Learning games can achieve more with less: a love-letter to simplicity in game design
Learning games can achieve more with less: a love-letter to simplicity in game design
Learning games can achieve more with less: a love-letter to simplicity in game design
By Terry Pearce
2022
Summary
A lot of people participating in learning experiences are not gamers.
Learning game designers often are, and that familiarity can lead us to underestimate how complex our designs might seem to somebody who doesn't, as a rule, play games.
Here's what Love Letter does well, how it keeps things simple, and what I think it can teach learning game designers.
Make things elegant by giving elements more than one function To use the term properly, an elegant game achieves more with less.
How do you make the game work as a game, but also have the elements represent things from your game 'world'? But done well, theme can make design choices easier.
This is even better from a learning game perspective, because that's how learning works in real life.
Learning games where the skills emerge from the game like this are powerful because they're not overt.
Reference
Pearce, T. (2022). Learning games can achieve more with less: a love-letter to simplicity in game design. Untold Play. https://untoldplay.com/blogs/untold-play/learning-games-can-achieve-more-with-less