Game 1: Shape Lab (KS1 maths)
Game Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize/numeracy/shapes/index.shtml
Interaction
Basic interaction
No meaningful influence on the game state
Little feedback on choices - Incorrect or Correct
No educational feedback - The player may not know why they got the question wrong.
Goals
Only one goal.
The player has no choice and no chance to influence how the goal is completed
The player also has no influence on how the game ends, even if they get multiple wrong answers, they will always get the same ending eventually.
Struggle
The game has no struggle because there is no life system. The player can guess as many times as they want until they get the right answer.
The game does have 3 difficulty levels, however, you can still guess until you get the right answer, with no negative side effects on every difficulty.
Structure
Linear structure.
The player only has one path they can take, which leads to the one goal i mentioned earlier.
No freedom within the structure.
Endogenous meaning
The shapes and the knowledge/education that you gain from playing the game has value in the real world. Some may argue they have even more value in the real world than they do in the game. However, if the game relied solely upon fiction, it would not be educational.
Evaluation
The game needs to provide useful feedback to the player to explain to them why they got certain questions wrong, otherwise the game will not be educational, and more of a test.
It also needs to include a point system, so that the player has motivation to get the answers correct instead of guessing and it will also encourage external competition.
And finally, it needs to provide struggle, this could be achieved by losing points when an incorrect answer is chosen.
Game 2: River Rhyming
Game Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize/literacy/rhyme/index.shtml
All of the games on the key stage 1 bitesize website follow the same basic structure. They all ask a question and you will need to pick the correct answer from multiple choices. Everything i have said about the previous game also applies to this game. The only real difference in how they play, is the way they look graphically and the amount of answers you can choose from.
points and scoring do provide motivation but another way to do it might be through having the shapes themselves that are correctly selected form something interesting overall. That way the player is contributing to the overall outcome in the game. This would also allow for replayablility but take a lot more coding than a simple points system.
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