Games and Transformational Play

Gaming Culture and Transformational Play

Principles of transformational play transcend a single medium, but they historically emerge out of educational games. This is due in part to the affordances and culture of video games as a countercultural medium to educational institutions’ typical approaches to formal learning. Whereas institutions often provide learning experiences that are prescriptive and contextually disconnected, popular gaming culture emphasizes experiences that are contextually rich and empowering by giving players opportunities to explore, act, interact, and grow within environments and communities where they take active and meaningful roles. Playing games is a popular activity among target learners across the spectrum, and transformational play provides a framework for creating learning experiences that utilize the power of game media to achieve desired educational goals.

In vernacular, the term game is used to refer to a wide variety of electronic media, including puzzles, platformers, sandboxes, simulations, graphic novels, and role-plays, and game theorists do not agree on the definition of the word or what constitutes a game’s essential elements. However, there are at least three common elements existing across many genres and types of games that are important for transformational play: narrative, player agency, and goals.

Narrative is essential in transformational play to establish the objectives for the game experience (e.g., solving a dilemma) and for providing the learner with ongoing and meaningful feedback about progress (e.g., progression through the narrative allows the learner to understand consequences of decisions). Many popular game genres like puzzles and casual games [Page 303]readily disregard narrative as a non-essential component, because excessive storyline can interfere with gameplay (e.g., a simple puzzle does not require an elaborate backstory). Other genres, however, like action-adventure and role-playing games heavily utilize narrative to immerse the player in the environment and gameplay experience. Games that employ transformational play utilize narrative as a mechanism for player progression and feedback.

...