“It is simplicity that is difficult to make.” - Bertholdt Brecht

Player Factors and Reality Memory Problem Solving Attention Span Reading, linguistics and verbal

comprehension Math comprehension Visual comprehension Physical disability

Some Bad Assumptions

The player is “different”

Players don’t know what games are

“It’s a 3 year old in the body of a teenager”

You need to come up with new design rules

Some Good Assumptions

The player is “normal”, with some factors very magnified

The player knows what games are

The player knows their age, so treat them with respect and dignity

Common sense design rules are fine

User Input Realities

Some people use single switch input

Some can use the mouse or maybe a touch screen

Some have no fine motor skills

“Twitch” games are out because timing is an issue

Game Output Realities

No reading

No complex or sequential tasks

Consistency in all things

Highlight important things, mute the unimportant

Learning is Games is Learning You can learn a lot about games by

looking at learning (and vice versa)

Mastery, assessment, engagement, and lots of other concepts are shared

Read up on Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

Design with Extreme Purpose You don’t need to come up with new

design rules

Take what you know to work to extremes

Really do what you know to be true

There is no fallback

Enable Player Mastery

Mastery of the user interaction methods

Mastery of the user interface

Mastery of the game

Mastery of frustration

Approaches to Mastery

Learning from failure doesn’t work – consider a zero-failure approach

Repeat, repeat, repeat and then repeat again

Teach UI mastery first, game second

Sometimes mastering the UI is the game itself

Patience is Golden

The player won’t master the game overnight

Allow for lots and lots of repetition for gaining mastery

Watch for emergent gameplay

Don’t be frustrated by the student

In a Nutshell

Take all you know and can learn about games, UI, user interaction and human nature

Magnify it by many orders of magnitude

Aim to enable mastery

Work from the standpoint of patience

Some Game Challenges

Create cooperative experiences for all players of all abilities

Come up with affordable controllers

Stop making dumb games

Start making good games