Action games:
The unique aspect I feel that action games have over other genres is the speed in which the game evolves. Where simulation tends to be slower build up of development, action gets right to business with its purpose. Relying on a quick reflex, fast fingers, and thought processing time not normally found in our relaxation state. Action games engage us consciously to think fast and analyze events even quicker. The best way to provide an example would be when someone would throw a ball at you and go "think fast". Once that happens you had a split second to get your hands up and catch the ball, or be hit with the ball and mocked na-na not fast enough. Action games take that approach think fast or be prepared to hit restart after the game over screen (which like the real life na-na has GAME OVER usually capitalized, bold, underlined, blinking, and taking up your entire TV or console screen. Just in case you didn't realize you were just beaten. Talk about a play on our emotion to win!)
It was hard to play these games and not see the possibility to turn these reflex action games into a reflex 'learning' action game. That is why I chose to link Math Blaster as one of my action games. Combining the shooting twitch reflex aspect as well as an educational twist Math Blaster brings in learning as a key element to the action title genre.
The second action game I decided to link is Alpha-Attack.
Typing the letters showing within bombs will successfully explode the bombs. You also get alpha bombs that explode everything on the screen when they start falling increasingly fast and its hard to keep up with slower typing skills. What became addicting about both games was my consciousness to the high score, and the involvement I felt when my competitiveness kicked in to achieve that high score. Here is the thing though, in order for me to achieve that high score in both games I had to become a better typer for alpha attack and better at math for Math-Blaster. genius right! It was a play on my need to "beat" the game. This correlated perfectly with
(http://www.jesperjuul.net/text/gameplayerworld/) Jesper Juul's The Game, The Player, The world's article that says we have three component goals when playing a game. 1. Valorization of outcomes 2. Player Effort 3. Attachment to an outcome. Jesper Juul was speaking about games in general, but lets take a look at all three of those components from the perspective of me playing educational action games. first I'll talk about player effort, I was engaged in playing the game because it was fun to play first and foremost. The alpha-attack game had explosions and a save the world subplot both of which spoke to my affliction to be the hero in every action movie i've ever seen. An alternate reality where I saved the planet. In this case all I had to do was type in the letter fast enough and I would be victorious. People would applaud me and I would be a hero. Attachment to an outcome was to beat the high score as well as save the world. The set up was simple, to me that was the games outcome. What about the learning outcome? Well it turns out they're synonymous when done right. I just spoke about the games outcome for me to save the world, where the learning outcome could have been make me the player (student) become better at typing, or learn the keyboard faster. Eventually be so good at typing I could play without having to look at the keys. I should note it is impossible to beat Alpha-attack if you need to constantly look at the keys. So in order for me to achieve the games goals and my personal goals of being the hero, I had to in the process become a better typer, and keyboard commander. This was a similar to math blasters.
Reflection on the action game with those thoughts, was truly a eye opening experience to the potential to marry game outcomes with learning outcomes effortlessly. They seem to blend well together when planned appropriately.
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