Design heuristics
The heuristics have been organized along five dimensions:
- Game general design, which refers to issues related to the overall game design process.
- Control / Flexibility, which is a basic dimension of system usability, that with respect to the games considered in this paper, also refers to helping players to be aware of the effects of their choices on the game execution.
- Engagement, which informs on how to provide an experience that captivates the players, by providing hints on how to structure the game, which tools to adopt, etc.
- Educational Aspects, which informs on interweaving of learning content into the game context, so that the game can have a valid learning influence on the players,
- Social Aspects, which concerns the interaction among the players, role allocation etc. (the underlying assumption is that social activity, e.g. competition, can act as a motivational factor).
Download the design heuristics as a handy 2-page pdf file.
The last column contains links to related design patterns.
| Dimension | Heuristic | linked to pattern | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Game general design | ||
| 1.1 | Exploit metaphors from real-life games, activities, stories | Based on videogames Based on street games Based on performance | |
| 1.2 | Minimize the changes to the physical places (e.g. modifications to the physical structure, installation of special equipment like projectors, big displays, etc.) | ||
| 1.3 | Create a multidisciplinary design team (including e.g. HCI, cultural heritage, educational experts) | ||
| 1.4 | Perform formative evaluations and pilot studies to check if tasks’ difficulty is appropriate for the intended players | Target group | |
| 1.5 | Consider the social conventions of the place (e.g. not laughing in a church) | ||
| 1.6 | Consider to extend the game experience beyond the game session (e.g. participating in a web community) | ||
| 1.7 | Consider to include activities/events that are not part of the game, but happen in the real world (e.g. the ceremony of change of the guard at noon) | ||
| 1.8 | Consider to include a game master (e.g. tutor, supervisor, coordinator) and her role: e.g. enforcing the rules, narrating the story | Narrative Coordinator / game master | |
| 2. | Control / Flexibility | ||
| 2.1 | Let players become familiar with the equipment and the game rules/structure (e.g. by including an introductory phase) | Help and support Balance challenge and available options | |
| 2.2 | Facilitate game learnability (i.e. tasks, rules, constraints, etc. should be easy to understand and to learn) | Help and support | |
| 2.3 | Player should be free to switch between different tasks | Interactinng with the digital world | |
| 2.4 | Reflect on whether to allow players to correct their mistakes: it could be useful to force them to evaluate the consequences of their actions | Interactinng with the digital world | |
| 2.5 | Provide help or hint mechanisms to assist players | Help and support | |
| 2.6 | Consider to provide increasing difficulty levels (either automatic adaptation or human-generated adaptation) | ||
| 2.7 | Prevent rule breaking by either discouraging it (e.g. with penalties) or by incorporating cheating into the game | Rewards / penalties | |
| 2.8 | Make clear the game goals (e.g. earning points, completing tasks, being the winner) | Player goals Ending condition | |
| 2.9 | Make clear the game ending condition/s (e.g. maximum time, target score, end of resources, …) | Competing for limited resources Score Against time Ending condition | |
| 2.10 | Consider to provide alternative ways for performing a task or completing the game | Actions influence narrative | |
| 2.11 | Make clear the goal of each task and its effects on the overall game | Interactinng with the digital world Player goals | |
| 2.12 | Provide immediate feedback about task execution showing its impact on the overall game | Interactinng with the digital world | |
| 3. | Engagement | ||
| 3.1 | Consider to integrate a back-story that is at the basis of game tasks | Narrative flow Narrative Climax Non-player character - NPC | |
| 3.2 | Consider to exploit role-playing (i.e. impersonating a character) to meaningfully link tasks to the back-story (if any) | Player differentiation Narrative | |
| 3.3 | Provide contextual cues linked to specific places or events to convey additional information (e.g. sounds reproducing noises of daily activities in an ancient city) | ||
| 3.4 | Consider to allow players to interfere with competitors (e.g. stealing points, sabotaging, bluffing etc.) | Competition Stealing Bluffing Sabotaging Obstructing Strategy | |
| 3.5 | Let players practice different skills by including in the game a variety of tasks, such as: perform a quest, identify/visit certain locations, shoot a picture from a specific angle, videotape a route, search for a certain object, perform a certain action/gesture, search/identify a physical mark, answer a question, collect and classify a material | Primitive actions Puzzle Against time Locate and/or identify an object Exploring Dexterity Path finding Hot-cold Stealing Transporting Bluffing Sabotaging Collecting Co-locality Economic transactions Combining Obstructing Interacting with the physical world Immersion | |
| 3.6 | Minimize the interaction with the game tools. Players' attention should be focused on the game and the environment instead | Interactinng with the digital world Interacting with the physical world Equipment Tools Immersion | |
| 3.7 | Tune the level of awareness of other players' activities (hide/provide/delay information, e.g. showing the score and the progress of competitors) | Competing for limited resources Competition Information awareness Fog of war Score Common space Ending condition | |
| 3.8 | Consider to include rewards in order to improve players' motivation/satisfaction (e.g. providing multimedia information as a prize for a successful task); integrate rewards tightly with the game tasks and back-story; consider when to provide the rewards to the players (during/after the game) | Narrative flow Narrative Actions influence narrative Rewards / penalties Motivation Target group | |
| 4. | Educational aspects | ||
| 4.1 | Consider to include a pre-game activity to prepare players (e.g. some lessons in classroom explaining the historical context in which the game is set) | Target group Interacting with the physical world Spatial structure Temporal structure Learning trajectories | |
| 4.2 | Game should emphasize either vertical or horizontal exploration of a place/topic, i.e., deeply exploring a limited space (or few objects or a specific topic) vs. more superficially exploring a broad space (or many objects or several topics) | Learning trajectories | |
| 4.3 | Tasks should require players to link areas, locations, physical objects to concepts, topics, etc. | Learning trajectories | |
| 4.4 | Balance between competition and knowledge acquisition. Too much competition may have a negative impact on knowledge acquisition | Balance cooperation and competition Competition Cooperation Learning trajectories | |
| 4.5 | Include a debriefing phase after the game to allow players to reflect on the game experience. Design it as an individual/collaborative game/activity that supports players to clarify and consolidate the game experience | Cooperation Temporal structure Learning trajectories | |
| 5. | Social aspects | ||
| 5.1 | Team players (if any) should be selected based on players’ social relations (e.g. friends to maximize collaboration) or according to their skills. Involve in this process a person that knows them very well (e.g. a teacher) | Competition Player differentiation Team forming Target group Coordinator / game master | |
| 5.2 | Assign responsibilities and tools (e.g. mobile devices, maps, etc.) among team members to induce collaboration. Consider to force, forbid or allow responsibilities exchange among team members | Player differentiation Cooperation Equipment Tools Strategy | |
| 5.3 | Consider to permit, force or neglect the competition among players/teams | Balance cooperation and competition Competition Cooperation Competing for limited resources | |