L&D people think games are useful in a subset of situations. This session showcases numerous games to show how vast the landscape of learning games can be - from games involving only people to tabletop games to asynchronous digital games

1. TU 102
Not WHEN Learning Games but
WHICH Learning Games
Sharon Boller, President
Bottom-Line Performance, Inc.
www.bottomlineperformance.com
Twitter: @Sharon_Boller

2. About me….
Game-lover(!), learner,
author, instructional
designer, game designer,
dog-lover and owner,
Mom, wife, cyclist.
Oh…and president,
Bottom-Line Performance.Sharon Boller

3. Not
“When are games…?”
But
“Which kind of games…?
Bottom-Line Performance 3

4. Cat and Mouse
If you’re the cat – get the mouse within
30 seconds. If you’re the mouse, evade
the cat for 30 seconds.

5. Newton
Make the other person’s feet move within
17 seconds.

6. Number Race
Round 1: Pair up. Work together to count
to 25 – in 2’s – w/in 15 seconds

7. Number Race
Round 2: Pair up. Work together to count
to 25 – in 2’s – w/in 10 seconds

8. Sequence
Align the cards into the specified
sequence within 2 minutes.

9. Bottom-Line Performance 9
• Each row has a 25-card deck.
• Person #1 within a row deals out cards
to every other person in the row.
• Hand out all cards.
• Make sure cards make it all the way to other
end of row.
• This might mean you need to leave TWO spaces
between card holders.
• It may mean you need to give some people
TWO cards.
Set up and Rules

10. Bottom-Line Performance 10
• You have 2 minutes to re-arrange the cards or yourselves
so the words on the cards match the order they appear on
the slide I’m about to show.
• Discard cards that do not belong.
• To win: Person #1 should hold the first card on the list. The
rest should be held by Persons 2 – 14 in the row. Person #15
should have all discards. If your row has more than 15 ppl,
not everyone will have cards.
• Only the initial noncard holders can talk. Nonverbal cues
are allowed.
Set up and Rules

11. Bottom-Line Performance 11
Correct Sequence
1. Activity
2. Explicit
3. Goal
4. Challenge
5. Rules
6. Players
7. Interactivity
8. Players
9. Game
Environment
10.Feedback
Mechanisms
11.Clear Cues
12.Performing
13.Quantifiable
outcome
14.Emotional
reaction
30 60 90 120

12. Bottom-Line Performance 12
A game is…
• An activity with an explicit goal or challenge
• Rules for players and the system (computer games)
• Interactivity with other players, the game environment
(or both)
• Feedback mechanisms that provides players with
clear cues on how they are performing.
• It results in a quantifiable outcome (you win, you lose,
you hit the target, etc.) and often triggers an emotional
reaction in players.

13. Game Goal
Stay in business and minimize costs.
Align the cards while using the least
amount of $$ and time to accomplish the
task.
Turning this into a learning game…

14. Bottom-Line Performance 14
• Each row is a business. Your business is working on an
essential project. Each 30 seconds used costs your business
$300,000. 30 seconds = 1 month.
• The person in the left-most chair is the project manager.
• Each person in your row contributes $10,000 to this cost.
• Finish the task within 2 minutes and earn a bonus for each
team member.
• If you need more time at 2 minutes, the PM must eliminate at
least two jobs.
• If you are not successful within 4 minutes, your company
goes bankrupt.
Rules to Know

15. 15
What “fun” was in these
games? How did this “fun”
engage us?

16. What’s required to learn and remember
Bottom-Line Performance
16
Motivation Relevant Practice Specific, Timely Feedback
Spacing & Repetition Story Ability to retrieve
Mental
involvement
(aka
“engagement”
Memory
builders

17. How games help learning & remembering
Bottom-Line Performance
17
Motivation and emotion: Game goals, challenges, competition (against time, the
game itself, other teams), reward structures
Relevant practice: Connection between in-game challenge & on-the-job need,
linkage between game rules and real-world constraints and environmental factors,
reward structures that mirror real-world, levels w/in game, game loops
Timely, specific feedback: Consequence of choices on game progress and status,
comparison to performance of other players or game system; “Game loop” itself also
supplies feedback as players experiment with different strategies and observe
results.
Spaced repetition: Levels, replayability
Story: Theme, narrative and characters (Note: not every game has story)

18. So how do you get started designing
them?
It all starts HERE!

19. Social/Party Game: Fibbage
1. Game goal: Score the most points
by being 1) the best liar, and 2) best
able to spot the truth.
2. To get started:
1. Need 8 volunteers to play; 100 people
can join in with personal scoring.
2. Go to jackbox.tv and enter code.

20. 1. What was the game goal? Was it fun?
2. What was the core dynamic? Was it
fun?
3. What were 1-3 mechanics (rules) that
stood out? Did they help – or confuse
you?
4. What game elements did you notice?
5. How did you know how you were
doing? (What feedback did you get?)
6. Any ideas you could pull into a
learning game?
Evaluate Fibbage

21. How do you get started?
1. Play and evaluate games to
expand your game design ideas.
2. Consider ALL kinds of games:
board games, experiential games,
digital games. When you need
digital, consider going outside a rapid
authoring tool. “Will the world
collapse if a game DOESN’T get
tracked in the LMS?”
3. Think cooperative instead of just
competitive.

22. How do you get started?
5. Embed within a curriculum; don’t make the
GAME = the course.
6. Go beyond points, badges, leaderboards
(PBLs); recognize the power of aesthetics,
story, and theme; be more intentional
about game elements you choose.
7. Decrease complexity.
8. Link game elements to real-world job
constraints or challenges when possible.

23. Make games a part and not the whole
http://bottomlineperformance.com/passwordblaster

24. Go beyond “PBLs” – way beyond
PBLs are fun…for
awhile. This Guru
games does use
them – but goes
beyond them as
well. Check out
ATDGame Design
Guru to see what
else we used.
theknowledgeguru.com/ATDGameDesignGuru/

25. Use power of aesthetics, themes

26. Choose game elements with intention
Time Cooperation
Chance
Strategy
Levels
Think about commercial games you play – and how they use these
elements. How do you fit these same elements EFFECTIVELY into a
learning game?

27. How about these ideas?
• Time – to compress real-world time, to provide element of stress that mimics real-world, to
manage duration of learning experience, to serve as a resource that must be managed
(much like it must be managed in real-world).
• Cooperation – to foster collaboration and teamwork (assets in real-world, to increase and /
or maintain learner engagement, to mimic real-world cooperation required in a job or
process
• Strategy – to encourage problem-solving or use of judgment, to force people to manage
limited resources (a frequent real-world constraint)
• Chance – to help “balance” a game so people don’t opt out if they fall too far behind; to
mimic real-world “chance” events such as a person getting sick, someone quitting, a natural
disaster, etc., to force people assess and manage risk.
• Levels – to help balance a game so that different experience levels can play; to allow
people to learn via play by having an easy level precede harder levels, to increase
complexity as players gain experience.

28. Resource to help you….
https://www.td.org/Publications/Books/Play-to-
Learn

29. Thank you for
letting me play
and share with
you!
Sharon Boller
President
Bottom-Line Performance, Inc.
Sharon@bottomlineperformance.com
@Sharon_Boller (Twitter)