dust diaries

Dust DiariesHow Things Can Go Wrong

Drew Davidson

a little bit about me

Games & Learning

Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn’t know the first thing about either.

Games & Learning

Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn’t know the first thing about either.

Games & Learning

Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn’t know the first thing about either.

Dust Happens

Things Go Wrong

Common Mistakes

Unfortunate Misconceptions

All Eggs In One Basket

Just Make One Game

Or That One Game Solves All

Fun, Fun, Fun

It’s All About Making It Fun

Or Fun Is Just Something To Include

No Testing

Not Playtesting Early And Often

Not Iterating Design Ideas

Feature Creep

Include All Ideas

Include All Feedback

Excluding Team

Not Including Game Designers Throughout

Not Including Learning Specialists Throughout

Gamify!

Just Add Badges

To Track And Reward Learning

All Done!

Finished When You Release

No PR Or Distribution Plan

Opposite Day

It’s Easy And Quick

And Cheap To Make

Just Add...

Just Add Some Fun To Learning

Just Add Some Learning To Fun

Anyone Can Do It

Academic Fallacy

Not Everyone Is A Designer

Creepy Treehouse

Fake Fun, Smells Like Education

Bad Learning Games = Suckn

For Instance

Making Magic

Design Process

Learning Goals

In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.

Less Talk, More Rock

Less Talk, More Rock

Less Talk, More Rock

It’s Hard

Games are HARD

Really Hard

Games are HARD

Learning is HARD

Challenge is Good

In Games and Learning

Scaffolding Challenges

Pleasantly Frustrating

Pleasantly Frustrating

Not too Simple

Pleasantly Frustrating

Not too Simple

Not too Hard

Flow & Failure

Rewarding Challenges

Difficulty & Mastery

Agency & Literacy

Failure

Learn from our Mistakes, Develop Grit

Fail Faster, Experiment, Explore

Rapid Prototyping

Iterate toward Solutions

Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better.

Doubt

Question Answers

Challenge Assumptions

Work to Understand

Open to Changing Your Mind

To be Uncertain is to be Uncomfortable, but to be Certain is to be Ridiculous.

Curiosity

Ask Questions & Engage

Lifelong Learning & How Stuff Works

Problem Solving & Cheating (?)

Story Telling & Model Making

Curiosity was Framed, Ignorance killed the Cat.

Curiosity Literacy

How to Learn

Challenge Yourself

Create on Your Own

Life-Long Skill

Curiosity Literacy

How to Learn

Challenge Yourself

Create on Your Own

Life-Long Skill

World’s Best Playground

With an Electric Fence

Learning needs Challenges

Success needs Failures

Creativity needs Constraints

Extraordinary needs Boundaries

Magic needs Dust

Transformational Games

Games for Impact

Beyond Transference

Learning, Playing, Creating

Changes in Daily Lives

A Little Magic

DragonBox+

Gorogoa

Games For Impact

Academic Consortium

Best Practices

http://gamesforimpact.com

Thanks!

Questions?

drdrew@cmu.edu

Thanks!

Questions?

drdrew@cmu.edu

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