I am in the midst of playing several time management games and one thing they have in common is that they don’t come with any help files.  Unlike the board games I played as a kid, there are no directions printed on the lid. In her book Reality is Broken, Jane McGonigal points out that this is the big difference between digital and predigital games:

Many, if not most, computer and video games today are structured this way. Players begin each game by tackling the obstacle of not knowing what to do and not knowing how to play. This kind of ambiguous play is markedly different from historical, predigital games. Traditionally, we have needed instructions in order to play a game. But now we’re often invited to learn as we go. We explore the game space, and the computer code effectively constrains and guides us. We learn how to play by carefully observing what the game allows us to do and how it responds to our input. As a result, most gamers never read game manuals. In fact, it’s a truism in the game industry that a well-designed game should be playable immediately, with no instruction whatsoever.

This observation resonated with me and reminded me of an experience I had with a group of non-gamers in graduate school.  I was charged with showing a group of educators a simulation, and I chose Food Force, a game developed by the World Food Programme.  I gave them the overview of the game, showed them how the various virtual aid workers would guide them and then let them go.

The biggest complaint at the end was that I did not give them enough information and background in order to play the game.  Essentially, they wanted me to take them through each section of the game and show them how to be successful before they ever started.  Learning as they went meant that they often “failed” and this was not something that doctoral students liked doing.  The mind set was that you either did it right the first time or you were a failure and I couldn’t help wondering how that translated into the way they worked with their students in their classrooms.

Learning as you go and learning as you fail are part of the lessons of digital games and I wonder how those lessons play out in the game of life?  Are gamers more observant in the real world?  Are they better able to navigate an unfamiliar landscape?