Juicy Motivations?

Another of the talks I attented at dConstruct (see below) was Robin Hunicke speaking about "Loving Your Player with Juicy Feedback".

The first thing I learned from Robin, which of course I should have known, is why Monopoly gets boring so fast (when you figure out you can't win), and how you can fix it (by finding ways to level the playing field or change the rules so you still have a chance). I will make some changes to my own game - "The Never Ending Uni Quiz" (see futher below!) next week, as I'm fully aware that once a few people have very high scores, there's much less motivation for new players as they can't hope to climb to the top within their lifetime!

This issue of motivation for players is something my games-related colleagues and I spend a lot of time discussing. In a recent paper we concluded:

One observation that can be made ...is that creating a motivating, engaging game may be less about providing a range of motivating factors (although this is still important) and more about ensuring that there is a clear rationale for students to engage with the game (be it intrinsic or extrinsic) plus - crucially - a lack of demotivating elements.

In Robin's talk she broke games into 3 parts - The Mechanics (how it works, platform etc), The Dynamics (the playing of the game itself, points) and Aesthetics (what the player feels, how they respond). She talked a lot about how to ensure you got the emotional response from the player you wanted you had to design it in from the Mechanics stage up. She went on to recognise a fourth aspect of games - which she calls "juicy feedback" (in web terms a "sticky" site). This is the magic part where you really connect with a player and get real happy emotions out of them. (She suggests we play "Flower" a kind of zen console game to experience this).

Now I think "juicy feedback" is very closely linked with the motivation I mentioned above. How do we make them really LOVE it. I'll need to do some reading (this is her PhD topic) to fully grasp all this, but if I can combine some juicy feedback into educational games then fully engaged students having fun would seem a possible and desirable future.