket launch. This exercise improved our clarity, quickly.

SIMPLICITY As our game was to be played out within an hour, we discarded the big projects because we had little time to deal with their complexity. We chose house construction as a project, because its practices were familiar to all of us. We then assessed gaming tools, such as tokens, coloured paper, and markers for our use. Somewhere, someone was listing the steps for the game players.

STRUCTURE Game design was a project by itself, and demanded a structure showing the beginning and end points, direction, speed of flow, tasks, and other elements. The game would be played by teams, not individuals, so that the interactions produced fast and deep learning. For the house structure, Yo browsed the Internet to download and print some sections of the game house.

DOCUMENTATION Matthias drew up a game profile that gave us an excellent overview from learning objectives and resources to stages of play and facilitation. It clarified most of our doubts at first reading. On the penultimate day, our Master Coach, Willy Kriz reviewed this profile and tested the game in its first play. Yo made a logo for the game, which strengthened our pride in the team.

CONVERSATION Disagreements, debates, presentations, and other forms of communications between individuals within the team improved our understanding. Our game design team learnt as much through such conversation as did the game playing teams. We spoke, we drew ideas on paper, we wrote in large print, we argued, we used coloured paper, we said “We don’t understand”, and we tested the game. The more we talked, the more we began to understand.

In the end, our team, Chaos Construction Company Ltd conducted and facilitated the game for two batches of three teams each of 6-8 members on the last day of the Summer School. We had overcome language and cultural barriers, and had produced a game that was very simple to conduct, great fun to play, and most easy to learn from.