WolfQuest

Educational games for school kids are usually designed to end in about 40 minutes (which fits into the typical computer lab schedule). That's not really enough to make an impression, however: studies show that people learn most from the period after the lesson, when they look back on what they saw or heard and discuss it. Commercial games often inspire this kind of reflection, because their players seek out things like online message boards where they can discuss strategy, ask questions, and talk about their experiences.

WolfQuest, the game, is something of a foil for WolfQuest, the community. Developed in partnership with the Minnesota Zoo, this project tries to get kids excited enough to study wild life and ecology on their own, after the game catches their attention and makes them want to discuss what they find in it. Helpfully, the website you can download the game from (for free) has plenty of links to wild life resources - and the official WolfQuest forum.

That said, the gameplay element of WolfQuest is key. It's not designed for short spurts in the classroom, but for the free time kids might otherwise be spending on commercial games - so it must be good enough to rival them. Yet the budget was nowhere near that of commercial games, and they had limited time. Yipes.

They also had to balance the game between reality and romanticism. A wolf's life is not that interesting: they hunt a lot, and they often fail to catch anything. Who wants to play that? Additionally, the developers wanted to tap into the emotional bond between (human) player and (wolf) character, but how to handle communication? It would break immersion to have the wolves speaking the words players type, but the players wouldn't understand the body language wolves do use to communicate. For that matter, neither do researchers: many of the wolf's behavioral patterns have yet to be modeled.

The answer was a lot of compromise, much of it shaped - handily enough - by the game developers' blog, where they attracted a small community even before the game was released, and often solicited their opinions about aspects of the game. (Should the wolves receive 'loot' as a reward for a successful hunt?) The result? On February 18, when I heard the speech, the game had received 110,000 downloads (since release on 12/20/2007); the website gets 2,500 hits per day, and there are multi-player sessions going on all the time. A lot of people have hit up the message boards asking questions about, for example, elk behavior (is it realistic for them to keep hanging around after a wolf hunts down one of their herd?). The gameplay raises these questions, but leaves them unanswered, so that players can figure it out on their own.

Anyone up for some WolfQuest?  I want to hunt elk.

• digression: 10+ years ago (when there was less publisher control?) programmers would pick up a topic they were interested in, like the life of a wolf, and make a game about it; now it's interesting to see many serious games duplicating these same ideas
  
• theme: designing a serious game for an unserious audience (school kids)
  
• idea: wolves, like people, are social animals with complex ways of communicating
  
• create an affective connection with wolves
  
• ambition: take an audience that already spends a lot of time on computer games, make a game about wolves, and inspire them to get out into real environmental studies
  
• reflection is a key part of the development process: no matter how well-designed the game, the player needs a chance to think it over/talk it over with others
  
• previous games were fitted to a classroom computer lab schedule, approx. 40 min, which wasn't enough time to foster that reflection process
  
• James Gee (What Video Games Have to Teach Us): point out that gamers (mainstream) do in fact spend a lot of time reflecting on the game, e.g. on internet message boards
  
• wanted: a "real" game, "addictively fun," with a realistic 3D world and novel gameplay
  
• situation: small team, indie budget, tight timeframe, free distribution so can't go overbudget
  
• encourages people to check out "unity," a user-friendly tool for serious game developers
  
• core challenge: finding the right balance between fantasy (wolves romanticized, wolves as demons) and reality (wolf lives a mundane life)
  
• developers kept a blog while making the game; one post about in-game loot (e.g. necklaces for the wolves) got 346 very argumentative comments
  
• another argument: should they show blood in this game, or is it too violent?
  
• problem: in real life, 80% of hunts fail for the wolves ("wolves always play on Legendary"), but can't frustrate the players that much ... if you make it easier, does it change the message?
  
• trying to model wolf hunting patterns, which even biologists haven't modeled fully yet
  
• how do you set wolves' wide variety of actions to programming verbs?
  
• wolf communication is subtle and cryptic, rooted (of course) in body language
  
• answer: create a dialogue tree, and when the player clicks it, the wolf adopts the appropriate posture - e.g. "I'm boss!" makes him raise his hackles and stiffen his tail
  
• note: in packs, wolf social interaction is functional and hierarchical, not conversational
  
• on the player-side, needed to ensure safe multiplayer chat so they developed a lexicon of 4,000 words that players can use to communicate on channels with each other
  
• most common question zookeepers get: who would win in a fight, a wolf or a grizzly bear?
  
• really, wolf would just avoid conflict with grizzly because he'd get his ass kicked
  
• gameplay answer: grizzly as a hazard; you can't beat it (though next month will see an expansion where a grizzly might come across as you're taking down an elk?)
  
• what kind of game an important question, because it helps the game fit with player expectations ... put it to their fans, and were told to call it 'Wildlife Simulation Game.'
  
• Game in action!
  
• allowed to customize your wolf, e.g. color and size, which he says players loved
  
• compass in the corner shows the way to missions, e.g. to W you see an elk
  
• wolf's default action is a trot; in game, they can run faster, but it exhausts their energy bar
  
• separate 'scent view' that helps you locate your prey
  
• look at the different elk; you can see their health bars and determine which to attack
  
• hunting takes a while; sometimes you get close enough to bite the elk, but it kicks you in the face! In the face!
  
• note: rock music :)
  
• WolfQuest is not just a game: it's located on a website with a lot of information about wolves
  
• their preview video was lampooned on "Attack of the Show," but it created a huge hits spike
  
• 110,000 game downloads since 12/20/07; 2,500 visitors to the site per day, etc.
  
• always several multiplayer sessions going (even during school day, tsk tsk)
  
• theory: much of the learning takes place in the extended experience, not just in the game, e.g. on the community forum (where players post walkthroughs, strategy tips, etc.)
  
• emergent behavior: one of the players figured out a way to make coyotes attack elk for you
  
• example: one player comments that it seems stupid for elk to resume grazing after the wolf attacks a member of their herd, but another points out that they really are that insenstive :(
  
• plot for the game (some episodes will be added later): find a mate and a pack, fend off grizzly hazard, establish territory with a den, protect your wolves' pups, raid a sheep ranch (oh dear)
  
• how to engage kids? emphasize emotional engagement, hone the verbs, design hooks - discrepant events - to prompt questions and discussion beyond the game, create opportunities for reflection and discussion (and facilitate it), make it fun!
  
• esp. with limited budget, needed to use as few verbs as possible and then iterate those over and over so they wouldn't be stuck spending their whole time on this interface