Playful Identity in game design and open ended play

Games that Motivate to Learn: Design Serious Games by Identfied Regulations

Let's Start Playing Games (2010)

Co-authored with Ben. A.M. Schouten | Presented at the Fun&Games Conference 2010 in Leuven

The input of players becomes increasingly valuable to game designers. In the past, players mainly negotiated with game designers in sale-numbers, coin-drops and through critical acclaimed game magazines. Today’s game designers tend to communicate more directly with gamers through internet forums, beta-testing and data mining of gameplay. The increased negotiations between game players and game designers may account for the increased focus on user-generated games, making games more playful.

Games That Motivate to Learn (2011)

Co-authored with Ben. A.M. Schouten | Abstract Only | Published in Handbook of Research on Improving Learning and Motivation through Educational Games: Multidisciplinary Approaches

It is commonly acknowledged that intrinsically motivated learning makes for better students. Yet, facilitating students to become intrinsically motivated to learn is difficult, if not, impossible to accomplish. As every student has different and personal intrinsic needs, the design of regulations that satisfy intrinsic needs may seem an unfruitful approach to serious game design. Inspired by research to the beta-version of the second language game CheckOut!, we propose a different approach to serious game design, based on identified regulations.

Identified regulations are negotiations with personal valued rules. The regulations can be positioned between external regulations (based on punishments and rewards) and intrinsic regulations (based on a personal willingness to act). To develop identified regulations, game designers should create a correspondence between the game regulations and the student’s perceptions about the educational instruction.

To accomplish this fit, game designers could not conceal the learning within a game, but explicitly communicate the constructed knowledge to the player. Progressive feedback, the availability of various learning styles in the game, and the embedding of the game in a social environment, might satisfy students’ needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness to significant others. When these needs are satisfied within the context of the educational instructions, students might become motivated to learn during play, and even when the game is over.

Casual Games & Children (2010)

Co-Authored by Nathalie Korsman | Chapter published in Contact Children & New Media

The English version of Contact! Children Online, is available through email. Please contact me using menno.deen at fontys.nl and I'll send you the book.

Nagenoeg alle kinderen tussen acht en twaalf jaar spelen casual games: korte online spelletjes op spelletjesportals als Spele.nl, Funnygames.nl en Speeleiland.nl. Het lijkt alsof kinderen in hun eentje spelen. Toch is een bezoek aan een casual game portal en het spelen van een casual game een zeer sociale bezigheid.

Casual games portals haken in op de tendens van sociale interactie die we zien in ‘grotere’ games en online sociale netwerken. Denk aan de mogelijkheid om tegen andere bezoekers te spelen of een account te registreren waarop de topscores van een gamer worden bijgehouden. Aangezien het spelen van casual games én de participatie in online sociale netwerken voor kinderen niet alleen leuk, maar ook leerzaam is, moeten de mogelijke gevaren tijdig herkend en getackeld worden. Denk daarbij aan risico’s zoals seksueel getinte contacten, pesterijen, onbeschoft taalgebruik en (virtuele) diefstal maar ook aan blootstelling aan gewelddadige content van games.

Dit hoofdstuk geeft inzicht in de sociale waarde van casual gaming voor kinderen in de leeftijd 8 tot 12. We bespreken achtereenvolgens het aanbod, de achtergrond, het gebruik, de mogelijke risico’s van casual gaming en de vaardigheden die kinderen opdoen wanneer zij een (casual) game spelen.

MA Thesis: Versnelde Kennis Ontwikkeling in Games (2007)

Master of Arts Thesis | Utrecht University

Learning styles and playing styles are strikingly similar to one another. In this MA-Thesis, Deen brings them together in four styles of approaching a problem and performing a task. Deen hypothesizes that a game which facilitates all four playing styles may enhance player engagement.