DevLearn Report #2: The Great ILS Challenge

Brought together by Mark Oehlert, Clark Quinn, Brent Smith and I shared a panel at DevLearn 2007 called "The Great ILS Challenge, " modeled on the Game Design Challenge that Game Developers Conference does every year. Mark challenged each of us to present a serious game design that would reduce recidivism among soon-to-be-released prisoners.After the session, we committed to extending the conversation to our blogs. Each of us (including Clive Shepherd, who was unable to be with us in person) has posted/will post our "solution" on our respective blogs, with cross links. You'll see very interesting overlaps and divergences in the approaches we took.

Everyone is invited - no, encouraged - to participate in this design dialogue. Questions, critiques, better ideas - all are welcome here and on the other blog sites. Seriously.

The following is a(n upgraded) summary of my presentation:

As everyone knows, I come to serious games with a learning/instructional design background and bent. But I try to think about game design as a gamer/player and as a game developer, letting what I know about learning design percolate in the background. In that regard, it's been helpful for me to understand the way game designers massage a game concept, and the kind of documentation that ensues - indicators of the important, top-level considerations in their minds.

Generally, a Concept Document (the first step in the game development process) includes the following elements:

• Assignment (problem statement that the game addresses)


• Communication objectives (audience response to game)


• Target audience (description)


• Communication promise (why game meets communication objective)


• Communication strategy


• Competition


• Tone, Attitude/Look & Feel


• Mandatories (e.g., licenses, distributor requirements, timing)


• Budget


• Deadline

The Concept Document is used by game designers to pitch a game concept to decision-makers, which goes part way to explain the degree of marketing focus. But, when one looks at other documents that are produced during the game design process, one notices a critical theme: the emphasis on the overall experience of being in the game world and how the gamer is going to feel during the game.

What is the game experience? Actually, it's influenced by three things:

1. Audience


2. Content


3. Environment

My training tells me that I must go through a set of activities and research (aka, analysis) prior to noodling on a cool design motif. To that end, I use what I cleverly call ACE Analysis (see above enumeration). For the most part, anyone who does "traditional" eLearning/instructional design has some form of this approach in their toolkit. I deviate from the typical approach in a few ways:

• When I analyze the game's target audience, I look not just at how to describe a composite "learner" but also at whether the learner will be applying new skills and knowledge as an individual or as part of a cohort. What does the cohort look like, and what does the cohort need to know and do?


• My view of content is expansive. It includes everything that appears in the game world, every activity the learner engages in, every skill the learner must acquire, etc. It also embraces content-creation and -contribution on the part of learners themselves. How important is personalization? How will mastery best be demonstrated by the learner? What learner activities will be most appropriate for assessment?


• As I think about the environment that is the virtual game world, I need to determine whether the best motif for learning will be a mirror of the real-world or a metaphor thereof. Will persistence be an issue?

For good measure, I also throw in some consideration of learning transference:

• What will prompt someone to come to the game? Another learning event? What will the learner and the cohort do after completing the game? What guidance and support will learners need as they transfer new learnings from the game into Real World skills and knowledge?

The musings that substituted for a true ACE Analysis for a prisoner-release game (and since we're dealing with a really gloppy goal with no supporting information, that will have to suffice for a goal statement) led me to the following semi-sequential conclusions:

1. [Note: huge, possibly naive, assumption to follow.] The "ex-con" population is largely comprised of men of low-economic status and minimal education. African Americans and Hispanics comprise the majority. Literacy and math literacy rates are low. They are between 25-35, although the actual age-range probably extends into the 50s; some may have no personal experience of technologies we take for granted today (cell phones, computers, Internet). Gang-affiliation is the norm; these gangs are typically factions of gangs outside of prison.


2. Ex-cons need to re-program their fundamental decision-making systems.


3. They need to learn to think past the moment of decision-making to the consequences of their decisions and actions.


4. They need to learn self-respect, and then respect of others. They need to re-frame their value systems to align with this respect. This value system must be at the core of and the deep-motivation for every decision the ex-con makes.


5. They need a support network that understands and actively supports these changes, and how hard these changes are for the ex-con to make.


6. They need a new bag of life skills: finding, getting and keeping legitimate work; finding, getting and keeping shelter; finding and getting food and clothing; having fun without getting in trouble; fulfilling social/intimacy needs in a positive way...


7. Far from being part of the ex-con's support network, parole officers are viewed as the tether back to prison life.


8. Temptation is everywhere for an ex-con. No one can be trusted. No one understands. Unless s/he is or has been in the same situation. Hanging with the gang is even more alluring now - these guys get it, they got your back, they're familiar. The ex-con's affiliation needs must be addressed in more positive ways.


9. Because of the criticality of the goal, and because of the limited literacy rate of ex-cons, using a metaphor for the Real World inside a game would likely cloud the "message" of the game. In fact, verisimilitude will get the learner close to a Real Life practice opportunity, a factor that has been emphasized by designers of military serious games. In that vein, personalization of one's game environment and one's game avatar will give the learners a way to bring the game world as close to home as technology allows.

Can a serious game really tackle these issues? Yes - if the game is part of a more comprehensive program. And this awareness led me to think about the things that need to surround the game to optimize its effect for learners.

So my curriculum meta-design would have four stages:

1. Bring together a group of six prisoners who will be released at (about) the same time. This group will become the Lifeline Platoon for each member from this moment forward. The formation of the Lifeline Platoon will be a several-week process during which gang-like camaraderie will be promoted among members, but with the single goal of keeping everybody on the right side of the law. Members of the Lifeline Platoon are likely to come from different, even rival, prison gangs, giving learners their first experience in "making the right decision" about who's good to affiliate with and who isn't.


2. Each learner has an individual "set-up" interview prior to game play devoted to personalizing the game experience. Learner provides extensive information about the area/neighborhood s/he will be released to, personal information pertinent to game play, and some discussion about what the learner sees as the greatest challenges ahead. These personal data sets are loaded onto the game server so that each learner's experience is grounded in the personal realities of life.


3. The Lifeline Platoon plays the game as a group. Each learner has their personalized learning experience at the same time as the others. Where personal storylines intersect, each learner's experience of that intersection will occur within their unique personalized game world. One element of the game interface is an open cell phone showing the phone's directory: every member of Lifeline Platoon is listed.


4. After completing the game, the group is reassembled for debrief. This activity, too, may take place over several weeks, with occasional revisits to the game for reinforcement and continued learning. During the debrief period, each member of Lifeline Platoon is issued a cell phone that looks and acts exactly as the one in the game; the directory is pre-loaded with all Lifeline Platoon members. These are given to the prisoners as part of their release program.

And the game itself?

A series of seemingly random encounters with people and situations that test the ex-con's ability to stay on the right side of the law. Each learner, within the context of his/her personalized game environment must complete the tasks of daily life, the assignments for which come from the parole officer. The tasks and the obstacles to their completion follow a randomly-generated storyline, and, as in real life, may vary in difficulty, complexity, urgency and time for completion. This creates the possibility for multiple challenges to be in effect simultaneously. When all members of the Lifeline Platoon survive out of prison for a year, the game is won.

This is a PvE game (plaver vs. environment), all from the learner's point of view. The purpose of the cell phone is to give learners a way to contact other members of their platoon. As learners encounter situations where the temptations are overwhelming or the right choices unclear, they can send a lifeline to another platoon member for help or support. It is also a mechanism for learner's to store contacts for resources s/he discovers through game play.

Feedback comes to each learner from a set of status bars reflecting facets of life that are important to an individual's life success and happiness, e.g., social needs, health, housing, employment. Under some unimagined calculus, these scores are further reflected in an overall score: how close to returning to prison are you? The treatment for the game is a hybrid 3D animation/cinema verité style. The general tone should be somewhere between neutral and ominous, to reflect the tension with which the ex-con must live. Obstacles should come at the learner like a pop-out book, giving the effect of challenges leaping out and surprising the learner.

That's it for now. Now it's your turn.

I'm serious,

Anne