EdTec 670: Wholes the Game

Wholes the Game was created out of a realization I made in teaching math to my sixth graders at High Tech Middle School. So many of the students seemed to have difficulty making the association between fractions, decimals and percents because they didn't understand the real world commonalities between the three. When given the assignment to create an educational board game for 670, I immediately knew the direction I would take would be towards educating young players about these important mathematical relationships.

I decided that the commonality I would focus on with Wholes is the fact that all proper fractions, percents and decimals represent numbers that lie between zero and one. I was able to find inspiration for the “fun” aspect of the game by analyzing some of the different characteristics that make my own favorite games fun to play such as Pusoy, Poker, and B.S.. After some research I decided that Wholes would be a card based game centering around good old fashioned luck and a player's ability to bluff.

Like most of the students in 670 that semester I thought I had my game set up perfectly going into the user tests, and like most students that semester I found out otherwise. Of all the different analysis I did of other games and then my own, no analyses were more useful to the development of Wholes than that which I received from my test players. I quickly realized that incentives in games are crucial to making the game playable and enjoyable. If incentives are built into the rules of the game that discourage competition and fair play the game play will stagnate and players will tire quickly. If proper incentives are built into the game however, it can encourage new strategies and tactics for winning. Concerning a game specifically designed to teach the players a concept, this concept was an important one to cater to.

Ultimately Wholes the Game became one of the most creative projects I did in the EdTec program. In analyzing existing games and rules for game play I was able to develop a framework for an effective educational card game. Through user testing and the manipulation of rules based incentives I was able to make the game fun to play as well.