1. Play is engaged in by all people and many animal species as a way to build social bonds, learn skills, and reduce stress. 2. Play takes many forms like using toys for exploration, simulation, and games with goals and player choice. Pretend play allows for role playing scenarios and mimicking different occupations. 3. Video and computer games have blurred boundaries between types of play by combining elements like exploration, role playing, and simulations within interactive digital environments.

1. Play...
remember how
it felt to play as
a child?

2. Who Plays?
All people, many animals including mammals, marsupials
and birds.
Purpose of Play
The act of playing engenders trust, builds social groups,
teaches communication and other skills and alleviates
stress.
Fair Play & Survival
According to Marc
Berkoff, animals that
play fair are more
likely to survive in the
wild.

3. Types of Play
Toys
Tools for discovery.
Unorganized stimulation.
Simulation
Investigative and exploratory
Game
Goal-oriented, player choice

4. The Magic Circle
Trust

5. Play...
“Flow represents
the ultimate in
harnessing the
emotions in the
service of
performance and
learning.”
—Mihály
Csíkszentmihályi

6. Puzzles & Board games: Monopoly, Mousetrap
Physical games: kickball, skating, tennis
Hobbies: microscope, drawing, painting, frogs & bugs & turtles
Pretending:
Group invented games: create the story, layout the environment,
collect the props:
spies, explorers, etc.
renegade teachers, teens, mothers, doctors, builders, Miss
America, brides, veterinarians
Doll houses, train sets, cars & trucks

7. Puzzles & Board games: STRATEGY
Physical games: PROWESS
Hobbies: CREATIVITY, INNOVATION & EXPLORATION
Pretending:
Group invented games: create the story, layout the environment,
collect the props (ROLE PLAYING):
spies, explorers, etc. EXPLORATION of external world
renegade teachers, teens, mothers, doctors, builders, Miss
America, brides, veterinarians MIMICRY
Doll houses, train sets, cars & trucks SIMULATIONS

8. Computer, video, mobile, and
alternative reality games
We are still playing the
same games BUT the lines
have blurred between
types of play and blend
differing genres in one
form.
Technology & market
forces create a fruit fly lab
for discoveries of
successful play
characteristics.

9. Fruit fly lab—key characteristics
Magic circle
Flow
Exploratory
Experiential
Sandbox
On-demand & in-time learning
Well order problems
Repetition
Cycle of expertise
Pervasiveness of practice

10. Game Systems:
Engagement & Participation
Central conflict or challenge
Goals: clear win-lose state
Player roles
Rules
Multiple pathways to goal
Levels of difficulty and achievement
Balance difficulty against time (frustrating
vs boring)
Incorporate “toys”
Rewards matched to difficulty

11. Rules keep the game balanced
Difficulty must be weighted against time to
completion and adequate rewards.

12. “But the power of video game resides not just in their present
instantiations, but in the promises the technologies by which
they are made hold out for the future.”
“Game designers can make worlds where people can have
meaningful new experiences, experiences that their places in life
would never allow them to have or even experiences no human
being has ever had before. These experiences have the potential
to make people smarter and more thoughtful.”
—James Paul Gee,
“Learning by Design: Good Video Games as Learning Machines”