It's certainly an interesting challenge to write a blog post describing a game that would educate and communicate what this blog is about. It would be similar to writing a book explaining how to read a book, which has been done, quite well.
The first idea that comes to mind is something along the lines of a tutorial. A variety of games are displayed allowing the user to play each one for a short amount of time. Then the screen would change and it would explain what the game was about, why you played it, where it came from etc… The games would be of all kinds and subject matter giving a broad scope of the field. The end of the game there might be some kind of quiz or challenge that the user would have to complete to show that they understand the material. Blah, blah boring same old same old that educational video game companies have been making time after time.
My next genius idea (all my ideas are genius ideas, some just better than others) is to make an RPG (role- playing- game for all the noobs). You would be able to design your own avatar, much like in second life and others, and then take an assessment test. This assessment would be a series of brain games designed to test your level "brain abilities" in a variety of different subjects, memory, attention, information processing, etc… Once the assessment was complete you would begin your travels as an adventures young hero traveling the virtual world discovering new places and events. Along the way you would find characters and tasks (quests for the nerds) that would allow you to play more brain games and increase your skill points. As you increased your skill points there would be opportunity to gain levels at which point new and exciting adventures would be unlocked.
The world would be divided up into different lands each focusing on a different measure of brain activity. In each world the tasks presented would be focused on increasing some measure of cognitive control. As you completed the tasks and talked to the characters of the land you would learn more about that particular field of brain training. For example, in the land of memory you would have to do tasks related to increasing your ability to remember items. You would also learn about such cognitive ideas like short and long term memory.
The end of the game would be a culmination of all the different tasks where you would have to defeat the leader of the evil doers who has plagued the land long enough. You would have to defeat him by playing another assessment where your skills would again be tested. Hopefully, the game will then show you how much you have improved during your days of training and you can rest soundly knowing that the virtual world can live in peace.
The RPG version of communicating brain training would have several advantages over the classically duplicated tutorial version. One, it would be fun. There would be plenty to do, you would have the freedom to do it in the manner you wanted, and there would be plenty of rewards to keep you interested. Two, It gives the opportunity for the user to see firsthand how brain training games are supposed to work. Shall we say, proof by example. Lastly, it doesn't have the educational stigma that comes around with tutorial like scenarios. RPG's are adventures and exciting and people begin playing them with the idea that this is supposed to be fun. Tutorials have the opposite effect where they remind the user that the purpose of the program isn't to have fun but to collect information as fast as possible.
In conclusion, RPG equals awesome and fun while the crappy tutorial like stuff educational companies put out today couldn't be more useless. I'm surprised they don't have more RPG like games out there for other subjects. I would have loved to learn calculus by traveling through the world defeating evil terrorist derivates or gorilla warrior integrals. I could have come home at night and practiced computing the area under my laser beam or the optimal angle and velocity of my arrow. In fact thinking back on it how I got through school with just sitting in front of a math book is beyond me. With any luck, when my kids come and ask for help on their homework, I can pick up a controller and fight the evil multiplication monster with them.
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