We played Sanna-Kaisa’s game “Cross” for about 40 minutes with seven players, forming four teams. We had great fun while playing it. From my point of view, this is a very promising approach combining time-tested gaming meachnisms (“Memory” / “Concentration“, “Bingo” / “LÜK-Lernspiel“) into something new – it would be quite interesting to see in an evaluation how the game fares in its intended fiel of use (rate of retention of words after the game): supporting language acquisition for adult immigrants.
Here are some observations we made:
interesting endgame-reversal
The game lasted about 40 Minutes until one player completed his full set of 12 cards in a single run. Surprisingly, it was the player who was lagging behind nearly to the end. Since most of the other team’s cards were already taken, the two or three cards lacking to completion were hard to find (and remember). This is an interesting negative feedback loop in the game mechanism, that supports players that lag behind the field. This mechanic also sets “cross” apart from “memory”/”concentration!”, which favors any player in the endgame. It may also be an asset for keeping players who are not as skilled in remembering the cards motivated.
teaming up
We played with four set of cards, three of the four ‘players’ consisted of two-persons-teams. This gave the game a nice touch of negotiation and opened up the minds for discussion – not just within the teams. I think it could be an advantage, even if there are only four players, to let them play in teams of two, with two sets each.
What should be put into consideration is the composition of the teams: A child skilled in Finnish with her non-fluent mother could lead to just the child playing the game while the mother only watches. How to integrate and motivate the actual target group? What may the target group contribute to the team effort to play and win the game?
expandability
It was mentioned that “Cross” is an ideal game for expansion sets – a valuable asset for any game that deals with a large base of ‘data’ to be played with. Gameplay would be more complicated if there would be more than four or five sets of cards at a given time on the table, though – it was the right degree of difficulty with 48 cards lying face down.
the cross
One player mentioned that it would be nice to have different symbols created by each set of cards, so mistakes would be visible at once. It was also proposed that the smybols may be letters that spell a specific, meaningful word – how about five sets that spell “SUOMI”?
Just one thought: A cross may be seen from a different cultural view not just as two crossed bars, but also connotates to christianity, even if it is no ‘real’ christian cross. This symbolism may be put into consideration, especially if the game is targeted at a muslimic audience.
the availability of the translation (solution) page
I think the solution/translation should be accessible for all; being in doubt of the meaning of a word/picture, being curious and then looking it up would add to the learning potential.
specific expressions and abstract concepts
Some expressions maybe quite specific, too specific to guess even when a picture is available: “Birch” may be substituted by a generalised “Tree”.
Abstract concepts are also hard to guess. No member of the seminar, all future teachers of art, was able to connect a piano on stage with “Art” (“Concert” and “Music” were named). This is quite tricky: How to depict concepts of “Play”, “Peace”, “Justice” etc.? Maybe you can get some inspirations (for better or for worse) from Johan Amos Comenius, the ‘patron saint’ of multimedia, who tried to do this in the 17th century with his “Orbis Pictus“. There is a digital version available.
Hi all test players,
thanks for all the analytical feedback! I got a lot of useful ideas for further development of the game. Here are a few comments based on your feedback:
– I was an initial suspicion that the cross sign “is not such a good idea”, as there may be in different cultures the wrong connotations, such as the comments said. I chose the cross, for practical reasons, the pattern found in the computer program and the shape of the cross was wide enough that it covered all the cards.
– Also, difficult words such as “Art” was part of the test, the aim of which was to
find out what kind of words / images are considered to be pleasing and play on, at the level of elementary.
– Images are selected such that they tend to tell the Finnish life and society. That’s why there were “birch”, no “tree”. But you´re right, it was too hard for this level, the better the tree. Maybe the birch could be more appropriate at the level of the next game. So, the objective was to learn words that are important for the Finns. And useful in Finland. A birch is an important concept for Finns, the game is not able to explain it to the player, that’s why it does not work here.
– I know that this is one of the most difficult things to design educational materials. The author’s own vision of the world always convey the material and it should know and be able to look at it through the eyes of outsider. The game should not be hostile or arrogant.
Then: If the game really could develop further, I would add to the audio device, the unit of pronunciation, which works as follows: When you export the card in front of the audio device, you can hear the word in Finnish.
The goal is: To repeat the words as many times as the player wants, and learning the words phonetically. At the same time a certain image (a visual image of the word and the written form) and a certain sound (the word is pronounced) support a variety of ways to learn.
Every time someone raises the card, the device has to be brought forward and heard correct pronunciation.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to get the older players tell their own memories of the game, based on the Finnish words in the game.
For example, if the card has the word “potato”, the player could tell a memory associated to potatoes. I believe that this way of learning could be more personal, would relate to players own identity, and learning might be more profound?
The game objective could be to create a bridge between the countries of origin and their new home country by remembering and comparing. And create (even artificially) the interaction between the players of different ages. I have not resolved this yet either, but it is a work in progress.
One of the Finnish test player said that the game would work for the Finnish special children’s education very well, especially if the audio device would be included.
The teaching of modern times, repetition, has reportedly been forgotten.
A big thank you to everyone on.
Greetings Sanna-Kaisa