The most common games developed at Distil are related to standards compliance. For example, one game has the player perform an audit on a virtual company to ensure processes are followed and documented as laid out by the International Standards Organization.
"It's material that's challenging and abstract," says Carrie Lavis, Senior Scientist for Distil. "Systems where it's hard for learners to understand how it relates to them."
Rather than watching dull training videos or, worse yet, suffering through another PowerPoint presentation, the games immerse players in a virtual environment where they can immediately see the practical applications of their training.
"The games provide the freedom to explore a little more," says Lavis. "You make decisions and see the repercussions."
A major component of one auditing game consists of interviewing staff to ensure their work is compliant with the standards being audited and requesting proof of this compliance. But there's more to it than simply clicking on the right questions in a dialogue tree. Tone and demeanor come into play, as does watching the avatar's body language and a mood meter that slides from green to red. If the player doesn't properly tailor their approach to the audience, the interviewee can become irate and throw them out, ending the interview with the slam of a door.
Along with reinforcing what not to do in a situation, having mistakes lead to such a dramatic ending helps solve one of the chief problems with game-based learning: making sure the game is still fun.
"It's a real challenge for game designers, because the learning clashes with the fun," says Chief Technology Officer Kenton White.
The designers overcame this problem in part by creating extreme "game over" sequences. Grevatt notes she's found many players start the game by seeing how spectacularly they can mess up before playing through seriously. They also increased the fun factor with the addition of a point system which not only provides feedback but adds an element of competition. Lavis says when they added a scoring system to Response Ready, competition started immediately among internal staff, with everyone trying to outdo their co-workers.
A big part of designing a fun training game is choosing the right genre. The auditing games borrow heavily from older point-and-click adventure games and RPGs, while workplace safety games take cues from casual puzzlers, getting players to match warning labels with their meaning and referent.
"Our vision has been leveraging off what has been done in the entertainment space," says White.
