Games and learning
The unique multiplatform drama Legacy from ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scotland is available now online.
Set above and below the streets of London, Legacy combines an online adventure game and a two-part Radio 7 drama to tell the story of Jules and Harry, two 20-something siblings coming to terms with their family's shocking past. Brendan Crowther, the game's producer, talks about this sometimes fractious relationship...
Firstly, let me say that Legacy was never designed specifically to be an educational game. Instead, it takes inspiration from games like .
Great games educate in the same way as good examples other media - by providing experiences that inspire and act as a catalyst for further learning. Highly regarded novels or films teach through their sheer craft as much as their subject matter. Good content is the starting point of a journey that educates people. It's all about encouraging people to broaden their horizons and through that become more rounded individuals.
Some mainstream games have mechanics in them that actively encourage or demand learning. ' central mechanic is based around word association. Progression through is entirely dependant on solving a series of puzzles that range across language, probability and mathematics. Educators are increasingly coming around to the idea of play as a tool for teaching. shows how games are being used in the classroom not only as a learning tool but also as a source of subject matter for analysis and critique.
With Legacy we tried to provide a rich enough story that players were compelled to play through to the game's end and discover what happened to the protagonists. Progression through the game is dependant on completing a series of increasingly complex logic puzzles. A large part of the gameplay in Legacy is about solving object based puzzles: combine this thing with that thing to make that other thing do something interesting.
Legacy also tasks players to think laterally to solve the puzzles - it's not always immediately obvious what you have to do in each room. Only through experimentation, and frequently pausing for thought, can the player find the solution. These softer skills around analysis and problem solving can certainly be taken back into the real world and hopefully help players of the game approach everyday problems in different ways.
Any game that tries to educate exists within a broader context of someone's ongoing life experiences - learning gained simply through the act of being alive at a time when more knowledge is available to more people than ever before. Learning is not simply about lessons delivered through one-off experiences. Instead, it's about the greater sum made up of all these individual parts. For me the aim should be clear: to provide as many of these parts as we can. That is, to produce the best content we possibly can - content which inspires people to learn for the sheer pleasure of it.
Listen to the second episode of the Legacy radio drama now and play the game.
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