What makes things fun to learn? heuristics for designing instructional computer games

TLDR

The paper builds on Malone’s theory of game design, focusing on what makes educational computer games enjoyable rather than their instructional value. The author aims to outline heuristics that guide designers of instructional computer games toward creating enjoyable experiences. The author demonstrates the principles through applications to existing and proposed instructional games. The paper presents a structured set of common‑sense principles intended to inspire instructional designers.

Abstract

In this paper, I will describe my intuitions about what makes computer games fun. More detailed descriptions of the experiments and the theory on which this paper is based are given by Malone (1980a, 1980b). My primary goal here is to provide a set of heuristics or guidelines for designers of instructional computer games. I have articulated and organized common sense principles to spark the creativity of instructional designers (see Banet, 1979, for an unstructured list of similar principles). To demonstrate the usefulness of these principles, I have included several applications to actual or proposed instructional games. Throughout the paper I emphasize games with educational uses, but I focus on what makes the games fun, not on what makes them educational.