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meaningful play 2010 travel

Session Information

TitlePuzzle Design for Educators and Game Developers
Presenter(s)Clara Fernandez Vara, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Scot Osterweil, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
TimeThursday, October 21, 11:00a-12:00p
LocationParlor A
FormatWorkshop
DescriptionThis workshop is an introduction to puzzle design for educational purposes, which will review the types of thinking that are encouraged by good puzzle design, and how puzzles can foster learning. The workshop will provide the attendants with basic puzzle evaluation skills and puzzle generation technicques. Workshop participants will think through the process of design and learning by solving puzzles themselves, and then designing their own, based on the principles proposed by the instructors. This is the practical companion activity to the paper "Adventure Games Design: Insight and Sense-making," also proposed by the instructors, where the theoretical foundations of this practice will be explained in further detail.

Workshop structure:
  • Communal puzzle-solving: All the attendants will play an adventure game together.

  • Insight Thinking: a brief re-cap of the principles introduced in the paper, and how they relate to the game played by the attendants.

  • Group puzzle-solving: Attendants will split into groups of 2-3 and solve different sets of puzzles (non-digital this time). Afterwhich, attendants will discuss what makes a good puzzle, and what kinds of thinking the attendants resorted to when solving the puzzles assigned.

A list of resources to develop puzzle games and implement them digitally will also be provided.

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