Gamification stuff we love: GWC15

Gamification stuff we love: GWC15

Gamification World Congress 2015 kicked off in Barcelona yesterday and as a regular speaker at conference I have to commend the team from #GWC15 for their organisation. It seems to be improving every year, not only are they all charming but this year there is a Twitter competition with questions relating to the various events, which is a nice gamified touch for us social busybodies (having won tickets to the famous cathedral and several badges today, it was very rewarding).

First of all it is great to connect with all the contributors and enthusiast of this industry, some which have become friends over a few conferences, metopes and even just from hanging out online. It is an event where I come to learn and share ideas and find out about other trends and events that are happening. Tuesday was workshop day, so I had the chance to participate in workshops from Andrzej Marczewski, Yukai Chou, Chris Solarski and Monica Cornetti. The other workshops also taking place came from Flavio Escribano, Naureen Meraj, Alan McShane and Michael Wu. The dilemma of choice often playing a part.

Most of the workshops I chose were thankfully interactive, the best interaction came from Andrzej, who made us work through some real case studies with his card deck and methodology. At our table we spent a good bit of time defining the problem we were going to solve and answering what we saw the key objectives, which then resulted in a last minute very simplified dash to finish a gamification strategy even if it was possibly a bit embryonic in form.

Both Yukai and Monica confirmed some of the learning and lessons I had already taken from them. Yukai talked us through his Octalysis framework and the motivational drivers, which can facilitate your gamification design. Monica took us on a pirate adventure to show how adventures and storytelling will benefit learners and will help making learning stick. I just wished we could have used the fun template even more.

The most inspiring and new knowledge talk of the day for me was from Chris Solarski, who explained how three shapes: circle, triangle and square can make such a difference in visual design with his dynamic composition model which assists us to create emotions and experiences in gamification.

Rounder shapes, environments, pathways, characters and even hand movements are often used to evoke gentle friendly type emotions. Squares and angular shapes creating a a sense of stability and also dominance or strength. Triangular shapes giving a sense of danger and potential vulnerability.  Through examples from game design and movies Chris explained how these 3 basic shapes can actively change the aesthetic experience players have when engaging with your game. Imagine the Hobbits who are drawn as rounded friendly characters, living in lovely little round houses in a circular setting and the complete opposite in the land of Sauron, with the graphic for Sauron always showing towering strength and danger in the spiky mountainous environment.

I found it amazing how when you look at the representation of these visual shapes can make such a big difference in the game experience of the player. For me that will be the biggest bits of new knowledge I will take away.

I know from the Twitter feed that Alan McShane’s Lego serious play workshop was a massive hit, just have a look at the creations. Having experienced his workshop in London I would highly recommend this especially for those where just words may not be the best way out of complex problems.

I am looking forward to a full on day tomorrow and Thursday, the question I got asked a lot is will there be dancing? I guess you will just have to wait and see, I also believe Bart Briers the MC for the coming days is threatening to make us sing…so I hope to expect the unexpected and to have a lot of fun.

Thanks to all of those that made today a great day, with fabulous conversation, knowledge sharing etc.

To be continued….

 

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