Testing, Retesting, and Trying Again

The heroes at Journey were fortunate to have two wonderful hero talks for the Game Maker Quest this past week. The first was Dr. Scott Nicholson, Professor of Game Design at Wilfrid Laurier University in Brantford, Ontario. Over video chat, Dr. Nicholson shared how he gets inspired by looking at the world around him in order to create fun games. He informed the heroes the first thing he tells his college students is, “There are three main parts for creating a game. A game should be:

1. fun,
2. have a goal or objective, and have
3. clear rules.”

The final piece of advice he provided was to make sure to TEST – play – the game. That’s what the heroes this afternoon. They went around and played one another’s game. Once they were done with the game, they gave critiques. Who knew testing could be so much fun? These heroes gave great feedback to one another in order to better their instructions and games.

Video chatting with Dr. Nicholson, a professional game designer.

What an incredible experience to learn from him.

The second hero talk was with Mr. Bob Savage. He is a member of the Michigan Chess Association, and at the age of 16 he was the #1 chess player in the nation for his age group. Mr. Bob discussed how chess has been around for hundreds and hundreds of years, and how it is not a game of probability; rather, it is a game of strategy. A couple of ES heroes had the opportunity to play against him following the talk. It was a memorable day as he provided guidance and pointers to the hero chess players.

Mr. Bob – the chess professional!

All week, the heroes have used math, science, written communication, oral communication, testing and refining of their games due to feedback from heroes, as well as providing feedback for other created games. Through all of this, the heroes have demonstrated great determination and perseverance to design a game that provides fun (motivation), has an objective, and has clearly stated rules. The heroes look forward to welcoming more game testers at the upcoming Game Expo Exhibition.

Heroes reading instructions to games they have never played before,

along with heroes designing their own games.

Have you asked your hero:

1. About their game?
2. What kind of game is it?
3. What the goal of their game is?
4. What the rules of their game are?
5. Ways other heroes shared their game could improve?
6. About the new system of checking out JA library books?
7. Which hero talk they enjoyed the most this week?
8. About how much fun the Elf Quote-Along was?

Elf Quote-Along was a big hit!