by
Suzanne
Bacon,
Robert
Faust,
Mike
Guerena,
and Dan
McDowell
Competing Products | Motivational Issues | Design Process | References The immigrant experience has defined the United States of America. Over the last hundred years, people have been drawn to the shores of America by the American Dream, a chance to start over and to build a new life. However, that experience has been far from ideal. Whether it was 1850, 1900, or 1970 immigrants faced uncertain, unexpected, and sometimes treacherous situations that defied that dream of America and threatened their very survival. This game will allow the player to literally walk a mile in the shoes of an immigrant in 1908. He will have to make that decision to immigrate, take the voyage, go through the process of entering the country, look for a job, find a place to live, and avoid succumbing to the con men and scam artists looking for easy prey. Will the player relive the tumultuous life of Jurgis Rudkus in The Jungle or make his fortune like Andrew Carnegie or simply fall through the cracks of the American Dream and become yet another victim of capitalism run amuck? The
objective of this game is to allow children and adults to
understand and empathize with the struggle that immigrants
from any country face when they arrive in the United States.
This is a concept that extends to many situations in
which it is helpful to understand another person's point of
view, such as accepting differences between different
cultures and races. It will also help students understand
how the great "melting pot" or the modern "tossed salad"
came to be. As immigration to the United States still
takes place today with groups that are sometimes
misunderstood, it is vital that students of all ages develop
compassion for immigrants and an appreciation for what they
bring to the U.S. and the challenges they face. Grade 5 This game
is designed for learners starting in grade 5 up through
adults. It can either be used in a classroom setting, as
part of a curriculum, or by lifelong learners who are
seeking a way to really understand the immigrant
experience. Schools The game will follow the life of Marcelo Mombello, an immigrant from Southern Italy. Aspects of everyday life will be the main content of the game. The life of the immigrant will include the passage across the ocean, gaining entry to the country (i.e. Ellis Island), finding work and lodging, taking care of their family, and completing a series of tasks related to survival in the United States. Full play of the game would take about 10-15 hours, although there will be an option for schools to play a shorter game. The length of the game includes multiple delayed response decision points where the player cannot make a choice until at least one hour has passed. The basic goal of the game is survival. However, to win the game, you will have to bring over Marcelo's family from Italy and save enough money to buy a nice house in the suburbs. In order to save enough money you will need to work your way in your chosen job. TreeSim Engine Design This game will use the Treesim Engine (to be authored by Bernie). The basic concept of this engine is that through a sequence of decisions, the player will face appropriate consequences and the direction of the game will change with those consequences. What makes this approach unique is that it will be done in an online database. Some of the specific characteristics of this game type include
Based upon the decisions made the player, the database will place the next logical set of information in the page template depicted below. Player Interface The web-based player interface will lead the player through the game. While there will be instances when the player temporarily leaves the interface to examine specific web resources, all play will take place through the Simmigration interface. 
Specific Elements The game is divided into four major acts. Within each act there are multiple decision points. There are two types of decision points, delayed decisions and immediate decisions.
A more specific and detailed Inspiration diagram has been created to show the many different decisions that will be faced by the player.
Cast of Characters Marcelo Mombello - age 20; native of Reggio Calabria in southern Italy; a man who has labored at a number of jobs, but has no true trade. Technical Elements Development Software
Platform
Resolution, Graphics, and Color
File formats
Naming Convention
Data structure
Simmigration is a game that is a cross between a simulation and a branching story. It is the story of a young Italian man trying to succeed in America. What would make someone want to play this game? Perhaps the greatest motivator in this game is simple curiosity. Most people playing the game, especially elementary school children, have very little direct knowledge of life in the early 1900's. Many questions that can arouse curiosity are inherent in the premise of the game. For example, what was life like in the 1900's? How did someone who spoke no English and had very little money survive? What did it feel like to be an immigrant coming to a strange new land? Through the playing of this game, players will have a chance to satisfy some of this curiosity. Curiosity is a powerful motivator, as Malone and Lepper (1987) noted: "In a sense, curiosity is the most direct intrinsic motivation for learning" (p.235). They classify curiosity into two categories: sensory and cognitive curiosity. Simmigration evokes both types. The photographs of real-life situations from the 1900's, from an immigrant's living quarters to a simple city street, are very intriguing and appeal to one's sensory curiosity. Malone and Lepper describe cognitive curiosity as when a person realizes the lack of knowledge he or she has about a situation, and his or her desire to close that gap. There are many situations in Simmigration where a player will not know the best course of action, because it takes place in a different time. For example, the players will have to determine the best type of employment for their immigrant. Which jobs were the safest and most secure? Players can only discover this through exploration of both the game and the websites cited. A sort of fantasy world is created within Simmigration from the differences in life 100 years ago. Fantasies can be powerful motivators, according to Malone and Lepper (1987). In particular, an endogenous fantasy, or one that closely integrates the content and skill, is very effective in motivation. Endogenous fantasies can also be analogies for transferring learning of skills to similar situations. For example, the player may, in the future, research the options before making a real-life decision, such as is done in Simmigration. Rieber (1996) states that one advantage of an endogenous fantasy is that if the learner is engaged in the fantasy, this interest will be transferred to the content. Within the fantasy category, Malone and Lepper note that there are emotional and identification fantasies. In Simmigration, from the beginning of the story, the player identifies him or herself directly with Marcelo, not only from the point of view, but also because of the characteristic of the game itself. Marcelo is coming to a new country, where he doesn't speak the language. He doesn't know the exact rules of his new world. Many players have been in similar situations, although perhaps to a lesser degree. For example, a student might identify with Marcelo's fear and uncertainty because of his or her own experiences with a new situation, such as going to a new school. Students can experience this fantasy that in real life would be very scary but from a safe place. As the player progresses in the game, he or she will most likely begin to feel for Marcelo and care about what happens to him. If Marcelo succeeds in bringing over his wife and children, the player will then be perhaps emotionally attached to Marcelo and his family. If the player makes the wrong decisions regarding the welfare of his family, some of them may die. This is a risk that can intensify the emotional attachment. Malone and Lepper find that using fantasies that players feel very involved in may encourage better retention of the material. Existing in this fantasy world can lead to a state of flow. Chikszentmihalyi (1990) describes flow as an intense mental state in which a person becomes very absorbed in what he or she is doing. People are motivated to achieve this state of flow, perhaps at an unconscious level, because it is so enjoyable. Chikszentmihalyi describes some very specific aspects that are necessary to obtain the flow state. One of them is the right amount of challenge. If something is too easy, a player can become bored, while if it is too challenging, the player can become discouraged. In Simmigration, the level of challenge is high, unless the player is a historian of the early 1900's. This being said, the challenge is not impossible. Players are given choices of what actions they can take. They are not completely without direction. Chikszentmihalyi also says that flow activities often have this in common:"[they provide] a sense of discovery, a creative feeling of transporting the person into a new reality" (p.74). If the player is absorbed in the game, he or she will be transported, in a sense, to a different time, a different reality. Chikszentmihalyi notes another important aspect to the design of activity that will encourage or facilitate flow. "They have rules that require the learning of skills, they set up goals, they provide feedback, they make control possible. They facilitate concentration and involvement by making the activity as distinct as possible from the so-called "paramount reality" of everyday existence" (p.72). This leads to another very motivating factor of Simmigration: goals. Malone and Lepper (1987) found that school children preferred games with explicit goals. Simmigration has several different levels of goals. The long-term goal is for Marcelo to bring his family to New York, to provide for them, and to eventually buy a house for them. However, to reach this goal, the player must first achieve a number of smaller goals such as feeding Marcelo, finding him employment, and keeping him healthy. Thus even if the player is unable to achieve the long-term goal, they can be satisfied with obtaining other goals. Malone and Lepper note that in order for the goal to be motivating it must not be certain that the player can achieve it, otherwise known as an "uncertain outcome." This can be achieved in the game through keeping certain information hidden from the player and through random events of life that can occur throughout the game. This uncertainty adds to the challenge of the game. While playing the game, the player will know how close he or she is to achieving a goal through the feedback. This feedback will be given either directly on the screen, on the status bar (such as how much money Marcelo has) and indirectly through the consequences of the choices made. Malone and Lepper say that in order to be motivating, performance feedback must be frequent, clear, constructive, and encouraging. This is accomplished by the very design of Simmigration. There is one optimal path for Marcelo. Rarely does a player stray so far from this path that he or she cannot find the way back. In most cases, a bad decision can be compensated for in consequent decisions. It is the designers' hope that the factors inherent to Simmigration such as curiosity, challenge, fantasy, flow, clear goals, and feedback will motivate players to navigate Marcelo through his adventure, and that, should they fail at first, they will persevere until they succeed. Once the group decided that we wanted to do a game dealing with immigration, we were immediately pulled in the direction of a simulation. Perhaps the most difficult idea to convey when teaching about immigration is some empathy for the magnitude of the experience. Immigrants left behind home, family, and culture to go to an entirely new world. We wanted in some way to capture the experience of immigration - how sometimes simple choices could take an immigrant family down a path that would have an impact on their family for generations. Our first design concept involved using a first-person EverQuest-like game where the player would control the movement and decisions of the character as he interacted in the virtual world. While this concept was being pondered, Dr. Dodge encouraged us to consider using a game structure he is developing called TreeSim. TreeSim is a database-driven, branched decision tree that offers the players the opportunity to make choices to guide their path through the simulation. They would be offered links to web sites that would help them with the decision process or to provide hindsight on a particular decision. The consequences of their decisions might take them through a winding path to the ultimate goal - a home in the suburbs. Once the TreeSim concept was adopted, we broke the immigration process into logical segments: 1) preparations to leave the homeland, 2) the voyage over and Ellis Island, and 3) establishing a life (lodging and employment) in America. A Backflip shared folder was established for members to share pertinent web resources. A Yahoo! group was set up to allow the sharing of files and to streamline electronic communication. Group members began the process by researching their portion of the immigrant journey through web and print resources. Then, using Inspiration, the optimal path was laid out. Alternate paths were added to offer variety and to allow players to experience some of the pitfalls of life as an Italian immigrant in America. Members posted Inspiration flowcharts of their portion of the game path to the group site for feedback from other group members. It was decided that it would be important to keep track of factors such as money and health as essential elements of the simulation and also as a means of comparing levels of success in the game. It was felt that sub-games (such as found in The Oregon Trail) would be a useful motivational tool to build into the game. Because of the nature of the TreeSim engine, sub-games were not considered for this initial design. One observation shared by most of the group members was how quickly the branching decision tree could become complicated. Several possibilities for scenarios were ignored in this design due to this complexity. Another challenge we faced was how to deal with different levels of decisions. Some decisions, like "Taxi, sir?" require instantaneous responses, while other decisions like whether to accept a job offer may take longer time periods. The TreeSim engine would account for passage of time by requiring an extended pause in the game. Players would have time to research an issue, and then make an informed decision after the imposed pause was over. This would prevent players from racing through the game by choosing options in an attempt to find the optimal path quickly. Since the TreeSim engine was not yet available, no playable prototype of Simmigration was developed. Playability was simulated by following the flowchart. A number of lessons were learned in the design of Simmigration. One lesson was the importance of a clear definition of the content and objectives to build into the simulation. Without these constraints, the game design can expand without limit. We also gained an appreciation for the complexity of the task of designing an e-game. The technology used to deliver the game content is meaningless if there is not a well thought out and elegantly designed game to be delivered. Having walked a few hundred yards in the moccasins of a game designer, we can testify that it is a much more difficult task that it appears to be at first glance. However, with organization, planning, and a creative idea even grad students can flesh out a worthy e-game. Books & Journals
Electronic
Last updated December 17, 2001 |
