Project: Design a Megagame

Most games are designed for play with a small circle of participants. Team sports can include larger groups but as the size of players increases so to do the rules that limit the forms of interaction between players and keep the level of complexity manageable. There are also types of game that embrace the complexity of multiple players interacting in complex ways, developing emergent areas of play. For simplicity this chapter will use the term ‘megagame’ to describe these large scale games or simulations that involve a dozen or more participants. Video games like MMORPGs (The World of Warcraft, The Elder Scrolls Online) allow for interaction of large numbers of players, but analog, human moderated games are much easier for educational designers to create. Megagames might involve a larger number of participants but, especially in an educational setting, they can also be distributed across periods of time. The semester might be broken into a number of different engagementss with the game that sees a scenario (or collection of scenarios) evolve over time due to the interaction of the learners.