Playing with validity - building an emotional connection to training

Games are used for escapism. When we play we are transported to a fantasy world with different rules, different characters and different social structures. These worlds become incredibly real to the players who inhabit them to the extent where you really care about what happens to that world and the characters who inhabit it.?

Without this emotional engagement or investment, games wouldn’t work. Emotional engagement doesn’t mean you sit balling your eyes out after your character dies in Super Mario, but it does mean you care (for whatever reason is meaningful to you) on some level whether that little collection of pixels lives or dies.?

This emotional engagement is achieved in many ways and is very personal to the game and the character, however a few examples include visuals, personality, little quirks, a backstory, as well as the characters place in the world. When you play a first person game you are put into the protagonist’s shoes and techniques such as the hero’s journey are used to make the player feel central to the world and important.?

The critical element of building emotional engagement is to make the story seem real, but only real enough.?

What do I mean by real enough? Often when designing there is balance between simulation and fantasy; there is a fine line between making an experience feel real enough to build engagement, but not overcomplicating and challenging yourself to create an exact replica of how a system works in the real world. Remember there is a difference between simulations and serious games.?

If I want learners to understand welding for example, then yes realism is vital, but if my learning outcome is related to leadership, team work, or critical thinking then there’s a little (a lot) more room for flexibility.?

Think about characters for example – characters in movies, books and games feel very real, but their personas are almost always extreme, caricatures of personalities. The same technique can be used in serious games. If you make your characters realistic and every day, learners won’t want to interact with them, they have that in the real world. But make them different, exciting, funny, quirky, interesting in any way you can and you will be onto a winner.? Information will seem more interesting and will more likely lead to greater retention.?

If you think about your scenario, then why not throw in some extreme cases? If you are trying to convey concepts such as compliance or money laundering, why not play from the opposite perspective of a secret shopper or person laundering money.?

I’m not saying let’s throw caution to the wind and let our imaginations run wild but don’t limit yourself by trying to follow the real world.? If you do, your design will be too complicated and most likely too expensive to implement.?

Rather focus on making sure your scenario and experiences are as real as possible to make the learning work.?

Think about every element of your design from the perspective of the learning outcomes. Think about how each and every mechanic, scene, task and actions can move your learner towards their goal.