Automatization, Adaptation, New Learning Cycle
Another important mechanism used to encourage mastery of the game is automatization. Early levels in games are usually set up so that skills, which are not yet automatic for the player, are practiced over and over again (e.g., clicking the correct button for a function and having to look at the controller).
For example, in The Legend of Zelda, the initial levels present the player with screen after screen of monsters that, though weak, still do damage to the player. As a consequence, the player must master the technique of using the sword and shield with a certain timing. By the time the player reaches the first boss, an enemy more difficult to beat, the fundamental skills will not require the player’s conscious attention, leaving more space for building strategies.
By freeing the player’s attention, games also allow them to try using old skills and strategies with new enemies, in such ways that the limits of previous skills are now made aware. Failure to succeed using such skills encourages the player to try out different strategies. In other words, to adapt previous skills to new situations.
This can be a powerful strategy for using games in the classroom as well. For example in the tutorial for Sid Meier’s Civilization IV, players take on the role of the national leaders throughout a span of many centuries. The game works on a turn-based manner. During each turn, players must make important internal and external policy and strategic decisions that will determine the way the civilization will evolve and ultimately the outcome of the historical scenario they are playing (e.g., the militarization of the Rhineland).
In the beginning, the amount of information that players must handle seems too complex for the novice to handle all at once. For this reason, a series of in-game advisors scaffold the player’s basic decisions, like founding a new city or researching a new technology.
Many of the decisions and technologies are historically accurate and mastering them within the game provides students with valuable conceptual knowledge of that time period. Later on in the game, players must make stategic decisions and create technologies, which may help develop a critical perspective of history.