Games & Learning Final PortfolioBy Robert Grotans

1. HOME

REFLECTING ON PLAY JOURNALSCycle 6: Lets Play RPG Maker MV!Responses to My Peers’ Journals

REFLECTING ON COURSE DISCUSSIONSMy Hypothesis ContributionsMy Role as a Facilitator

REFLECTING ON AFFINITY SPACESGuild Wars 2: An Affinity SpaceFeedback to My Peers’ Presentations

GAME PROPOSAL

3

CONTENTS

2. CONTENTS

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8

10

Cycle 6: Lets Play RPG Maker MV!http://www.grotans.com/lets-play-rpg-maker-mv/

3. PLAY JOURNALS

RPG Maker MV was my last play journal for Games and Learning and it was the one that I was able to connect to course readings the most. During cycle 3, we read about design and learning through tools such as Gamestar Mechanic. RPG Maker was also mentioned several times and I remember trying it a long time ago so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to revisit it. During my play session I started creating my own game, which I would then ask others to playtest in order to learn what worked and didn’t work. From our readings, Games (2010) expressed that genres play an important role in helping players understand the systemic relationships between components that define the design grammar of the language of games. Both the feedback I received and my knowledge of the RPG genre helped me make adjustments when I found bugs, or broken mechanics, in my game.

To find sprites and other helpful resources I also turned to the RPG Maker forums, an affinity space I wasn’t officially exploring, but received a lot of benefit from. Gee and Hayes (2012) would describe this as a “nurturing affinity” space because it was a good place for learning and growth. Here Iwas able to find a few guides that quickly helped me get started with using the Event Editor. I was also able to play a few of the games other community members created.

It’s still a work in progress, but an early beta of my game can be accessed here:

http://grotans.com/media/quest_for_knowledge/

Games, I. A. (2010). Gamestar Mechanic: learning a designer mindset through communicational competence with the language of games,Learning, Media and Technology, 35:1, 31-52, DOI: 10.1080/17439880903567774

Gee, J. P. & Hayes, E. (2012). Nurturing Affinity Spaces and Games-Based Learning.

4. PLAY JOURNALS

Responses to My Peers’ Journals

https://hyp.is/E6h07uiNEeaWmctsO940vQ/lolology.word-press.com/2017/02/01/play-journal-magic-the-gathering-the-basics/

https://via.hypothes.is/http://jenjennandjennywor.wixsite.com/jenjennandjennyworks/single-post/2017/02/01/Accio-Mine-craft-Play-Journal-1

https://hyp.is/vQkEOgRPEeeiJcMSRIkqcQ/emilysmayy.com/2017/03/07/learning-play-uno/

https://hyp.is/OktK9Oy7EeaP7e8bwfRo3A/anniemelzer.word-press.com/2017/02/06/go-and-the-art-of-war/

When leaving responses on my peers’ play journals, my main goal was to engage and challenge their learning. I annotated with Hypothesis for most feedback in this course since it allowed me to highlight specific pieces of text. I generally tried leaving open-ended comments or asked questions about certain facets of the games they played. In my first response, shown to the right, I left a comment on one of Annie’s post which encouraged Brian to also jump in. In another instance, Emily and I replied back and forth on a simple statement I had made about being playful with Hypothesis. The third response shows some of the questions and comments I left Jen to gain more insight into her play experience with Minecraft. As a PC gamer, I’m used to using ‘WASD’ to control movement, but she noted that it can be harder for new players to learn these controls.

In many cases, these engagements also deepened my own understanding of games and learning. In the final response shown here, I expressed that I didn’t think Magic the Gathering was very playful. This was one of my earlier annotations in the semester and mostly due to my lack of experience with MTG, but Remi provided a counterpoint that challenged my own preconceived notion about play in MTG and helped me think about it in a different way.

5. DISCUSSIONS

My Hypothesis Contributions to ReadingsMuch like with my play journal responses, Hypothesis was a crucial tool for me to engage and comprehend many of the complicated theories behind our readings throughout this course. To do this, I tried to draw relationships between different readings, as well as my own personal experiences. I also took a playful approach with many of my annotations, searching for images and other related media when appropriate. This helped keep my interest during some of our longer readings and provided me with an additional understanding of games and learning. In one interaction, I made a connection to a cycle 1 reading, as well as a video game I’ve played called Dark Souls; while in another, I was able to relate the material to my professional career.

6. DISCUSSIONS

My Hypothesis Contributions (cont.)

The readings during cycles 5 and 6 were the most challenging for me because I am not an educator and the topics seemed to focus on games in a classroom setting. This made it harder for me to connect with some of the readings so I instead relied on the experiences of my peers. I asked for clarification on terms such as ‘Positive Behavior Intervention Supports’ in one thread, as I’ve never encountered it before, and sought a teacher’s perspective on year-long projects in the classroom in another. Logan came up with a great comparison to video games and apparently this is the second time I used my “blue shell” analogy!

My thinking changed a lot through these annotations of our readings. Early on I questioned the notion that puzzle games are not as supportive of sandbox learning. This led me to play The Witness, which was the most linear game of my three play journals.

7. DISCUSSIONS

My Role as a FacilitatorAs one of the facilitators during cycle 3, It was my responsibility to ask questions and keep moving the conversation forward. This was the first cycle where I started experimenting with play and ways of making our readings more engaging. Since the main topic was gamification, I started one of the readings with a few trophies I made. I didn’t intend on forcing anyone to earn these through the old electronic whip routine, but thought it would be a good opportunity to illustrate my previous feelings toward gamification.

During my facilitation duties I focused on asking inviting questions and leaving comments that could provide me with insight from my peers’ experiences. This includes asking about their previous understanding of gamification and how we can better embed after school programs into our curriculum. In another interaction, I posted a screenshot from Eve Online showing how much data and statistics are displayed to the player at one time. Stephanie replied with a great comparison from Path of Exile, which I had previously not heard about.

I also followed up with additional comments that challenging my peers’ thinking when appropriate. Not only did I learn a lot from my peers’ during this cycle, but it also forced me to find complementary resources for our readings. This provided me with even more insights that I would not have discovered other wise.

8. AFFINITY SPACES

Guild Wars 2: An Affinity Space

I found that my participation in the Guild Wars 2 subreddit taught me the most about games and learning during this course. I felt more in-charge of my own learning than in a formal setting such as school. This is because I wasn’t forced to learn what someone else wanted me to learn, but I was able to pursue my own curiosities and interact with other members that shared the same passions as me. I found this to be more reflective of “real world” learning. While we’ve seen that anonymity can be bad in some cases, I also think it made be feel more comfortable in this space because I didn’t feel the same sense of judgment that might occur in a classroom. This was a space not separated by age, race, or religion, where newbies and masters could come together, where members learned to produce their own content, and where knowledge of the game was pooled together.

The relationships made in this space even extended into the game through events organized by the community. I was amazed that 100 people cared enough about one of my post to leave a comment on it. This space has become a necessary component for my play in Guild Wars 2, as I learned about in-game secrets that I previously never knew existed. It has also made certain aspects of the game easier, through the discovery of community created tools based on the game’s API.

Feedback to My Peers’ PresentationsIt was interesting watching my peers’ presentations because everyone took a different approach with the tools they used to share their experiences and there were a wide variety of interests covered. My main approach while watching presentations was to think about how my peers’ affinity space experiences compared to mine. I tried to dive deeper and gain more perspective by asking questions. While most of my feedback was provided through comments on my peers’ blogs, a few were also left via Hypothesis annotations.

9. AFFINITY SPACES

In the first interaction below, with Melanie, I noted that she also joined a subreddit. Since, I’ve been a long time Reddit user, becoming acquainted with my space naturally felt easier. I wanted to know if she was a newer user and how that might have effected her experience. In my second interaction, with Darren, I made a connection between something he said about threads becoming abandoned and Ben’s space, that was slowly dying. Finally, in Brian’s affinity space, I thought about how his space compared to mine, as we played similar types of games, but his space was through the official forums and mine wasn’t. I would imagine this would change the way each space is moderated. He responded back with some useful observations.

Game ProposalProject management is a big part of my job and not always the most fun. There are many tools that already exist at my workplace to help with this in which I am required to use. I want to gamify my approach to managing projects by targeting motivation and making it more playful. This game doesn’t change the fact that these projects are expected to be done by certain dates, but it’s designed to make the process more enjoyable. Below are the mechanics that will be present in my new project management plan.

10. GAME PROPOSAL

• Each project will be presented on the project board and contained within its own swim lane; project milestones are identified.

• Game pieces will be a picture of each person involved in a project and will identify who owns a task.

• Red/green sticky notes will indicate milestone status (behind or on track). • Each person on a project will start at 100 points, every day a project falls

behind 5 points will be deducted from the task owner.• When a project falls behind, the task owner will also draw a card from a

deck containing a short action item aimed at helping get the project back on track. This includes filling out a mini PSP or A3. These are internal tools we use to identify problems.

• If a milestone is completed on time or ahead of schedule, a 20 sided die will be rolled by the task owner so they can earn points back or gain more.

• I will also add some distrupters as well that will turn the game upside down. This would include aspects such as a card that can be drawn, in which some of the task owner’s points go to another member. This will add some random elements to the game.

• The team member with the most points at the end wins a trophy that sits on their desk until the next project is finished and a new winner is determined.

• I will evaluate this game after each project to see if it’s too hard or too easy and adjust the rules or add elements as required. Feedback from team members will also be considered.