Time:
- Prepare: 10-20 min
- Implementation: 30 min
Type(s) of Essential(s):
Social & Emotional Growth
Critical Review
Prerequisite:
Overview
Learners play and evaluate games based on categories used by game developers.
Essentials in this Activity
Learners become familiar with language and terminology used by game designers to discuss, analyze, and evaluate games. Learners deconstruct games by analyzing specific features of the game and connecting those features to the games’ goals, audience, and overall experience. The categories for this activity provides learners with an entry point of critically evaluating games and asking questions about a game and the designer’s choices. This activity provides learners with foundational knowledge that will be instrumental as they play games and build their own game review criteria. By becoming familiar with terminology and categories used to evaluate games and the process of using a criteria to assess games, learners engage in responsible decision-making and enhance their social awareness by taking the perspectives of game designers.
Goals and Outcomes
Goal: Learners acquire game design vocabulary, identify categories they apply when reviewing games, and enhance their critical media review skills.
Outcomes: Learners enhance their knowledge and skills of reviewing games and forms of digital media and can articulate their evaluations to an audience.
Materials
Game Evaluation sheet or create their own; Optional: presentation software and digital tool
Preparation
Prerequisite: Complete prerequisites
Duplicates of Game Evaluation sheet (enough for each learner)
Implementation and Completion
After completing Guided Gameplay of Serious Games, inform learners game designers talk about and evaluate the games they play. This means game developers play many games, think about gameplay, identify what they liked and not liked, and recommend game changes. Tell learners they will evaluate a game based on a set of questions that developers may use when reviewing games.
Recommend learners choose a game from the Guided Gameplay of Serious Games activity. Learners will take at least 20 minutes or longer to evaluate a game and share their review. Learners can use presentation software to capture their review. Encourage them to play the game as they evaluate it because it may make answering questions in the categories easier.
After the learners have evaluated the game(s), have them present their review to the group. They can present their review in different ways: post reviews on an online tool like Padlet, presentation software, reading their completed game review sheets, etc.