When I started grad school I wasn’t sure what my thesis research would focus on but I worked on several educational game projects during grad school and those projects and my desire to combine some of my passions led me to research game-based learning. Game-based learning was a concept I was already familiar with but had never studied in detail. I knew I wanted to use a game-based learning approach to help solve a problem in art/design education. As an aspiring educator I wanted to create a tool that I and other educators could use to help students in some way. While in grad school I had the opportunity to teach and the challenges I encountered ended up inspiring the creation of Lumen.
When creating a game you usually start with either a theme or one or more mechanics. For Lumen I started with a problem I wanted to tackle and then narrowed the subject down to determine my theme.
Choosing a Problem to Tackle
Critique and interaction with peers is a super important part of art/design education, but it’s often a source of anxiety for many students. I think there are very few students who don’t suffer from some degree of anxiety or nervousness when they’re asked to pin their work to a wall and have it examined and dissected in front of a group. It’s a process that is always tough at first but the more you do it the easier it gets and hopefully everyone eventually realizes the value and importance of critique.
Critique is one of the most valuable and helpful experiences for growth as an artist/designer so it was important to me to try to help my students become comfortable with it which also meant helping them become more comfortable with one another. I taught several classes at JSU and it was always a struggle to get students to put down their phones and interact with one another. As an educator, one of my goals is to help my students engage and hopefully form relationships with fellow students to help aid both their professional and social development so getting them to engage with one another was just as important to me as the content I was delivering.
Games, especially table-top games, are a great way to help students relax and engage with one another. They are great at helping shy and socially anxious students feel more comfortable because games provide a clear framework for interaction. There are usually rules, guidelines for interaction, and clear objectives or goals that help players engage with one another in a fairly low-stress scenario. There’s also usually a bit of friendly competition which can help to create an engaging and fun experience.
Figuring Out Suitable Mechanics
When I started brainstorming ideas for my thesis project I knew I wanted to create a game that would help prepare students for critique while also serving as a fun ice breaker, but it took me a while to figure out what mechanics and format might work best to achieve my goals. I thought out several different systems which were at first way too complicated. It was important to me that the game be fairly simple, easy to understand, and quick to play so that it would be as beginner friendly as possible.
To help with critique I decided to focus on vocabulary and image analysis/interpretation so adopting game mechanics similar to Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity but with terms and images instead of just words and phrases turned out to be the perfect formula. It also helped that a lot of people are already familiar with the mechanics of these games which helps reduce the amount of time required to jump in and get started.
Narrowing My Subject (Theme)
After figuring out the mechanics for the game the next challenge was deciding what subject to focus on, and what terminology and images to use. I originally planned to create a game for art and design students but that was too broad and would require a more complicated set of images. It takes a long time to design and playtest a game and I was on a deadline for my MFA exhibition so I decided to focus on photography for personal and practical reasons. Photography is my primary creative outlet. It’s also much more specific that art and design, but most importantly I knew I’d be able to find a variety of relevant image assets for it thanks to stock photography sites. I would have liked to of included work by myself and my friends and peers in my first version but that would have required too much time so the first version of Lumen was curated completely from pexels.com. Now that my MFA requirements are complete I’m excited to have the time to refine Lumen and add some of my own work and that of friends and peers.
The theme of Lumen is photography, however most of the terminology is also relevant for art and design. Lumen has been play-tested in several Introduction to Design classes in addition to photography classes, and the instructors all reported positive engagement from their students. One of the instructors loved their students reaction to the game so much they asked to borrow it the following semester to help serve as a fun icebreaker at the beginning of the semester for a new group of design students.
