EDUC 6814 Gardens of Time Blog # 1

Creating an Embodied Empathy for a Complex System:  Gardens of Time is an adventure game that allows the player to establish a character that must figure out the rules, set and reach goals, and use critical thinking skills to achieve the scores necessary to advance to the next level.

Action and Goal Directed Preparations for, and Simulations of, Embodied Experience: Gardens of Time allows the player to take action to plan and construct a garden with various structures, plants, etc… Since I’ve experienced walking through gardens, landscaping at home, and playing similar games in the past, I’m able to use this skill to construct a garden and plan to earn points in the game to obtain new landscape features.  I understand that to successfully complete my garden, I need to build my reputation in the game by adding neighbors, and scoring points to expand my garden.

Distributed Intelligence via the Creation of Smart tools:  The Gardens of Time virtual characters, such as LuLu is a guide (smart tool) that leads the way for the real-world players.  Visiting LuLu’s garden and clicking on her character allows LuLu to display text to guide the real-world player in understanding the rules of the game.

Cross-Functional Affiliation:  The players in Garden of Time are “neighbors” working together, sharing gifts, hints, visiting gardens and helping players in “trouble”.  This type of integrating and sharing is working as a team around the same goal.  Networking in this way, allows players to understand that if you share, then you will probably receive something in return.  So, in this particular game you aren’t creating barriers, but opening your “garden” to everyone.

Open-Ended:  Goals and Projects that Meld the Personal and Social: As a character in Gardens of Time, you decide what you want to accomplish based on your desires.  For example, garden landscaping, how many stars you want achieve, what you want to buy or sell, number of gifts you’d like to send, and the number of neighbors you desire.  Also, you have the choice to move up to certain levels with actually achieving all the stars, so as the player, it’s your desire whether to keep playing a level or move on when it is available.  I feel ownership of the game, due to establishing my identity in the game and participating.  

Since beginning this game and trying to correlate good learning principles to gaming, I’ve realized that the more I think about and apply these principles in each and every game I play, I will be more adept in identifying games for good learning.