<p>When designing eLearning games using interactive stories, ask yourself the following six questions:</p><ol><li><strong>What’s the point?</strong> Be clear about the learning goal.</li><li><strong>Does it matter?</strong> Make sure the story is realistic, relevant, and tied to the learning goal.</li><li><strong>Is it fun?</strong> Slapping a leaderboard onto a course doesn’t make it a game. Games need to be fun. Test the fun factor by getting input from learners.</li><li><strong>Does it make sense?</strong> Take time to get the script right in the beginning, and check it with every change to make sure all the branching paths still make sense.</li><li><strong>Is it immersive?</strong> Don’t pull your learner out of the story. Show, don’t tell. Use high-quality visual design and audio (if narrated). And don’t preach.</li><li><strong>Does it exclude anyone?</strong> Include diverse characters and avoid stereotypes. Use inclusive language, and design with accessibility in mind.</li></ol>

Now, this isn’t to say your scenario’s aesthetics are meaningless. It’s more that if you have a limited amount of time and resources, it’s best to focus on crafting the story and keep the look and feel simple.

<p>When it doesn’t take much thinking to identify the correct choice, it quickly becomes boring.</p> <p>Instead, it’s better to give your audience challenging yet realistic decisions to ponder. Things that make them think hard about what the best option could be. </p>

So what’s the best way to avoid clunky 90’s video game dialogue in your scenarios? Read your script out loud as you’re drafting it. If it sounds weird as you say it, that’s a good sign that it could use reworking.

Fun is a crucial part of what makes game-like experiences like scenarios so engaging. Just make sure that the majority of the fun serves to reinforce the project’s learning goals.

Although Twine is a tool for creating “games”, this project goes beyond games and gamification to think creatively about how the functions of Twine can be used to create activities that allow students to more directly engage with learning content in a hands-on experiential format that may not be possible in a traditional classroom learning space.

Instructional games seem to foster higher-order thinking such as planning and reasoning more than factual or verbal knowledge.

Specifically, learning from simulation games was maximized when trainees actively rather than passively learned work-related competencies during game play, trainees could choose to play as many times as desired, and simulation games were embedded in an instructional program rather than serving as stand-alone instruction.

Challenge, interactivity and continual feedback can be applied to a classroom exercises, a paper and pencil activity or used online. The design is universal while the delivery vehicle can change. It is not technology that makes a game a game—it’s the design, the inclusion of a challenge and interactivity that make a game a game.

The goal of the research was to compare learning efficiency and effectiveness from a narrative game to a slide presentation of the content. Students who played the Crystal Island game learned less and rated the lesson more difficult than students who viewed a slide presentation without any game narrative or hands on activities. Results were similar with the Cache 17 game. The authors conclude that their findings “show that the two well-designed narrative discovery games…were less effective than corresponding slideshows in promoting learning outcomes based on transfer and retention of the games’ academic content” (p. 246).

Often the features of a game are at counter-purposes to the learning objectives. For example, many games incorporate an onscreen clock requiring the learner to achieve the goal in seconds or minutes. For learning outcomes that are based on understanding and critical thinking, games with time goals that reinforce fast responses are a poor match.

Despite the uncontested popularity of commercial games and a lot of hype in the training community, the reality is that there is scarce credible evidence on how and when to best use games to improve instructional outcomes and motivation. At this stage, I recommend games to implement drill and practice exercises for tasks that require immediate and accurate responses.

This is exactly what has happened to instructional design, and could by <a href="http://effectivedesign.org/2008/02/11/instructional-design-in-academia-where-theory-and-practice-rarely-meet/">why theory and practice don’t meet</a>. <strong>So much theory has been introduced that we can no longer see how instruction is actually designed.</strong> That’s why I think many times it has become easier for novice (in this case non-academically trained) designers can do it so often. They are not encumbered by the fog of theory.

So, rather than only translating traditional testing methods like MCQs into serious games, designers of serious games can also build on the methods that have worked in mainstream video games. That isn't to say that game designers already know everything there is to know about testing and other pedagogical methods. Nor are we saying that traditional testing methods have no place in a game environment. Instead, both game designers and educational professionals need to work together in developing serious games as a new teaching tool.

"There are a lot of terrible educational games out there, where you have to do something unfun, like solve five math problems, so you can do something fun, like play a game," said Ben Stokes, a games expert at the MacArthur Foundation.<br><br> Instead, the experts are interested in the educational benefits of commercially available games that were not expressly designed for school use--simulation games like Zoo Tycoon, in which elementary school-age children can build virtual zoos by selecting animals, creating appropriate habitats, managing food budgets and even setting the prices of popcorn at the concession stands.<br>