P1 Reflection – Inspector, Inspector!

Working on Inspector, Inspector! took a lot of iteration and required more thoughtfulness about content than I have had to design for before. While I have some game design experience to the extent of 247G, I have never made a teaching game. We wanted Inspector, Inspector!‘s final version to teach players about the social problems in the NYC subway and how those issues conflict and work together in different situations, but we only arrived at those goals after redesigning our previous versions to better align with the MDAO framework and focusing on outcomes first. Our initial mechanics involved players commuting on the subway system to complete tasks throughout the day, but we found that even though players were engaged and making play sounds they did not come away from the game with more knowledge than they entered it with. In the end, we directly provided narrative as a type of fun through explanatory “fact” cards that support an argument and fellowship as a type of fun as players could respond to and rebut each other or collaborate to achieve goals. Less directly, players engaged in some challenge with the physical board and the fact that spaces on it could be blocked and sensation in placing upgrades on the station to physically improve it themselves. By focusing on outcomes in the redesign and subsequently changing the mechanics of the game to involve discussion and allocation of resources, I believe we were able to make Inspector, Inspector! an effective teaching game.

I think what was most different for me in designing this game was how different each iteration was from the last. My previous experience did not see such major changes, but I also know we thoroughly discussed the changes we made and our reasoning for making them. It was also very different to make a teaching game rather than a game made for entertainment. Instead of beginning by thinking of mechanics that could be fun to tie to a topic, you have to begin with the end of the game. This experience taught me why that is necessary, but it is a new way for me to think about educational games.

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