Precision of Emotion: A New Kind of “Fun” Approach in Educational Games
Fun is learning is the beginning, not the end!
- It’s fun, but we’re not learning anything 🙁
Paul Ekman: identified seven universal emotions across all cultures
- disgust, contempt, sadness, happiness, fear, anger, surprise
- where is fun???
Fun is not an emotion, it is a process of emotions, an affective state that comes with a sequence
- It is the cognitive mechanical process by which we convert fear into happiness through surprise
- Sophia: the mastery emotion
- Many interconnected Sophia loops that together create an educational experience
- Commonality:
- connection with the real world
- mechanics involve exploring confusing space & creating order, which gives you insights into the real world
- create a fulfilling experience if mastery and understanding
Meaningful Game:
- Does it connect to the real world?
- Meaningful games make the jump between game model and world model
- In designing Sophia, we must first identify the FEAR created by absence of skill, then scaffold players into the HAPPINESS of mastery
Learning Games:
- easy to identify the effect we want to achieve, but difficult to find the emotion
- also want to alleviate suffering (the fear is already instilled in us)
Sophia is a lens with which you can view your game
- Key problems:
- Lack of clarity on the core emotions?
- Not enough surprise preceding satisfiction?
- Lack of tension because the fear is not illuminated?
