Developed by biotech company Genentech, Ralph’s Killer Muenster is an iPad game that sends players on a mission to restore a killer cheese to its edible form. Puzzles challenge players to reconstruct phylogenetic (evolutionary) trees, making the science of genetics more accessible to a young audience.

In addition to the game, a whole site dedicated to the fictional cheese monger was created to give more of the backstory behind the game. Even a food truck serving grilled muenster sandwiches can be seen on the streets of San Francisco.

If you’ve ever used a stamp card at a coffee shop (buy 10 and get one free) or gone through the LinkedIn registration process, you’ve been part of the gamification movement. People are just starting to discover the vast potential of gamification in changing human behavior, so many exciting things are happening in this field.

If you’re interested in learning more, Coursera is offering a FREE online course on gamification, taught by Prof. Kevin Werbach from the Wharton School at my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. Over 70,000 people have already registered, myself included. You have until Sept. 9th to register, so get on it! (Coursera also has tons of other free online courses, so check them out if you get a chance!)

Called the Hogwarts of the real world, Quest is creating an environment that actually gets students excited about learning. Who wouldn’t want a science class called “The Way Things Work,” a math class called “Codeworlds,” and “boss level” exams? Pretty exciting stuff, to say the least. Quest is definitely a school to keep an eye on in the coming years. Here’s a great article about recent goings-on at Quest.

Source: Frugal Dad

Just fire up the Zoopnium app, put your device in your pocket, and get moving. Every step you take helps you collect Zoopnium. Collect enough, and you can create your own custom Zoops and even trade them with friends. Try it out now!

UPDATE: Zoopnium is now one of the top ten kids’ games in Canada with thousands of downloads and playthroughs. What are you waiting for? Download it, play it, rate it.

What many fail to realize is that game design is in the details. After the overall concept is nailed down and a prototype has been hammered out, the game designer spends countless hours fine tuning a game, making sure that every action, level, and challenge feels good and increases the amount of fun in the game.

When the topic of gameplay tuning comes up, many people say that it comes down to a feeling you get when you play the game. When the feeling is right, the game is well balanced. And I agree, to a certain degree. While a big part of tuning is intangible and abstract, there are definite advantages in tying those abstractions to concrete measures. Here’s how.

Set Specific Goals

The most important part of tuning is to create a goal. Often, you can change a game so drastically through tuning that it can cater to completely different audiences. Thus, you must first decide on your target market and target experience. Is this a hardcore shooter for 20-year-old guys? A mind-bending puzzle game for tween girls? A social game for middle-aged folks?

Setting a specific goal will help guide your tuning. As you tune, put yourself in the shoes of your target audience and see if the game has the targeted effect on you. Should the game put you on the edge of your seat? Allow you to play mindlessly? Continue over multiple days? By figuring out the intended effect of your game on the player, you’ll have a better idea of when the game has been balanced to create those effects.

Measure Your Goals

After setting specific goals, figure out ways to measure those goals concretely through tuning. If the game is intended to be played in spurts by a casual market, time each play-through. How many games could you play during your bus ride home?

Create spreadsheets to track your numbers, notes, and observations. As much as possible, think like your target player. What type of experience would they want? Where would they play your game? How would they play? The answers to these questions should guide your tuning.

Playtest

Once you think the game is fairly well balanced, have people within your target market play the game. Watch them play, and use the same measures you used when tuning to gauge whether the game is having the intended effect on them.

Since September of last year, Digido and ESG have occupied a common office space, so I’ve had plenty of opportunities to eavesdrop on ESG meetings and grab coffees with ESG folks. My desk literally moved about 20 feet over.

But even given all that, a first day is still a first day. And all first days are long. I remember my first day of teaching like it was yesterday. I was so busy trying to keep up with 20+ kids and simultaneously trying to teach them a thing or two that I lost over a dozen pens. I would put a pen down, then have no recollection of where it could be.

By 10am, my voice was hoarse, my feet were sore, and I was planning a career change. When the end of that first day finally came, I spent the rest of the evening prepping for day two. Talk about a trial by fire.

Thankfully, my first day at ESG was much less painful. Right away, I was given responsibility, creative freedom, and support. And now, at the end of my second day, I’m happy to report that this transition has gone quite smoothly so far. And I still have all the pens I started with.

Psychology is a major component of building intuitive interfaces. When we interact with a new interface, we bring with us cognitive baggage – all our previous cultural knowledge and expectations about how the interface should work.

When we see something that looks like a button, we expect to be able to press it to instigate an action. However, if that image turns out to be unclickable, or if the action that follows is unexpected, we’re taken aback.

In game design, this can sometimes be a good thing. After all, in order to create innovative products, you have to change users’ preconceived notions and expectations. However, if the experience is so foreign that it becomes frustrating, this can easily turn a user away.

One of the best ways to find the hiccups in your interface design is to watch users try it out. They will naturally bring their cognitive baggage to the product, and if they’re able to use your product without having to focus on the interface, you’re well on your way to a solid design.

Interested? Here are a couple of additional resources:

The Design of Everyday Things

Intuition, Expectations and Culture: Learning from Psychology to Build Better Game Interfaces