Welcome to this week's behind-the-scenes post.
This past Sunday, my 5-year-old son and I played a game called Zombie Kidz Evolution 13 times:
You may be surprised to learn that’s not our all-time record for games played in a day. The current record is 14, set a couple of months ago for a game called MindBug:
Through these experiences, I've come to a belief I never expected to have: that tabletop games will probably be the greatest learning tool I’ll ever find for my son. Here's why I think so:
Human learning is limited most of all by 2 things (I used to be a neurobiologist):
- Attention. The more focused attention we can pay to something, the more and faster we can learn.
- Desire: we remember the things we're self-motivated to learn, not so much the things others want us to learn.
Tabletop games have created a wellspring of attention and desire in my son I wouldn’t
have believed possible without seeing it for myself.
Kids his age aren’t known for long attention spans. Yet this past Sunday, we spent 3.5 hours playing that Zombie Kidz game, and probably another 45-60 minutes discussing it. My son's attention was locked-on THE WHOLE TIME. More than 4 hours.
It was an experience he asked for! We would have played more if I hadn’t cut him off for bed time.
He asks to play over and over because games are fun, not because he expects to learn anything. But I see the rate at which he’s learning a host of skills and it’s bordering on alarming:
- math
- reading
- planning
- probability
- cooperation
- memory skills
- systems thinking
- how to enjoy and learn from failure (the most important one imo)
Better still, as the months pass, I see the act of paying attention like this extending his ability to attend further. I didn't start out with a five-year-old who could pay industrial-grade attention for 4 hours. It happened because of our game habit. He will use that ability for the rest of his life, in every situation that requires attention. It's hard to imagine a more valuable skill.
What this has taught me about how to make games for Underdog
The most important thing I’ve learned: educational games shouldn't be “educational”.
The three games we have played most are Zombie Kidz, MindBug, and King of Tokyo. All three are about monsters and fighting. None were designed to be educational. If I had insisted we play “educational” games, I'm certain it wouldn't have worked, and my kid would never have developed the ability to pay attention for 4 hours. He couldn't have achieved what he has without nosebleed-high interest levels. For that, the monsters were necessary.
That isn't to say I want to put monsters in our games. Rather, I want to redouble my efforts to raise both the curb appeal of our games, and the fun people have playing them, regardless of their subject matter.
From the fun flows the learning.
Thoughts?
Nick Bentley
President, Underdog Game Studio
