Here, as the last Digital Play blog post of the year, is Nada’s idea for the December Escape Game. Well done Nada! A copy of Digital Play (the book) is on the way to you.

December Escape Game Lesson Plan

Level: Beginners
Language: body parts, furniture, prepositions of place
Function: asking questions (to be)
Skills: speaking
Location: the connected classroom
Game: December Escape Game

Pre-play
Revise vocabulary by labelling body parts and furniture (December Escape Game YLE Worksheet).

Play
Tell your students that Santa has to deliver the presents but has been locked in the room. On top of that, he is missing his clothes. They are to help him find his clothes, find the key and escape the room. There are some things hidden in the room and students’ task is to guide the teacher where to click by asking:  ‘’Is there something behind/under/in… ‘’ .  Find all the missing pieces and help Santa out.

Post Play
Write a letter to Santa.

Thanks for this great idea, Nada, and thanks to all of our readers! Wishing you Seasons Greetings and looking forward to sharing more digital play with you all in 2012!

If your answer to any of these questions was ‘Yes’ then why not play it again?  Maybe you can’t.  Either you or your parents sold on your console or simply at some point it broke and never got replaced, became obsolete or you just moved on.  Nowadays, though, you don’t need to dust off an old piece of electronics from the attic or scour ebay to relive those digital days gone by.  Use an online emulator.  Here is a list of a few online emulators that allow you to play those games from years ago:

1 ZX Spectrum

If you owned a spectrum in the 80s or 90s then this is the site for you. This site has a listing of spectrum games through the golden years from 1982 to the mid 90s. What’s great about this site? Well if the errrr-eek sound of a loading spectrum game cassette holds a lot of nostalgia for you I’m afraid this site has got rid of that. However, if you get misty eyed at the mention of Manic miner or Elite then both these games and more can be played online and for free. Get playing now!

2 Atari

Remember those clunky cartridges you had to shove in the machine at the top? Well, whether it was the Atari arcade games or one of the home cartridge games that you used to play then one of these sites is for you. Do you remember staring at awe at the amazing graphics? Well goggle no more if you’ve played any game from this decade.

3 Commodore 64

I only knew one kid with a commodore 64 at school which may say something about the PC system or not. Nevertheless, I got the impression that Commodore owners were very much a minority. No doubt this debate is continued by our young learners with the xbox versus playstation debate. What’s the commodore equivalent then? If you had this system or would just like to see what all this fuss is about then play one of their games and get misty eyed with ‘paperboy’ or ‘ghosts and goblins’.

4 Apple

Apple design has certainly got sexier over the years. Anyone remember this little number? Possibly not but for those of you that do then why not play a few of their old timey games on the virtual apple site.  Can anyone spot the similarities between this (picture on the right) and the new ipods and ipads? I don’t!

5 80s 90s arcade games

Maybe you spent a lot of your misspent childhood playing or hanging around game arcades. I know john Connor in Terminator II did. Maybe you played Missile Command or After Burner like he did in the film. If you didn’t and another title was the joystick/roller ball of your choice then check out this 80s arcade game site – it lets you play your favourite 80s arcade game.

6 Gameboy

Over 20 years old now and superceeded by a whole generation of different handheld gaming platforms. Still, at one time you may have been that kid on the bus/train/ waiting room/ playground (delete as appropriate) and may want to see some of those Gameboy games again. You may have to configure the keys before you ‘Load ROM’ (the game you want) but I’m sure it’ll be worth that little inconvenience.

Now you have to ask yourself:

• What would your learners think of you playing these games?
• What would they think of the games themselves?
• How do they differ to games nowadays?
• What do they think of the look of the hardware itself?
• Can they name 6 differences between the consoles and games of then and now?
• How have the specifications changed?
• How has gaming changed for them over the years?

1  Point and click

These games rely on you moving the cursor around the screen and clicking the mouse.  By printing off a written walkthrough or by using a video walkthrough, a large variety of language activities can be generated.   Try a relay dictation using either a written or video walkthrough or simply use either of them yourself to dictate game play.  Alternatively check out these games – the anti-bullying Dixie the Nerd, a selection of ten point-and-click games and their walkthroughs or Windosill.

2 Escape the room

A sub genre of point and click games where typically you have to find and possibly combine objects in a room or house to get out through a locked door.  As previously mentioned above, with a written walkthrough or a video walkthrough a large variety of language activities can be generated.  You could also get learners to write out their own walkthroughs as they play.  Alternatively check out these games – MOTAS, Kitchen Escape or the scary reader for the the zombie game I Remain.

3 Arcade

Arcade games generally rely on reaction speeds rather than logic or puzzle solving skills. Passing to the next stage usually means completing a simple task within a specific time limit. The next stage and subsequent stages usually require the player to complete the same task but with an increasing complexity or in a faster time. Language generated tends to be quite simple and repetitive.  Some of these games are great for drilling the language of directions (pacman), colours (sveerz) and spelling (Alphaattack and Type ‘em up).

4. Puzzle Games

These games tend to be quite abstract and typically involve arranging geometric forms to achieve a goal (e.g. Tetris). Puzzles usually involve solving rather simple problems. Problem solving games generally test a players awareness of patterns and/ or short term memory.  Language generated tends to be isolated to individual language items such as object vocabulary, instructions and prepositions.  Puzzle games include spookymatch or Orbox.  They are great games to play as a reward for good work or behaviour as they are generally over very quickly or can be paused and returned to later.

5 Strategy Games

This is a game in which the gamer is presented with a number of possible choices in game play which will effect how they progress in the game. Try the games stop disasters, 3rd world farmer or Age of Empires.  The first two provide a context for some interesting discussions when used in a classroom while the last one takes place over a longer time frame and provides writing practice and an opportunity for learners to report on the game and progress in class time.

6 Adventure Games

Adventure games are a sub genre of point and click games but usually differ in that the game has got strong narrative elements.  There is usually a central character, a storyline, objectives to be achieved, an enemy and an outcome at the end.  Games covered in this genre on this blog include Morningstar (a sci-fi story), The Miller Estate (a spooky mystery), Hetherdale ( a jungle adventure) and Avalon (a fantasy text based adventure game) to name just four.

7 Casual Games

These games are aimed at a mass audience of people who tend to play games on a casual basis.  These games have been brought into the news recently with their rise in popularity on social network sites such as facebook.  Games such as farmville, mafia wars, scrabble like game, word games and puzzles can all be included in this genre.  Why not ask your learners if they play any and if they play any in common then get them to describe and compare their game playing.  Here’s a list of 10 casual games on facebook.

8 Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs)

Is a computer role playing genre in which a massive number of players interact with one another within a fictional virtual world.  The player assumes the role and takes control of the actions of a fictional character.  There are a lot of MMORPGs out there but one we have looked at already on this blog is Astro Empires.  The most famous MMORPG is probably World of Warcraft.

9 Alternate Reality Games

Sometimes abbreviated to an ARG.  These games consist of an interactive narrative that is based in the real world.  Typically they often use multiple media and game elements, to establish a narrative that the gamer can affect by either contributing ideas or taking actions.  Two ARGs we’ve already looked at on this blog were Smokescreen and Urgent Evoke.  We have also done a spotlight on ARG developer Jane McGonigal.

10 Virtual Worlds

This is a computer based simulated environment which has a strong online community element.  A virtual world such as second life has generated a lot of interest in education.   Here is a post we did on a Robin Hood learning Quest in Second Life.

Spent is a very different type of text adventure. It’s not interactive fiction – firstly, because it deals with a very serious subject : poverty. It is also primarily composed of written text, unlike Inanimate Alice.

Here’s a handout for Advanced students to support the game in class (If you prefer, you can download a printable version here)

http://playspent.org/ is an online game that hopes to raise awareness about what it’s like to be extremely poor in the USA.

Before playing the game, let’s look at the premise of the game.

A) Before playing

1) What do you think will be the most difficult problems of your month of poverty? How will you solve them?

2) Find expressions in the text above that mean the same as these:

• the condition of being extremely poor
• a building protecting you from danger or bad weather
• less than the minimum level of income necessary for an adequate standard of living
• not having enough money or food
• own very little or have little money

B) While playing

Now let’s play the game. While playing, tick any of the following words and phrases that are used during the game. If you don’t last a month, try playing again and changing your choices.

C) After playing

1) How do you feel about your answer to question A 1) – were your predictions right?

2) Which of the words and phrases did you come across while playing? Do you remember how they were used and what they mean? Try to explain the meaning to your partner using other words

Answers

A) Before playing

2) Expressions

One definition of gamification is the use of features usually found in games in areas of life which are usually game free. Only time will tell if this buzzword becomes the next big thing as some people are predicting, but meanwhile, sites such as Chore Wars can help you make a game of some of the most uninteresting but necessary tasks of life.

Chore Wars

Although Chore Wars has been designed to turn housework into an adventure game, the site is flexible enough to let you customise adventures, which means it can be converted for use in the classroom.

Let’s look at this through an example.

I have a class of teenagers studying for the Cambridge First Certificate in English exam and in order to prepare yourself for this exam, you have to do a lot of practice tests. The problem is that doing these tests frequently becomes routine and repetitive, which is where Chore Wars can help.

Getting Started

I started by setting up an account on the site and creating a number of adventures. You can then create a number of adventures from scratch, which is what I did. I

I made each part of the exam an adventure that when claimed, earns the player XP (experience points) , gold coins and the possibility of finding treasure. The learners (players) can see the scores of the others too, which adds an element of competition to doing practice tests. I also made the rewards on the more difficult parts of the exam higher to motivate the learners into doing them.

Introducing Chore Wars to Students

The idea is to encourage the students to do more exam practice tests by making it fun. After I’d set up the adventures, I introduced the learners to the concept in the classroom and then we went to the computer room.

There, they created their characters, choosing what they looked like and giving themselves a name.

Joining the Party

They then joined my party of adventurers. The best way to do this is to give them the link to join on a simple webpage. I used http://pen.io for this, which lets you create a webpage instantly, without any need to log in. You can see the page I set up here: http://chorewars.pen.io/.

Adventuring

Once they’d joined the party, I asked them to start doing some practice tests on a site called Flo-Jo, and as they finished, they claimed the adventure on Chore Wars.

Student Reaction

Another reason why I chose to use Chore Wars was because I have a number of students who play online adventure games, and so the concept of XP, collecting gold coins, etc was familiar to them and they needed no introduction to the idea of turning the FCE exam into an adventure. It went down well with them and they happily ploughed through a number of practice tests and started to claim the adventures.

There are other students in the class, however, who do not play these games, and it was more difficult for them to see the point of the game. They seemed a little bit bemused by the concept, but I hope and trust this will change in time, as they become more familiar with it.

Managing the Adventure

I am the Dungeon Master (the game controller) of the FCE Ninjas Chore Wars adventure, which means I have control over what adventures to set, etc. I can change the number of XP, gold coins and possibility of treasure of each adventure. I’d do this to encourage the students to do part of the exam they are reluctant to do.

It’s early days, but I have already seen a potential problem that I have to deal with that could spoil the game if I am not careful: cheating

Cheating

Chore Wars is based on a trust system. Players claim an adventure and this relies on their honesty. However, I could see that some of the students were very interested in knowing how the game worked, and have just spotted that one in particular wanted to see how it was possible to increase his level and XP.

Look at the screenshot below and you’ll see that this student (abaairenjy in the game) logged in and continued playing after class. I know that by looking at the times he claimed the adventures. We were in the computer room for 20 minutes, from 6.00-6.20pm and he did two practice tests while we were there. But, he also logged into Chore Wars at home, at 10pm and played the game, increasing his XP and level from level 1 to level 3. I know that it’s impossible he did 9 practice tests in this time (10 minutes!) and so will have to call him on it next class.

The good news about this activity is that he’s interested enough to do it at home to see how it works, but this will destroy the game if his cheating is allowed to continue. This is what I have decided to do now:

• I will draw the class’s attention to the cheating next time we meet. I’ll do this and ask them to decide how to deal with it. We’ll do this through negotiation and it’ll make for an interesting class discussion on honesty and what everyone thinks about cheating and of obeying the rules of games.
• I have left a comment for Alejandro, so he knows I am onto him (see screenshot below)
• I am going to suggest that all the class does what Alejandro has claimed, in the same order. That way, they too can claim them too, and they will get similar XP, treasure, and advance in levels. If they don’t like the choice of exercises, they have Alejandro to blame!

I hope this strategy will work. There are other things you can do, as Dungeon Master, to allow you to manage your adventures, which are particularly interesting if you want to manage the adventures in the classroom.

Classroom Management

You have various options with characters, giving players permissions to create their own adventures, etc. I have changed the role of the players’ characters to NPC (non playing character) which means that I can claim adventures on their behalf (see screenshot below). This means that the learners won’t have to log in to be able to claim XP, etc. When we do a practice test in the classroom, I can quickly run through the character list and claim points for everyone there and then. I am also planning to claim adventures only for those students who actually pass a particular practice test.

Final Thoughts

How successful Chore Wars is with my class remains to be seen, but I think the potential is there to increase the interest my students have in FCE practice tests, turning the completion of them into a game, and hopefully motivating them to do more homework (not just the tests I assign them). Whatever happens now, it’s already proving to be an interesting adventure for the teacher!

Along with co-founders Allan Stitt and Frank Handy, he runs the online game company Zap dramatic.  The games at Zap Dramatics site consist of interactive simulated adventure games that focus on the art and science of negotiation.  They tend to be text heavy and aim to educate as well as entertain.   The Canadian New Media Award for Excellence in Learning (Professionalism and Ethics simulation) was awarded to Zap dramatic in 2005.  In the same year it received the Vortex prize at the McLuhan International Festival of the Future for the adventure game ‘Move or Die‘.  Four years later the company became an official honoree at the 2009 Webby Awards for the game ‘Sir Basel Pike Public School’ which deals with the issue of bullying.  You can see the promotional video for this game here:

Recently Zap dramatic has released the engaging real life drama game ‘Inside the Haiti Disaster’, which places the gamer at the scene of the Haitian earthquake.  At the beginning of this simulation you choose a character and play as either an aid worker, a journalist or local victim of the disaster.  The game is particularly hard hitting in it’s use of film, photos and audio recordings of the actual event and people concerned.  You can read an interview with one of the team members that worked on this game here.

I think the games we’ve mentioned here are best for high level language learners and they are particularly attractive not only because of their high language content but also because they aim to educate the gamer in real life skills as well as raising awareness in some important issues.  They are definitely worth a look into even if it’s to have fun and educate yourself.

Level: Pre-intermediate +

Location: Connected classroom

Language focus:  Wh- (QASI) forms

Game: Peter Answers

Preparation

Ask learners to write down three questions.  there are three rules:

1. The answers have to be the names of people in the room.
2. They should try and use about 45 characters (punctuation or spaces or letters = 1 character)
3. They should be questions that have got answers only people in the room know.
4. Learners write their questions while you monitor.

Play

Explain that you are going to ask the questions to an online virtual Tarot reader.

Point out that you first have to type in Peter, please answer the following:

Point out that you then type in a learner’s question and then press return and you will then get the answer.

NOTE

The secret is that in the petition box you first put a full stop before writing the answer to the question you are going to type in.

This is a trick program that simply means that if you start the petition with a full stop you can then write the answer to the question you type in next without anyone realising.  While you write, for example, “.Who is wearing a red t-shirt . . . ” on the screen you see “Peter, please answer the fol (lowing:).

Your learners will be amazed.

Post activity

Learners say a question they want to ask ‘Peter answers’.  If the question is not grammatically correct simply say “I’m sorry.  Peter only accepts grammatically correct questions.”  This encourages either the individual or the class to review and correct the question.  If the answer isn’t immediately apparent then make excuses.  e.g.

Learner “What’s the name of my mother?”

Teacher “If the screen can’t see the answer, I’m afraid Peter can’t answer that.”

Be careful choosing to tell your learners the secret because you may want to use the game in another class.  If you do use it in class again it may be the case at least one of your learners went home and found out the secret to Peter answers.  You can generally find this out by keeping an eye and ear out next time you bring the game up again.  If there is a learner who knows the secret then they can come up and type in the questions.

Location: Computer room

Topic: Revision & test of course book vocabulary.

Language focus: Reading

Game:  Blockbusters

How to play

Your learner plays the single red team against the computer (the two blue guys).  The aim of the game is to make a white line across the board from top to bottom (or the other way round) by answering questions to which the answers start with the letter in the hexagon.

This game is actually designed to challenge native English speakers so may prove particularly hard to English language learners.  However, playing the game gives them a very quick way to learn how to play the game.  You could get them to play in pairs and predict the instructions.  They then read the instructions (button on the bottom right) to see if the were right.

Now they have a better understanding of what the game blockbusters is they can now have a go at writing their own powerpoint version.

Blockbusters Template

You could ask learners to only use their coursebooks to find vocabulary items.  This makes the activity a fun revision activity while the actual playing of the game becomes a fun test.   Make sure they read the instructions on slide 3 carefully.  I find that it usually takes a little bit of trial and error to figure out what to do but once someone in the class has figured it out they can always explain it to others.

NOTE

There’s no reason why you can’t use the Blockbuster Template with much lower levels.  Unfortunately the online game is too difficult for lower levels.  It would also be good if the game paused for bigger intervals and there wasn’t a time limit between being given the question and having to give the answer.  If there was that would be a great opportunity for a dictionary race.  They could read the question, identify the answer in their own language, look it up in a translation dictionary and give the answer in English.  Oh well!

Location: Computer room

Language Focus: Physical description: clothes/ body.

Skills Practice: Reading

Game: Happy Family Dress up

Preparation

1.  Play a game yourself and write out a description of the family like this:

The boy has got black hair and dark skin. He’s wearing an orange striped top with short sleeves and a long-sleeved white top underneath. He is wearing green combat trousers and white trainers. He is also wearing a black baseball cap.

The man has got blonde hair and pale skin. He’s wearing a blue checked shirt, black jeans and brown shoes. He isn’t wearing many accessories but he is wearing a pair of dark sunglasses.

The woman has got long straight brown hair and dark skin. She’s wearing a light brown top, a white skirt and knee high brown boots. She is also wearing a white necklace with red rubies which matches her glasses.

The girl has got long blonde hair and a pigtail. She’s got light skin. She’s wearing a pink hat, a pink flowery dress and boots like her mum but they are light brown. She’s also wearing sunglasses a simple necklace and some coloured bracelets.

They are all on holiday at the beach.

Play

1. Learners read the description and reproduce the family.
2. Learners stand up and look at other learner’s results and spot any differences from the written description.
3. Learners compare their result with the screenshot and write down any differences.

Post Play

• Learners create their own families and write a description down using the original as a model.
• Learners expand on the written description to either include other elements (hats, gloves etc) or expand on the complexity of the language (an expensive long-sleeved checked shirt etc).
• Learners reproduce a family from the written description of another learner.

Talking about games with learners can be a very useful activity, especially if you choose a game that everyone has heard of or played. So, which one to choose? Well, there can be few people now who haven’t heard of Angry Birds, the most successful smartphone games of 2010 (and number 2 in Time’s list of top 10 video games of 2010). And talking about this game, you can also find out what games were your learners favourites

How to start:

If you can, show the picture above, or a similar one, featuring the game characters. If you hide the title, then you can ask the learners to tell you what the picture shows, and ask the ones who are familiar with the game to explain it briefly to the others. They should end up saying something like this:

It’s a game that consists of you, the player, firing one of six types of birds at a number of different constructions where green pigs are hiding. The objective of the game is to destroy the pigs and collect the golden eggs. Each time you do this, you move to the next level, which is harder.

If necessary, show the learners a screenshot of the actual game and ask them about different parts of it (an example screenshot is shown below)

Here are some questions/prompts you can ask your learners about the game, to keep the conversation flowing, with some answers you may hear your learners say:

• Why is the game so successful? (Because of its surreal humour / it’s fun, challenging, and frustrating)
• What is the story behind the game? (The pigs have stolen the birds eggs, making the birds angry)
• What makes people keep playing the game? (you can go back and get a better score / more points)

Following on

If the learners are interested when you bring up the game, you might want to ask them more about the specifics. For example, focus on the five types of birds in the illustration above and ask them to say what their special powers are.There’s also one type of bird that isn’t featured in the illustration – you can ask the learners to tell you which one that is and what its special power is (it’s the last one in the list below).

They should end up telling you:-

• small, blue bird. Good for breaking through glass. Splits into three when screen is touched after launched.
• small red bird. No special powers. Bigger red bird is heavier though, and can smash through a number of different constructions.
• Black bird. A bomb. Turns red then explodes when screen is pressed or after it first touches something. Good for destroying stone.
• Triangular yellow bird. Accelerates when screen is touched after launch. Good for breaking through wood.
• Fat, white bird. Drops an explosive egg when screen is touched after launch.
• (not in illustration) Green and white parrot-like bird. Returns at an angle (like a boomerang) when screen is touched after launch. This makes it good for attacking things that are otherwise difficult to get at.

After this, or if the learners aren’t that interested in the game, ask them about their favourite game of the year (if you like, tell them about Angry Birds being number 2 and challenge them to guess the rest of Time magazines Top 10 games).

Hope you have fun talking about games in class!