You Can a Learn a lot by just Watching

This week I was able to watch both students and staff play my almost complete, first section of Lil Red. So here is what I have learnt;

“We would never bother writing text abbreviations in capitals. It’s a waste of time using the ‘CAPS LOCK’ button.” (student)

So ‘BTW’ (by the way) for example is now just written as ‘btw.’ I at least thought my use of abbreviations might present a conversation opportunity with the student reviewer, but no. The abbreviations were read as part of the text. No even a moments notice was given to their use.

It was not uncommon for the students to not bother reading the descriptions and just search around the hyperlinks. Therefore, if the focus is reading, more clues and inferences need to be written into the descriptions. If the focus is thinking and problem solving, then perhaps reduce the description and add more objects and interactions.

Students were also more likely to read following a decision or click, or whenever text appeared unexpectedly. For example, if they ‘looked at’ an object they almost always read the text. Whereas moving through rooms student often ignored the expected display text. All the students read the surprise ‘mobile phone’ message that unexpectedly ‘appeared’ as a result of a timer, right in the middle of game play. Maybe a tool to use more often?

Having created, what I thought were ‘easy’ problems, the students (and staff) were still very proud of themselves when they completed a problem. I still need to consider and discuss the most engaging balance of puzzle difficulty and ‘win’ value.

Another observation is when players ‘found’ objects they seemed generally pleased. As hiding objects is very easy (a simple tick in the hide children until object is looked at box) I would recommend using this option rather than merely writing the objects into the room descriptions. So that’s a positive. Keep it simple, and keep it coming. Another option is to move objects into and between rooms. Always interesting.

Despite having reading the introduction and room description many times, there were still minor continuity queries. The more time I write LiL Red and work with IF, the more I realise how challenging it is to maintain numerous threads.

The levelling up was probably the best received feature. This week I added the ‘achievement’ or level descriptor as a player attribute or status display (I think that will provide a handy assessment tool for both teachers and students) and icons. The next step is to work out a way for students to be able to display all there achievement badges as a command. That is my next task to discuss with Quest developer Alex Warren. In the meantime, and now that section one is 95% complete, it is out and onto the High Street.

I was also buoyed by a handful of fellows professionals tweeting and promoting IF and Quest. Go on, play, read, create and share.

Thanks for all your professional support and interest Nick Jackson @largerama, David Mitchell @DeputyMitchell and Jon Bridgeman @Gripweed1. Finally, please support both Alan O’Donohoe @teknoteacher and Chris Leach @chrisleach78 in their efforts to discuss and prompt all guises of ICT, IT and Computing (and any areas overlooked).

[qr_code_display]