"Educational" games or games "with a message" never end up being fun.
Manga High seems fun.
The scene is a school in Southall, where a computer game that teaches maths is being used in a trial scheme. It is claimed that the programme could eventually replace teachers for some classes.
Called Manga High, the software is designed to look like a normal game, and features colourful graphics, sound effects and music. Pupils must solve a series of mathematical puzzles.
Featherstone High has spent two weeks testing the software in 90-minute lessons, with more than 120 taking part.
Neil Bradford, head of maths, said results appeared impressive so far.
He said: "We have used other maths software but the response to Manga High was amazing - we had one pupil who played the game at home for nine and a half hours over the course of a week.
"When the pupils are using it you can hear a pin drop in the classroom as they are all concentrating so hard.
"In the classes we've trialled the software, the teachers haven't had to do anything, children just become completely engrossed in the game.
"The teachers were very impressed, as while the games are fun, they really do help teach the curriculum."
http://www.openedsolutions.com/toby-rowland-manga-high.html
It’s a Friday in the UK, and near the end of the day. Toby Rowland, CEO of Manga High, is pleased at the number of high-level mathematics games played by students from all over the world. He estimates they will hit 12,000 games played by the end of the clock. And this is on a national holiday, and the teachers are not even teaching.
What’s happening here? Math games at Manga High, an online model for mathematics teaching has captured the attention of teachers and students in countries like England, India, and the United States. It’s the beginning of a new market in a highly fragmented academic software industry — fremium, highly challenging, games-centric mathematics teaching. [...]
Students that get looped into the free site find themselves looking for harder and harder challenges, which is a paradox to what most teachers experience, says Rowland. When they lead students to difficult questions in textbooks, they lack the motivation. “Teachers find harder questions in books as being unattractive, but what we see online is students actively wanting to answer extreme questions,” says Rowland.
Rowland says that up to a hundred schools a day sign up to access a functionality that trains the students for higher order thinking blended with a feet-on-the-ground teaching model where students work with teachers in groups to problem solve. But the student is tapped into the internet for a good length of sustained learning time, which works well with how Internet-raised youth access and play with information.
“In an hour, a student might do 250 math exercises,” says Rowland. “That density of work you can’t achieve in any other way.”
That looks like a great project! Thanks for the link!
I hope this catches on; a lot of educational games are not much fun, but then neither is school, and games that manage to mix learning and engagement can scale much more easily than schools who manage the same.
Hello Less Wrong, this is my first post (kind of). I belong to a small game development company called Shiny Ogre Games. We have a vested interest in making games that, as Johnathan Blow puts it, "speak to the human condition." I am here to announce our next project for you.
In this announcement for Shiny Ogre's next project, There are two points to address. Firstly:
Thought is a process like any other. The methods by which we think can be identified, specified, defined, categorized and even predicted. One method of thinking that has been thoroughly defined is rationality. Many would consider rationality (i.e. the careful exercise of reason), to be an essential path toward enlightenment (hence this).
Secondly: The objective, logical, and mechanical approach to reason that rationality takes, meshes nicely with game development, because any well-defined system can be turn into a game. A game is a system composed of players making decisions while considering objectives, governed by a rule set.
Where there is no decision there can be no game. Where decisions matter, a game can make them matter more.
Therefore, rationality is a core component of game playing.
Games are learning tools. They are perhaps the best learning tool available to humans, because they invoke our biological tendency to play.
With that said, our announcement:
We're making a video game about rationality.
The game will explore rationality in the context of Eliezer Yudkowsky's "Twelve Virtues of Rationality" (which we have permission for). From a narrative perspective the game takes place inside a mind on the brink of epiphany and will heavily feature themes from Plato's "Allegory of the Cave".
Yudkowsky's twelve virtues are the basis of the twelve levels in the game, and will feature each virtue in metaphorical form. The underlying message here is that if you master all of the twelve virtues (by completing all of the twelve levels), you will achieve 'epiphany'.
The game is a 2D side-scrolling puzzle-platformer. The player assumes the role of a figure that represents his/her own conscious mind while it constructs machines (ala "Incredible Machine") that are a metaphor for the thoughts and concepts that one would create while meditating on a complex problem.
We will update our progress and share development information on our website here, as well as with posts on Less Wrong, our twitter account, and the game's website.
You can expect discussions of design decisions for this project to be written frequently from the angle of game design theory. We may also release a small documentary film of the development process after the release of the game.
A release date has been set (and its not too long from now), but I don't want to announce it just yet.
Here is some concept art for our Curiosity metaphor (you can view more art at our website linked above):
If you're interested, just upvote and/or comment. If you have any specific queries related to this project or about game design in general, it would be cool if you went here.
We will be sharing our progress as we make this game over the next few months. So pay attention to Less Wrong and/or shinyogre.com for updates.
Thanks!