In part 1 of this blog series, I posed the question:  What makes games fun, and can you make a game that’s fun for everyone?

In order to find out, I’ve done some research…  Leading me to a little project called BrainHex.  BrainHex is a free survey that identifies what aspects of games people like, and why.  It also stores all of those results, which is why it’s relevant to this conversation.  According to those statistics, men are most likely (in 28.5% of cases) to enjoy playing games in a competitive manner, whereas women tend (28.1%) to try to like strategizing and solving puzzles in games.  More importantly, they’ve also listed aggregate results for expected results in a population with a 50-50 split between men and women, with some interesting results…  In such a population, interest would be fairly evenly split between the puzzle-solving mindset, an exploration-oriented one, and the competitive one…  Those three categories cover over two-thirds of this hypothetical 50-50 gamer population.  Most classroom populations aren’t gamer-only, but we’ll deal with that in the next part of this series.

So, readers, how about you?  What are your BrainHex classes?  The BrainHex quiz can be found at the following page: www.brainhex.com

Since its launch a few months ago, the Urgent Evoke Alternate Reality Game has been providing virtual motivation for players to solve problems in their real-world communities.  Linking games to social activism, Evoke is a project from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, targeted primarily at children in Africa.  However, Evoke is by no means restricted to that audience; anyone can join in.  The comic strips (which are very well-made) and tutorials on Evoke’s homepage can tell you more:  http://www.urgentevoke.com/

We all seem to be in agreement that games would make learning more fun, but why is that the case?  What is it about games that draws people in, and why do some people enjoy games more than others?  Commercial games have the luxury of not needing to appeal to the whole of the population:  As long as a select group of people is interested in them, then a market exists.  Educational games shouldn’t have such a constrained target audience, since they should [ideally] appeal to entire classrooms of students.  So, how do you make a game that’s fun for everyone?

This is the question that I’ll be trying to answer through this particular blog series, and a question that I’d like to ask whoever’s reading this out there:  What is it that you find most fun about games, or do you find them fun at all?  How would you go about making a game that everyone finds fun?

As you can see, the Games 4 Learning initiative at UNC now has a shiny new blog.  We’ll be posting about current goings-on in the world of educational games, as well as general musings about educational gaming in general.  Commenting is encouraged, as we’d love to use this blog to spark some real dialogue!