StoryToGo

Exploring storytelling in its many forms in this digital age

game design

Gaming Learning from the Perspective of a Science Educator

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Reflecting on Learning through Games and Constructivism

Image care of Rafael Javier.

Recently, as I read Yasmin Kafai and Quinn Burke’s article Constructionist Gaming: Understanding the Benefits of Making Games for Learning and Kelly Tran’s article “Her story was complex”: A Twine workshop for ten- to twelve-year-old girls, it has had me reflecting on learning through games, constructivism, how I teach, and my own learning styles. With science and science education being central to my development as an individual, storyteller, and teacher, this naturally had me thinking on my years as a science educator, as well as what got me excited about science as a young person, and how that shaped my teaching in other subjects, including media arts. Through these reflections, I recognize that I’ve missed valuable learning experiences to not only create game based learning experiences for my students, but to get them designing the games.

The Predator-Prey Game – a game that taught me a lot both as a kid, and as a teacher when I developed this game for my students. In hindsight, getting my students doing the developing would have been an even richer learning experience. Image care of the Waterloo Nature Club.

The Twine below represents my reflections on Gaming Learning from the Perspective of a Science Educator.

You’ll need to give the Twine below a moment to load, in order for the black box to disappear.

I had another realization while reflecting and exploring project based learning and constructivism through the creation of this Twine, that perhaps this style of learning and education is what we need in order to allow diverse groups of students with different learning styles to succeed. Rather than prescribing how our students should learn and demonstrate their learning, constructivist project based learning allows student to find their own learning path in a way that works for them and allows them to shine. I always knew this is where I excelled as a student, and knew this is what built my confidence in my own academic abilities, and I have seen the same in the students I’ve taught, especially those who like me are considered to have ‘learning disabilities’. It hit me in these reflections that perhaps the reason for this is that when learning in this way, rather than telling others what they can and can’t do, and are and are not capable of, we are giving them the tools, platform, and freedom to create and discover for themselves, in a way that is meaningful for them – allowing them to approach learning and creating in a way that works for their individual needs. We need to make more such learning opportunities available to our young people, so that they too can shine and build their confidence.

Image courtesy of Gordon Johnson.

References

Kafai, Y. & Burke, Q. (2015). Constructionist Gaming: Understanding the Benefits of Making Games for Learning. Educational psychologist, 50, 4, 313-334.

Tran, K. M. (2016). “Her story was complex”: A Twine workshop for ten- to twelve-year-old girls. E-Learning and Digital Media, 13(5–6), 212–226. https://doi.org/10.1177/2042753016689635

Understanding Games and Play from the Mindset of a Tortie Terror (aka my cat)

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Back in my days as a young Biology undergraduate student, I am remember sitting in a behavioural science class and feeling thoroughly frustrated by the ego and rather omnipotent thinking of the professor, who was lecturing us on his believe that non-homo sapien animals don’t play. Rather everything they do was tied in someway to survival. You just have to have well-loved furry or feathery friend in your household to know that is not the case.

Linus nudging Ella into a game.

Going beyond our furry and feathered family members, in truly observing wild animals with an open mind you will see that not all they do is about survival. While not a play example, this was something I pondered one day, as I watched the heartbreaking scene of some ground squirrels who didn’t want to leave a fellow ground squirrel who had been hit by a car. Each time they returned to the dead ground squirrel’s body, they were putting their own lives at risk. This wasn’t about survival for these ground squirrels, quite the contrary, they were risking their lives in mourning the death of a member of their community.

It made me smile as I began to read Johan Huizinga’s exploration of play in his chapter on Nature and Significance of Play as a Cultural Phenomenon in The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology that he noted that play is older than culture. Non-homo sapien animals did not wait for humans to teach them to play. They were already playing. As I continued to read Huizinga’s chapter and that of Roger Caillois on The Definition of Play and the Classification of Games, I watched my young cat Ella (aka the Tortie Terror) who throws herself into play with such total abandon, and what I observed echoed so much of what had caused me to question and resist years ago in that behavioural science class. First though, let me introduce you to Ella.

To advance the pages in the story above, click the flashing arrows, and where you encounter an image with a glowing edge, click on those images.

Games and Play from the Mindset of a Cat

Play and the creation of games are paramount in Ella’s life. She plays the regular games of chasing feather wands, catch with toy mice, and fetch with toy springs, but for Ella, the best games are those that she’s invented and taught to me. These include Run, Jump & Startle, Lure & Surprise, and Hide & Go Seek Tag.

Run, Jump & Startle

Run, Jump & Startle is usually started by Ella rampaging past me in a crazy flurry with a little “roo roo” in passing me. This is my queue to more subtly creep in her direction or walk by her and pretend not to see her, and then jump in front of her with my arms out. She then similarly jumps in front of me with her arms out, and usually shows off by parkouring off a wall, at which point we both dash off to hide again and attempt to then non-chalantly creep up on the other to be the jumper.

Lure & Surprise

Lure & Surprise is a relatively new game of Ella’s that is usually played at night in the dark. It involves her finding a way to lure anyone in the house towards her, usually by yowling as though something is wrong. As that creature (this game is played with my Mom’s dog, as well as with me) goes to see what’s wrong, she launches herself at them, and then after startling them goes running off to hide somewhere else in the dark.

Hide & Go Seek Tag

Ella trying to entice her cousins into a game of Hide & Go Seek Tag.

Typically Lure & Surprise then evolves into Hide & Go Seek Tag, which is also played in the light. This is like the children’s game of a similar name, where one hides and the other seeks, but in this case everyone is hiding and seeking at the same time with the goal of being the first to sneak up on the other, making it a much faster paced game.

Characteristics of Play

These games that Ella has constructed follow the fundamental characteristics of play as listed by Roger Caillois and echoed by Johan Huizinga’s in his writing.

  • Free – Elle begins the games with freewill, under no obligation, as do her opponents. If anyone should decide they no longer wish to play, they simply stop or walk away.
  • Separate – These games exist in their own time and space, in which the real world is temporarily suspended.
  • Uncertain – There is never any certainty as to who will prevail as reigning champion. Usually each play results in wins on both sides.
  • Unproductive – Nothing is created over the course of play, rather it is simply a release of joyful energy.
  • Governed by Rules – While the rules are unwritten and created by a cat, all the games have clear and definite rules that have been taught to the other players through demonstration by the feline game creator, who is quite bossy about her expectations of the players.
  • Make Believe – It is clear that within the game each player is entering the realm of make believe, in which in my mind we enter a land of spies and ninjas. As for Ella’s mind, I dearly wish I could see inside her imagination to know, but I do know that within the game I have clearly been transformed into a character of her imagination based on the wild looks looks she gives me mid game.

Imagination Central to Play

A young Ella fancying herself a jungle beast and demolishing the grasses from the garden store.

It is this element of imagination that both Caillois and Huizinga speak of as being such an important component to play that I find most fascinating and amusing as I watch Ella play. She is by far the most active player of any furry family member that I’ve lived with, and that is clearly denoted by a cat with an enormous imagination. When left to her own play, it is not unusual to see her all of a sudden fluff up her fur and start jumping sideways. Is this because she is angry or scared? No, she is simply playing, and something in the imaginative world that she has concocted in her mind is causing this external reaction in her to the amusement of those of us that have been fortunate enough to witness these play acting moments in her life.

Fostering Wellbeing Through Play

Ella’s kitten game of Steal Mom’s Glasses, which she has yet to outgrow, but rather gotten much sneakier at. Always good for a chuckle between us.

For me, Elle has illustrated the importance that play can have on our wellbeing as creatures. She came into my world in a summer in which I was badly concussed after a car accident. It was her imaginative play on her own, and enticing me into the games that she concocted, that got me laughing and moving again, as well as scheming to beat her at the games she laid out before us. It is quite amazing how the simple act of playing can be so incredibly healing.

References

Caillois, R. The Definition of Play and the Classification of Games. In K. Salen and E. Zimmerman (Eds.) The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology (pp. 122-155). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Huizinga, J. Nature and Significance of Play as a Cultural Phenomenon.In K. Salen and E. Zimmerman (Eds.) The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology (pp. 96-120). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

80 Days, the Digital Game – a Case Study

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Recently as a part of my studies in Digital Games, Learning, and Pedagogy (ETEC 565S) for my Master of Educational Technology, I was tasked with analyzing a digital game of my choosing by creating a series of game logs reflecting on my experiences with the game. The game I chose to analyze and create a case study around was 80 Days.

You will find a link to each of the game logs I created in my analysis of this game below.

Game Logs from my Analysis of 80 Days

Game Log 1 : First Impressions Before Gameplay
Game Log 2 : First Playthrough
Game Log 3 : Watching Gameplay

80 Days, the Video Game

To briefly introduce 80 Days, it is a digital game released by Inkle and written by Meg Jayanth, based on the Jules Verne novel Around the World in 80 Days.

Image courtesy of Sailko.

First Impression and Trepidations with 80 Days

When I first picked 80 Days for my digital game analysis, I did so with the hope that it would be a little like Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, a favourite digital game from my youth. I wanted a game filled with adventure, mystery, and intrigue. Also, given the current pandemic, I’ve been missing travel, so my hope was that 80 Days would provide me with that and give me the opportunity to learn about the history and culture of different areas around the globe.

I had two trepidations in delving into this game.

  1. The Goal of Attempting to Get Around the World in 80 Days – as I am a slow traveller, who likes to take the time to explore the places I visit, that is what I thought I would wish to do in each city visited in the game. While some travellers are missing the transport of travel in the present pandemic, and modes of transit are certain to be an important aspect to 80 Days, as they were in Jules Verne’s novel, for me it is the place and people that I am missing.
  2. The Presentation / Perception of Women and Different Cultures Around the World – this game was after all based on Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in 80 Days, an adventure undertaken by two European men in 1872 at a time when the British Empire saw themselves as the white saviours and women were portrayed as the weaker gender, who were in need of men to look after them.

I discuss these trepidations in my initial game log and my glimmer of hope that possibly the female writer of the game, Meg Jayanth, who while British, was born in India, had found a way to craft a more worldly perspective on a story of two European gentlemen that was set in 1872, rather than disinterest or as Ian Bogart frames it in How to Do Things with Videogames, a disconnect between violence, sexism, racism, classism, and empathy. I just wasn’t quite sure how she was going to do that and maintain historical accuracy. These are all things I discuss in this video on my first impressions of the game.

First Playthrough of 80 Days

How wrong I was in my initial assumptions! While I did get a game filled with adventure, mystery, and intrigue with 80 Days, I got those things in a very different way from what I was expecting.

You see what 80 Days is an interaction fiction game, like a choose your adventure novel, only with multitudes more choices of directions to take in the game that lead to different plots and narratives. I have to admit that a few weeks ago, I did not understand how a choose your own adventure story could be a game. After playing 80 Days, my perspective on this has changed, as this is most certainly a game (and a story, at the same time). The choices you make at the markets on goods to purchase or sell, routes to take, conversations to have, responses to those conversations, all have an impact on the narrative, plots presented, and upon Fogg’s health within the game. There is strategy in the decisions made, and repercussions to the decisions chosen. And ultimately, the unpredictability of those repercussions and the surprising narratives that ensued are what kept me reading and playing.

In playing, my trepidations disappeared, I discovered I enjoyed the race and was not as prone to dilly dally as I thought I might be. I found that the anticipation of a journey, the sound of a steam whistle, and the chug of an engine all left me with a feeling of anticipation and of nostalgia. By blending the story of Around the World in 80 Days with a reimagined steampunk 1872, it gave writer Meg Jayanth the artistic license to craft a new storyworld with an imagined political climate, new characters, and different gender roles and jobs. While this meant that we interacted with many more women in 80 Days the digital game, then Phileas Fogg and Passepartout did in Jules Verne’s novel, this is not to say that the 80 Days video game avoided real issues around politics, sexism, racism, religious intolerance, classism … etc. Quite the opposite, 80 Days addressed these cleverly throughout the stories of the everyday interactions in travel. I know that I myself, playing the role of Passepartout, have already inadvertently made a woman feel unsafe, and learned that she has in some way been assaulted in the past; have helped a woman captain give birth to her new child, so as not to need to present herself to her crew in a vulnerable state; have been rendered unconscious by a nun, in an attempt to gain my aid in political plots at play; had a bomb explode in my soup, after taking a bit of culinary advice; and been pickpocketed by a little girl in a wheelchair that I thought I was enjoying an innocent exchange with. Needless to say, this is a whole new world from Around the World in 80 Days.

In the debate as Bogart puts it in How to Do Things with Videogames, is this a game or art? It is both a game and art, just as it is both a game and a story.

In discovering this, I decided to try my hand at creating my own playthrough broadcast, which is not as easy as it might seem, and involves both strategic decision making and storytelling. Gametubers is a niche that I have watched curiously for years, as a digital video creator and having been invited into a number of discord gamer communities, as a result of sharing my videos on Vidme. While I understood from conversations in the discords that there was the potential for generating revenue through gameplay videos, I did not find gameplay videos particularly engaging and had no idea the revenues could be as lucrative as T.L. Taylor cites in her book, Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming. This however seemed like a good opportunity to experiment in the niche of gameplay videos, so you can see my first take on such a video below:

Which leads me to …

Watching a bit of 80 Days Gameplay

While being somewhat skeptical of this form of entertainment previously, I have to say, 80 Days and Paragon Plays have converted me. In watching Paragon Plays’ Mutiny Aboard the Waterlily | 80 Days [Interactive Novel Gameplay], you will discover from the video below that I become somewhat of a Gameplay Video Convert. When done well, as is the case of Paragon Plays, this is an art form and a story genre, as pointed out by T.L. Taylor in Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming. Having said that – something that is also touched on in Watch Me Play, there is a lot more work that goes into being a financially successful gametuber / streamer than crafting entertaining videos. Gavin of Paragon Plays created wonderfully entertaining videos, yet he never really gained the audience needed to financially benefit from this story niche, which may be why his channel now lies dormant.

Aside from my admiration for Gavin from Paragon Plays’ narration, strategic storytelling in editing his video from both past gameplay and present additions that include backstory to the game, gameplay tips, and story insights from Jules Verne’s Around the Word in 80 Days, I learned a number of things from watching Gavin play that were not expressively told to me. From watching, I observed the benefit in gameplay and broadcast in making quick decisions, I realized that the gameplay and story snippets were richer with familiarity to Jules Verne’s novel, and I gathered that by making bolder choices, the story got that much richer and more suspenseful. In the words of Passepartout in Around the World in 80 Days …

Fortune favours the bold.

Passpartout

I now understand why people both make and watch gameplay videos – for the personalities and storytelling, as well as for tips in terms of gameplay. These observations have made me want to dabble more in the creation of gameplay videos myself. I think what I’d like to do in this bent is to create a serialized ‘bedtime story’ from chapters of a full game playthrough of 80 Days. Thinking this might be especially fun to do as a team project with my nieces and nephews. For the first game playthrough, I think I’d like to follow the route of travel from Around the World in 80 Days to see if I stumble upon any similar plot lines to that of the novel.

Exploring Societal Discomfort in 80 Days

One other thing that struck me in watching Gavin play and reflecting on my own gameplay, was that the player seemed to be rewarded with a favourable outcome when making decisions that respected female characters in the game and that respected different cultures and religions, although only after a number of ‘tests’ as to the player’s sincerity. Despite this being my observation, writer Meg Jayanth does discuss in a talk at the 2015 Game Developers Conference the importance to her that the storylines in 80 Days not lead to the notion of the ‘white saviour,’ like they might have with the story of Aouda, the widowed princess in Around the World in 80 Days, whom Fogg and Passepartout save from her husband, the Raja’s, funeral pyre. Meg speaks about this from 23:37 to 24:43 in the video below.

For me, the placing of the player into scenes of discomfort and moral dilemma is what not only makes 80 Days a nuanced piece of storytelling, but a provocative examination of society, our believes, and our actions and inactions within it, all whilst enjoying a bit of gameplay in an imagined world. This is where the learning happens within the gameplay for me, as in this way 80 Days evokes empathy in it’s players towards the ‘other’ in the game, much as Bogart reflects on in Chapter 2 of How to Do Things with Videogames. I’ll be curious to observe how these moments of discomfort and moral dilemmas impact my nieces and nephews as we play and read together, and the discussions that ensue as a result.

References

Bogost, I. (2011). How to Do Things with Videogames (1st ed.). University of Minnesota Press.

GDC. (2015, November 5). 80 Days & Unexpected Stories [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apa7Klu8Trg

Jayanth, M. (2015). 80 Days [Interactive Game]. Inkle. https://www.inklestudios.com/80days/

Paragon Plays. (2016, May 23). Mutiny Aboard the Waterlily | 80 Days [Interactive Novel Gameplay] [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orOdVFMydjE

Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming

StoryToGo. (2020, August 12). First Impressions of 80 Days [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joSLFXnbkXI

StoryToGo. (2020b, August 21). First Playthrough of 80 Days [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw3WX7_3tV0

StoryToGo. (2020c, August 30). Embarking on 80 Days with Paragon Plays [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUBMl-yWKok

Taylor, T. L. (2018). Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming (Princeton Studies in Culture and Technology). Princeton University Press.

Verne, J. (1873). Around the World in 80 Days. Pierre-Jules Hetzel.

Exploring Game Design through a Playcentric Approach

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This summer I have been fortunate enough to study Digital Games, Learning, and Pedagogy (ETEC 565S) in a Summer Institute as a part of UBC’s Master of Educational Technology. As a part of this work, I have been reading Tracy Fullerton’s Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. A read that I highly recommend to anyone interested in game design.

Throughout Fullerton’s Game Design Workshop there are a number of exercises that get you reflecting on games, what appeals to you in games and what does not, and on the design and structure of various games. It’s an interesting read and one that I can see myself returning to. In working through Chapter’s 1 – 3 on The Role of the Game Designer, The Structure of Games, and Working with Formal Elements, I worked through a number of the exercises, which I’ve shared below.

Give these exercises a try yourself, and share your responses to them in comments below.

Exercise 1.2 : D.O.A .

Take one game that you’ve played that was D.O.A. By D.O.A., I mean “dead on arrival” (i.e., a game that’s no fun to play). Write down what you don’t like about it. What did the designers miss? How could the game be improved?

Recently I have been experimenting with an interactive animated storytelling platform, Elementari, which I have been utilizing to teach storytelling with a little bit of coding in an online kids camp that I created for BCIT. With the addition of variables to Elementari, kids and teachers have begun to build games there. I thought I’d show my camp kids what was possible in an existing game on the platform, but being a bit limited in time I picked a game to show the kids that the platform had sent as an example of games being designed there, thinking it looked fun at first, but without having had the time to go through it myself. This was a DOA gaming moment for both the kids and myself.

The Game

What the Kids and I Didn’t Like About It

  • it has an instruction heavy start with just a talking head
  • there is a chunk of time with empty space, which leaves you questioning if the game is broken or incomplete
  • the talking head’s lips move, but no sound comes out of the mouth
  • the repetitive music becomes annoying after the first page or two
  • the writing is riddled with mistakes
  • some of the background and text colour choices make the text difficult to read
  • some of the buttons in the game do not work until a period of time had passed, frustrating the player

What the Designer Missed

This could actually be a fun little Spy School Game, provided things are kept moving, and the game play is not stalled by copious instructions and lag time issues.

How the Game Could Be Improved

  • keep the initial welcome / mission brief and give the player the option to visit the ‘game play’ page for more involved instructions
  • fix lag time issues in the coding
  • limit ‘Spy Academy’ music to specific pages or mix it up with other music
  • edit the writing
  • add in read aloud voice over to the captioned text
  • make sure that text is easily readable on the background you choose

Exercise 1.5 : Your Childhood

List ten games you played as a child, for example, hide and seek, four square, and tag. Briefly describe what was compelling about each of those games.

The Predator / Prey Game

I loved the freedom of being in the woods during this game, and having the free range to run, hide, and spend time on my own in nature. I also liked the strategy that went into this game of survival.

Crocodile Crossing

This was always a bit of hilarity filled, absurd, team building strategy and camaraderie, that allowed for ingenuity and creativity.

Frogger

It was just fun to try to get across the road without getting splattered.

Team Sports (like Ice Hockey, Soccer … etc)

I liked the physical aspects of these games, and the strategy and camaraderie that comes with working together as a team. I was also a bit of a bruiser, so liked being able to slide tackle and check an opponent within the rules of fair game play.

Scrabble

While I enjoy playing with and constructing words, the part of Scrabble that I get the most fun out of is playing strategically to hit double and triple word and letter scores, to block my opponents from those, and create multiple words in a single turn.

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

I loved the spy and international mystery solving aspect to this game, that virtually took me traveling the globe to discover different parts of the world.

Clue

I’ve always loved a good whodunit, so it is only natural that a game that allowed me to either be the detective or the murderer would appeal. Tied to that the opportunity to either mislead or outwit my family and friends, what more could a gal want?

Pick Up Sticks

Love the careful precision of teasing out sticks and trying to set my opponents up for a difficult turn.

Murder in the Dark

I use to love this game at parties. There was the thrill of being in the dark, and the thrill of either dodging and guessing the killer, or subtly ‘killing’ those around you without being caught.

Balderdash

So many fun elements to this game. Concocting nonsensical words with ridiculous definitions, trying to mislead the other players, and guessing at where your competitors are trying to mislead you.

Exercise 2.1 : Think of a Game

  1. Think of a game, any game. Now write down a description of the game. Be detailed. Describe it as if to someone who has never played a game like it before.
  2. Now think of another game—a completely different type of game. The more different this game is from the first one, the better. Describe it.
  3. Compare your descriptions. Which elements were different and which were similar? Dig deep and really think about the underlying mechanics of each game.

I decided to choose two of my favourite childhood games to dissect in the form of a mind map below.

While clearly I am not an artist, I had fun experimenting with the Concepts iPad, while recollecting the structure and game play of these two games.

Differences Between the Predator / Prey Game and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

There are many differences between the Predator / Prey Game and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. The Predator / Prey Game is a real world, multi player game, in which the outcome is unpredictable and dependent on the strategy, cunning, and interactions between the players. There are many paths to success in this game, and many moving parts that could both act as obstacles and allies in reaching success in the game. In contrast, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego is a single player video game that involves one path to success in correctly solving the pre-designed puzzles.

Similarities Between the Predator / Prey Game and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

The key similarity between both these games are that they are educational. I had fun learning, while I played them. They both also utilized the imagination, role play, and strategic thinking (although more so on the part of the Predator / Prey Game).

Exercise 2.8 : Story

Have any stories within a game ever gripped you, moved you emotionally, or sparked your imagination? If so, why? If not, why not?

Absolutely. Stories are a huge draw for me, and are often the games that I have to guard my time with, so that I don’t lose hours of my day to them. I have vivid memories of this with the first Quest Game (the name escapes me) that I played with my brother and next door neighbour. We’d play so long that we’d all emerge from the basement with headaches and a sort of gaming hangover.

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego was also one such game for me, that for the past decade has inspired an ARG that’s been running through my head for an international mystery game with a transmedia storytelling character I created – Emme Rogers. Below is the most recent rendition of that ARG that I wrote up for an Immersive and Interactive Storytelling Fellowship that I was shortlisted for in Norway:

Where-in-the-World-ARG

Exercise 3.4 : Objectives

List ten of your favourite games and name the objective for each. Do you see any similarities in these games? Try to define the type or types of games that appeal to you.

Some of my favourite games over the years have included:

  • Ultimate Frisbee – Objective: To score the most points by getting the frisbee past the opponent’s end zone.
  • Scrabble – Objective: To score the most points by using your tiles to spell connecting words on the Scrabble board.
  • The Predator / Prey Game – Objective: To survive by finding food and water, and avoiding disease and predation.
  • Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego – Objective: To apprehend Carmen Sandiego and her allies by solving the clues.
  • Field Hockey / Soccer / Ice Hockey – Objective: To score the most points, by getting the ball or puck in the opponent’s net.
  • Cat Physics – Objective: To pass a ball as quickly as possible from one cat to another, past a number of obstacles.
  • Othello – Objective: To have the most tiles of your colour on the board by the time each player has used up their last tile.
  • Crocodile Crossing – Objective: To get your team across crocodile invested waters the fastest, with limited resources, and without anyone touching the water.
Team Building with Crocodile Crossing
  • High Jumping – Objective: To be the person to clear the highest bar without touching it.
  • Beach Volleyball – Objective: To serve the ball over the net into the opponent’s court, and when the ball is hit into your court to keep the ball from hitting the ground and knock it back into their court within three hits.
  • Balderdash – Objective: To concoct believable words and definitions to mislead your opponents, and to guess which word is real.

In reflecting on the games I enjoy, they include games that involve:

  • outdoor exercise
  • physically challenging activities
  • strategy
  • team work
  • imaginative play
  • problem solving
  • elements of learning
  • time spent outside
Quidditch Training at our Hogwart’s Travelling School of Magic

I also do enjoy games that involve storytelling. However, I tend to avoid those due to their addictive nature for me.

Gaming Reflections of a Couple of Young Friends

I was curious about what the responses to these exercises would be for a few of the young people in my life, so I did a wee video interview with them.

Now, it’s your turn!

I’d love to hear about what sort of games appeal to you in the comments below, and if you were to design your own game, what sort of game that might be?