Game Education Summit North America

Paper Abstract:

Learning to play a video game is no different than any other kind of learning. Educational and cognitive science has a wealth of knowledge on how humans learn that can benefit game developers, improve levels, and shorten the iterative game development process. Working memory limits place significant constraints on how much a player can learn and how quickly they could be ready to learn more. By embedding opportunities for repetition and elaboration, game designers can aid players in chunking and automating game knowledge and procedures, allowing players to do more and think more, while at the same time, effectively exceeding working memory limitations. By understanding the value of repetition and elaboration and how the products of each differ, and by understanding ways to implement repetition and elaboration in levels, game designers add a powerful tool to their level design arsenal.