Integrating Gaming Elements into Simulations

I took this course (Educational Games and Simulations) primarily for the “simulation” component. I had a great deal of interest in developing and creating medical simulations but little (or no?) interest in true gaming. I have played sports for much of my life but have never been much of a gamer. The one game I do currently play is Wii Fit which brings gaming into my workout so I don’t have to feel guilty about the time spent. Chapter 8 in Digital Game-Based Learning talks about the relationship of games and simulations. Simulations are not games because they do not have all of the required elements of rules, goals and objectives, outcomes and feedback, conflict/competition/challenge/opposition, interaction, and a story (p. 119). The problem with simulations is that they can quickly become boring once the novelty has worn off. If I am going to create engaging simulations I will need to integrate aspects of gaming into these simulations.

I was chatting yesterday with one of my older colleagues about what I was doing in class. He mentioned a game he used to play called Life and Death and talked about how much he enjoyed this game and wished that he still had the equipment to play it on. As I was reading today I found the same game mentioned in Prensky (p. 215). Prensky mentions that Life and Death is the game that got him into the field of gaming. The game takes place in a hospital and you are the doctor. You start the game by conducting history and examinations on patients with various symptoms. You have to perform the correct procedures and ask the right questions to arrive at a diagnosis. When you finally get a diagnosis of appendicitis you get to go to the operating room. If you miss a step such as scrubbing up you kill your patient and get sent to medical school (a tutorial) to learn what went wrong. I think that this is the type of activity that I need to bring into any simulations that I create. I could set up a similar learning activity related to chiropractic rather than an operating room. Students would have to follow the same history and examination steps mentioned above and if they got the diagnosis correct, they are then allowed to adjust the patient (rather than operate). If they then perform the adjustment correctly, they get the positive reinforcement of the cracking sound of joint cavitation, a smile and sigh of relief from the patient, and money ($$$chingchingching) builds up in their bank account. If they do it wrong, the patient walks out the door and they are sent back to chiropractic school. This would add most or all of the required elements of gaming to what could have been a boring simulation. My only concern is actually being able to create such a game by myself. Much of Prensky’s book talks about the teams of people required creating a new video game and I do not have the luxury of working in such a team.

Learn more about Life and Death at this link: http://www.classic-pc-games.com/pc/simulations/life_and_death.html