A pervasive application of gamification in many areas of everyday life has arguably yet to happen. For instance, despite much commercial interest in and a potentially huge market for successful gamification products in the areas of education and health, much of the excitement is still based on speculation, and reception in parts of the academic community remains sceptical. The chapter aims to collate observations from multiple empirical studies and meta-studies and collect and highlight issues that need to be resolved or mitigated for gamification to progress. Such issues include unclear definitions, a limitation on small sets of elements employed with unclear effects, unintentional side-effects of competition, a confusing variety of operationalizations, the erosion of intrinsic motivation through extrinsic incentives, a disconnect between theoretical understandings and practical realizations, a strong focus on a behaviorist paradigm, studies' mixed, partial, and inconclusive results, a lack of attention to moderating factors, and methodological limitations.
This article discusses the application of an Alexandrian pattern language to the design of interactive systems. It grew out of an University course titled A Pattern Approach to Action Game Design, which was offered as an elective in the Creative Technologies program at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, in 2011. We sketch out the idea of design patterns and describe our experiences with the process of using them for designing oldschool action games, that is, finding patterns, making a language, using it for creating several game designs and realizing one of these designs collaboratively. We discuss the concept of the course and present our pattern language and the game we made. While the language is arguably more like a patchy pattern collection, the various game designs quite loose and the realized game unfinished, the process was challenging and intense, and offered students a new perspective on design. In the spirit of design patterns, we only did what the task at hand required, not artificial exercises. We attempted to connect theory and practice in a natural, direct way as we presented, discussed and used everything we did in order to continue our journey. Our course was not aimed at fixed or frozen products, but on a process that was constantly in flux through collaboration by people who interact and share a common pattern language, use, test, revise and refine it while moving on.
Bunno's Fabulous Soap-Making Challenge is intended to be both, a game that is played for fun and a game from which subject content can be learned. The game is modeled on and represents authentic, real-world chemical processes. Specifically, it promotes the learning of aspects central to the soap-making process. The game is a resource-managing game in which players plan, organize, and execute the production of soap. Players source the raw materials, acquire the technical equipment, create an efficient lab setup and produce and sell soap in an economically sustainable way. The game is centrally based on the idea of constructivist learning. Players encounter an inspiring and challenging situation and are active, in control, and make their own decisions and experiences. Their actions trigger immediate responses and are consequential. The main contribution of this article is a detailed description, a conceptual explanation, and a critical discussion of the game design. In addition, this article briefly describes the educational theory which informs the project, how the game design is actually realized in the implemented game and how it can be played, and the game's educational content and the projected learning outcomes.
Maker communities and hacker spaces engaged in tangible computing are popping up in and outside the academic setting driven by curiosity and a desire to learn. This workshop is concerned with how making can be and has been used in an academic setting. Making shifts the focus of education from prescribed tasks towards what people want to know or do.
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