The features that make a game a strong one often enhances that game's efficacy as an elearning tool. An effective game needs to be engaging, playable and challenging; it shouldn't be confusing or unexciting. In the same way, a training game needs to be engaging in order to foster learning and skills acquisition and mastery. Training games are used in corporate and military environments to address new learning and to head off skills degradation.

(I would argue that a game's meaning comes from the other players at the table as well as a small degree of challenge. This has to be calibrated in a way that makes sense to the players.) The process of instructional design may be mirrored by that of game development, from the assessment of the learning situation (market analysis) to the target audience (end user), the development of the learning situation and objectives (storyline), and then the employment of the technologies for draft curriculum development (game prototyping). There's the trial testing of the curriculum (beta testing of the game). Ultimately, there's the "going gold" with the elearning game. Presenters at the SALT Washington Interactive Technologies conference (Aug. 22 - 25, 2006) suggest that part of the development of an elearning game must consider the context.

Rarely "Soup to Nuts"

Elearning games are seldom stand-alone learning units; rather, they're most effective if a learning wrap has been created around the game to enhance the learning. This wrap may include having debriefing instructors who will enhance the learning. It may include directions in the game play; after all, elearning game developers may not assume that learners will necessarily immerse comfortable into the microverse of the game. Also, the game interface should be highly usable.

A plethora of different types of digital games exist. They're labeled by different names: small team tactics games, command / strategy ones, multi-user role-playing games, live simulations, persistent world games (like Second Life), first-person games, fantasy adventures, sports and racing games, and fighting games (many of which are known to test "twitch speed" alone).

For training purposes, because of the important of various types of training, elearning designers need to avoid inadvertently teaching learners behaviors and attitudes that are counterproductive. Some learning may have negative correlations. (This is why the design has to be thorough and the end product well tested.)

Avoiding "Seductive" Details for their own Sake

For all the glitzy graphics of some elearning games, the research doesn't seem to suggest that eye candy helps the learning. The "ooh-ah" factor diminishes quickly. (A version of this truth is Tom Held's "Held's Law of Diminishing Astonishment".)In addition, serious cost-benefit considerations have to go into what features to include. The realism of a game may affect the game's "credibility." Information in a game cannot be extraneous to the game's progression, or it will not likely be learned. The information must also be relevant to the learning objectives. Some common elearning game objectives may include those of team cohesion, mutual communications, and decision-making. (A number of elearning games I've seen involve facing disaster scenarios as "first responders".) The types of information in elearning games may be procedural, episodic, or factual. Learning outcomes may manifest as recall...or as transferability to a live context.

Information needs to be complementary. It cannot be repetitive. And there should not be extensive printed text. The presentation modalities must effectively connect learners with the learning, the play, if you will. Gamers today expect plug-and-play, even in a learning context.