#mda framework game design

[microlearningplatform]

DDE Framework for Training: The Next Big Thing in Learning Innovation

The DDE Framework for Game Design in Microlearning: Enhancing Engagement and Retention

In today's fast-paced digital world, traditional learning methods often fail to capture the attention of modern learners. Organizations are turning to microlearning, a bite-sized, highly focused learning approach that delivers knowledge in short, engaging formats. However, making microlearning effective requires more than just breaking content into smaller chunks—it must be engaging, interactive, and immersive. This is where the DDE Framework (Design, Develop, Evaluate) comes into play.

The DDE Framework for Game Design in Microlearning provides a structured approach to integrating gamification into learning experiences, making training more engaging and effective. This article explores the DDE Framework, its components, and how it enhances microlearning to drive better learning outcomes.

What is the DDE Framework?

The DDE Framework stands for:

Design – Conceptualizing the learning experience and setting clear learning objectives.

Develop – Creating the microlearning content with interactive and gamified elements.

Evaluate – Measuring the effectiveness of the learning experience and making improvements.

By following this framework, organizations can ensure that their microlearning strategy is engaging, interactive, and results-driven.

Phase 1: Design – Laying the Foundation for Engaging Learning

The Design phase is the most critical step in the DDE Framework. This is where learning objectives are established, and the foundation for game-based learning elements is set.

Key Elements of the Design Phase:

Identifying Learning Goals

What should learners achieve by the end of the module?

How does this learning align with business objectives?

Understanding the Audience

What are the learners' preferences, skill levels, and challenges?

What motivates them to engage in training?

Choosing Gamification Elements

Will the microlearning module include badges, leaderboards, points, or interactive challenges?

How can storytelling be used to create an immersive learning journey?

Defining the User Experience (UX)

How will learners interact with the content?

What kind of visual design will keep them engaged?

Example in Action:

A sales training module using the DDE Framework might include story-based simulations where learners play the role of a salesperson navigating customer interactions. Each correct decision earns points and unlocks new levels, making learning more engaging.

Phase 2: Develop – Creating Interactive and Engaging Microlearning Content

Once the design phase is complete, it’s time to develop the learning content. This phase focuses on bringing the learning experience to life through gamification, interactivity, and adaptive learning techniques.

Key Strategies in the Develop Phase:

Use of Microlearning Modules

Breaking content into short, engaging lessons (3-5 minutes each).

Ensuring each module focuses on a single learning objective.

Incorporating Gamification Mechanics

Rewards and Points – Encouraging learners to complete challenges.

Leaderboards – Fostering friendly competition.

Story-Based Scenarios – Creating a sense of immersion.

Adaptive Learning for Personalization

AI-driven personalization to adjust content based on learner progress.

Offering different difficulty levels based on prior performance.

Interactive Learning Elements

Using quizzes, drag-and-drop activities, and scenario-based decision-making.

Implementing real-time feedback to enhance learning retention.

Example in Action:

A customer service training program might include an interactive role-playing simulation, where learners respond to different customer queries. Each response earns points, and feedback is provided instantly to reinforce correct behaviors.

Phase 3: Evaluate – Measuring Success and Improving Learning Outcomes

The final phase of the DDE Framework is Evaluate, where organizations measure the effectiveness of their game-based microlearning strategy. This step ensures continuous improvement and better engagement over time.

Key Metrics for Evaluation:

Learner Engagement Rates

Are learners completing the modules?

How often are they logging in to the platform?

Knowledge Retention & Assessment Performance

Comparing pre-training and post-training assessments.

Using spaced repetition to reinforce learning.

Behavioral Changes & Application of Knowledge

Are learners applying their knowledge in real-world scenarios?

Conducting follow-up assessments to measure impact.

Learner Feedback and Experience

Gathering feedback through surveys and interactive polls.

Using AI-driven analytics to track learning patterns.

Example in Action:

A retail company implementing game-based microlearning for product training may track sales performance before and after training to assess the effectiveness of the learning program.

Why the DDE Framework is a Game-Changer for Microlearning

The DDE Framework helps organizations move beyond traditional, passive learning methods and embrace interactive, gamified learning experiences that drive engagement and retention. Here’s why it’s a game-changer:

Boosts Engagement with Game Mechanics

Elements like points, rewards, and challenges make learning enjoyable.

Encourages Continuous Learning

Short, digestible learning modules help employees learn without disrupting their workflow.

Improves Knowledge Retention

Spaced repetition and interactive assessments reinforce learning.

Enables Personalized Learning Experiences

AI-driven adaptability ensures learners receive customized training.

Provides Data-Driven Insights for Improvement

Tracking engagement and performance helps optimize training strategies.

Final Thoughts: Transform Your Learning Strategy with the DDE Framework

The DDE Framework for Game Design in Microlearning offers a structured approach to creating engaging, effective, and results-driven learning experiences. By focusing on Design, Develop, and Evaluate, organizations can transform dull training programs into dynamic, game-based learning experiences that improve knowledge retention, performance, and engagement.

Are you ready to enhance your microlearning strategy with the DDE Framework? Explore how MaxLearn can help you design game-based learning experiences that captivate learners and drive real results. 🚀

[thesuperawesomeaarpong]

Ever heard of the MDA framework before? Well, after watching this video you will. Because I'll be explaining the Mechanics, Dynamics and aesthetics of play framework in a way that is actually useful to you.

[gamedevjourney]

The Final Blog Post

I learned so much from taking this Game Studies class! I learned about many game design principles like the "flow" state, paper-prototypes, and guiding players in creative ways. I also learned a lot history-wise like how video games have historically been used to bring attention to social issues like mass shootings and inclusivity. Then I learned so much about the technical aspect of game development like C#, Unity Tools, teamwork, and Github! There was a lot of connections between everything we learned. The history and principles of design helped inspire me to create my first game which taught me valuable skills I brought to Darkness In Me. I had so much fun reading about games like Jeremey Gibson Bond's Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development. I had so much fun writing about games in these blog posts and assignments, especially when I got to analyze games through the MDA framework. Then I of course had fun playing the games! The social games like Jackbox and Bullshit were my favorite. I also had so much fun designing my own game (I stayed up all night working out the bugs, but I felt so motivated to do it!) I'm genuinely going to miss this class and I wish I could have gone in person. But I will definitely continue to play, learn about, and make games!

[minthwinkhant]

Learning Reflection on CS108 Intro to Game Studies

I have to drop this first - CS108 is the most fun, engaging, somewhat daunting and most of all rewarding class I have had throughout my SJSU career. Not only do professor Morgan (James) personality and presentation style in class keeps me actively participating, they also motivate to come to class even though this class's the last class on Mondays and Wednesdays for me. The nature of assignments significantly help in building up relevant knowledge, skills and context towards milestones throughout the semester -- from boardgame and Unity prototype to the final project. I particularly liked crafting session reports, not game reviews, on different play sessions of various games. And all these buildup tasks lead to a culminating final exam which involves composing a session report on cool arcade games! (seriously can't ask for more)

If anything struck to my memory, it'd be MDA framework and Jenkins' narratology-ludology analysis take on games. Now, every game I play, I feel like I have more analytical approach to games than just blindly playing it for fun. Another thing that interests me is the efficacy of games as a medium and post-DuChamp take on art as a concept; how media red-flagged Super Columbine Massacre RPG while the other media equivalents such as videos and documentaries were hitting the screen across decades without any criticism at all does beg for deeper cultural analysis of games and their roles with us. This concept relating to games as art and art as a concept in the contemporary era also enlightens my computer science background with a different road towards exposure and appreciation of certain elements in my life. Finally, I loved our last discussion -- where is the Shakespear of games? -- because it challenges me to redefine certain normalized concepts of 'classic' in a given niche or industry as well as the comparative analysis of games as a medium along with other well-established media such as photography, films, sculpture and literature.

Oh yes, I did a lottt of readings, writings, playing and designing games. You know what the best part is? I did not know I was trying because I was enjoying it through the semester.

Although I didn't spend much of my life playing games, I was fond of the arc of Arthur and the Lich King from Warcraft 3. So here's an a cool art by MalakBT of the Frozen Throne to mark my rentry to games and gaming after the end of this semester!

[anshudma]

Blog 9: Course Reflection

This is by far one of the most enjoyable classes I have ever taken at San Jose State University. As someone grew up playing video games and wanted to dabble in game design, Art 108 was the perfect opportunity to do so. Throughout the course, the lectures and labs helped build and sharpen my skills in game design. I appreciated the variety in lecture material as well as in the labs. Within the lectures, the MDA framework was the most helpful in terms of analyzing games and creating them. I can see myself using this in the future when playing a new game or when creating one of my own. Along with this, I enjoyed the game playing labs, the prototype and final assignments. These assignments helped me gain hands-on experience in playing and making video games within a team environment. I learnt the most in the final project by not only creating animations, assets, platforms and backgrounds but also working with programmers to implement them into the Unity engine to create a cohesive game. Overall, this class was a great experience and I learned an enormous amount about game design that I will most definitely be taking into my future. I look forward to continuing game design in the game development club next semester!

Here are some of my favorite assets I made this semester:

[gravitas-game-and-book-dev-blog]

The Cursed Problem of Sandbox Strategy Games

One of the best GDC talks I’ve ever heard is called, "Cursed Problems in Game Design" by Alex Jaffe. In this talk he goes over a common situation where a designer has two different goals that end up conflicting with one another. Trying to fulfill one ends up costing the other and vice versa. For years now I have been playing Sandbox Strategy games, be them Paradox Interactive’s library of Grand Strategy titles or Creative Assemblies Total War series and while these games are fun and enjoyable in the beginning, the flaws become more apparent as you sink additional time into them and I think we can explore why this is using the ‘Cursed Problem’ as a framework for why that is and discuss some of the techniques proposed in the talk on how to compromise with the conflict, because you can’t solve a cursed problem, only mitigate its effect on the intended experience. 

So what is the conflict between a sandbox game and a strategy game? Let’s start by identifying what each genre promises to the players. For the sake of keeping an air of academic pretentiousness, let’s use the Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics (MDA) framework for identifying what aesthetics players are after in each of these genres. For a sandbox game that’s primarily going to be Expression as the player helps to craft the experience on their own terms and Discovery as the player tinkers with the mechanics and systems to see how they work. For a strategy game the appeal is going to lie more with challenge. Challenge and discovery actually compliment each other very well, as by exploring the mechanics and playspace new options become apparent to the player and as they begin to learn, they are rewarded with a feeling of mastery as they overcome the obstacles in the way of their goal. The conflict is between a desire to allow the player to express themself, while challenging them. The more the player is permitted to express themself, naturally means there are more viable solutions to a given problem. Since strategy games are tests of decision making ability and do not typically rely on skill checks, whether or not you succeed is dependent on whether or not you made the right decisions in the time you were given. Essentially, the more the player is allowed to express themself, the more decisions are viable, which typically reduces the challenge of the game. If every strategy/build/deck/etc can work, then the appeal of challenge is lost. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the game might not be designed as an overly challenging one, but it has various negative impacts on the game's design. 

Firstly, if the player realizes they’ll be able to win regardless of their decision, then those decisions hold no weight. The player might start to skip reading events or decisions because why should they care? If a choice is inconsequential, why waste my time? Anytime the player starts ignoring the decisions they are presented with and just opts for the fastest option, like clicking something random or setting a unit to auto, we see that the appeal of challenge has been lost and if the decisions don’t matter, expressing one’s self through a chosen strategy no longer feels rewarding. I didn’t come up with a clever synergy or build, the game’s just easy. With that, strategist fantasy is lost.

We could also swing the other way and try increasing the difficulty and limiting the number of viable options, but this problem is probably more obvious and takes the form of META gaming. For those unaware META is an acronym that stands for Most Effective Tactic Available. As dominant strategies become known they beg the question, ‘Why pick anything else?’ and if there was an antagonist for the ideal of self expression, it would probably be that statement. 

Despite this we can see games combining these genres succeed regularly at a commercial level. Paradox Interactive being the giant within this space, so let’s examine one of their successes with Crusader Kings. It’s fairly clear the secret ingredient is role-playing. A natural complement to expression and a justification to actively not take a META option, but we can still see the conflict depending on the player. If a player goes into a Crusader Kings campaign with the mindset that it is a strategy game, their experience will likely follow a path similar to this: 

“What is this and how does this even work?” (First 100 hours, the onboarding issues in their genre are another essay on their own)

Possibly drops the game instead of continuing

“How do I kill my oldest son?” 

“Oh, that’s how this all works! Wait, I can get claims from doing this?” 

*Giddy excitement at breaking the game 

*Proceeds to get bored and potentially stops playing 

*Either obscenely heinous shit for the thrill of it, or the nerdiest roleplaying you’ve ever seen where they begin to complain on the forums about the lack of crop rotation mechanics and how poorly represented X region is in game, citing primary and secondary sources from the twelfth century, except they’re wrong actually because that was only for Catalonia and the practice did not extend to the whole of Spain you troglodytes. 

Ultimately, Crusader Kings is able to mitigate the problem when it is able to communicate to the player they should role-play instead of min-max. The poison for the experience is the desire to play it like a strategy game, which leads me to the following hot take: 

Crusader Kings isn’t a strategy game, but it delivers a strategist fantasy.

Crusader Kings wants you to feel smart and cunning, but it also wants you to pick the stupid option because it’s more fun. 

Similarly, 

Victoria isn’t a strategy game, it’s a simulation where you pilot a nation down a path. 

Victoria wants you to feel like your ideology can work, is the best one and the game relies on its systems and economic model to make you buy into it. Just like Crusader Kings the real aesthetic the game is capitalizing on is fantasy and expression instead of challenge. When you play these games with the goal of min-maxing, and awkwardly enough, strategizing, you spoil the experience for yourself. Doing what you feel like instead of the ‘smartest’ play, is how to have fun with them.

Games like Europa Universalis(my personal favorite), Hearts of Iron and Total War are much more firmly strategy games, but they all suffer from the problem where they tend to fall off after the early game because they have to be easy enough to accommodate a multitude of strategies for the sake of player expression. This is the sole reason for a drop in difficulty in these games, things like the snowball problem and limitations with AI play a role, but because these games are strategy games, when the player pulls ahead you run into the same problem you have in a Civilization game where you know you’ve won, but you still have to wait to actually see the victory screen. So players just abandon the campaign and start a new one chasing a high they can no longer get because the game can't challenge them without setting additional challenges for themself or going for a specific and often pun inspired achievement. 

As we can see these are not death knells for these games, but it is where a lot of dissatisfaction from long time players comes from and as games whose monetization models rely much more heavily on fewer loyal high spending customers through DLCs, expansions and so on, it would be a great boon to keep them satisfied and continuing to evangelize their games to others. So let’s examine some techniques to help further mitigate the conflict. 

The talk on Cursed Problems discusses 4 means of dealing with these conflicts. The first is to create ‘barriers,’ which serve as a sort of blocker that keeps the player from spoiling the experience for themself and roguelikes offer some inspiration for solving the dilemma we have between expression and challenge. If the player simply doesn’t get to choose which bonuses/build/cards/tools/etc they get to work with, they are forced to work with what they have and strategize around that. In these situations, the build can still feel like their own and I think a saving perfectly encapsulates this idea and the strategist fantasy we are often after.

“You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” -Donald Rumsfeld

This type of barrier does create a situation where sometimes the player might want to play a certain way but can’t. Maybe they want to be aggressive and go to war but they get more bonuses to diplomacy or their build might just be plain terrible. I say lows help to make highs higher, but you’ll need to decide if this is a desirable trade off to you. 

Another technique is the use of ‘carrots.’ These serve as things that encourage the player to make the decisions that won’t spoil the experience for themself. A perfect example of this is the stress system in Crusader Kings 3, where the player is encouraged to make decisions that are in line with their character’s personality, rather than always picking the one that seems the best every time. Sometimes the player would still rather take the stress hit, but it helps keep the player in the role-play state of mind. 

Next up is the opposite of a ‘carrot,’ which is a ‘smore.’ A ‘smore’ is used when the designer acknowledges a promise is being broken, but plays into that. Stress is actually both a carrot and a smore because, when the player accumulates a certain amount of stress they suffer a mental breakdown which can sometimes be entertaining despite it being a negative, like becoming a lunatic. I think of a ‘smore’ in the same way I think of rolling a nat 1 in DnD. If we can make a strategy game where it’s fun to be bad or unlucky, then we don’t need to worry as much about making more playstyles viable options. When people play Ganondorf in Super Smash Bros. Melee, they aren’t usually playing to win. They’re trying to send a message and are expressing themself by depressing their opponent. Or they eat shit while trying. Either way, you won't see them bend to the will of a META game or tierlist, the honorable fools that they are.

‘Gates’ are another technique and serve to make it more difficult, but not impossible for the player to highlight the conflict. I find it difficult to spot examples of this in sandbox games as player freedom is usually core to the design and I’m tired now so someone else find a good example of this for me please. Thanks. 

In summary, while player expression and challenge often come at the cost of one another, I believe the longevity or ‘honeymoon’ period of a sandbox strategy game can be extended by seeking to minimize the impact it has on the game’s design, or to acknowledge that a game is about achieving a strategist fantasy rather than centralizing the gameplay around strategic decision making.

[thealchemyofgamecreation]

Understanding the MDA Framework: Simple Guide for Game Designers

Check out my latest article "Understanding the MDA Framework: Simple Guide for Game Designers"! If you're interested in game design and want to learn how to create mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics. #gamedesign #MDAframework #gameanalysis #AdobeFirefly

[swarmik]

“SuperCGA” and ATI Graphics Solution and GEM Desktop

8bit guy published a video about SuperCGA cards, which reminded me that this was a topic a recently dug into. I’ve never really worked with CGA/EGA monitors. When we had a computer at home for the first time in 1989, it was an IBM PS/2 Model 20 borrowed from dad’s office. That computer already had an on-board graphics chip that worked with VGA monitors. One year later, my family decided to buy our own computer. It was a 286 clone with an SVGA graphics card and an SVGA monitor able to show 1024×768 (interlaced though).

During the Bytefest (a vintage computer show in Czech Republic), one of the computers I brought there was an early Vienna 286. A friend of mine promised that he would have brought an EGA monitor, so I could try a card I bought just for this purpose – a Trident 8800CS (512KB). This Trident has both VGA and RGBI/TTL (CGA/EGA) outputs and can be switched to act like different IBM graphics chips. Sadly, the Trident card was ignoring the switches and always used VGA timing. It sent the signal always to both outputs but my EGA monitor was not able to sync 640×480 with 31kHz h-sync (as expected). We brought an oscilloscope, even made some modifications to the card, but nothing helped. When I asked in some groups, the only answer I got was that somebody tried the same thing on his Trident 8800CS with the same result.

Anyway, I also had the original ATI Graphics Solution card that was sold with the computer somewhere in 1987, so at least I had something else to play with. This is a very neat card. It has 64KB of video RAM and supports both CGA and Hercules modes. As I shown in the past, it even supports CGA modes on Hercules/MDA monitors using clever timing tricks. The card was used in the Hercules mode for the whole its life as the machine served in an electrical engineering lab for designing electric circuits. This was finally the time for me to switch it into the native CGA mode.

Seeing the CGA modes was not so interesting for me. However, the card supports also non-standard modes that can utilize the whole memory which is four times of what the IBM CGA has. The obvious choice was something that supports Plantronics ColorPlus which ATI supported like many other CGA-clone vendors. Yes, I tried Planet-X3 and Space Quest 3 in 320×200 with 16 colors. However, Planet-X3 is a modern game, and the Space Quest 3 uses a modern video driver to support this card (the original game did not have it). I was more interested in productivity apps. After seeing that GEM Desktop (sort of a Windows competitor) provides support for ColorPlus, I installed the whole bundle.

At the beginning, everything looked just like with CGA – black & white only. This was because the desktop environment does not use more colors there. On the other side, if I moved the mouse fast enough, it was visible that sometimes the cursor was ping instead of black for a moment. Thus, I knew that we were actually in the 4-color mode. After installing office programs, I was finally able to see all four colors in 640×200. Quickly after that I realized that among desktop accessories, there is a calculator that uses magenta as a background color. Anyway, I am happy that I also tried these office/productivity apps. From my point of view, they are gimmick. They look like they support everything but when you try to do something, you get the feeling that they were designed more to present the functionality of the desktop environment.

The ColorPlus had just 32KB of video RAM and my ATI Graphics Solution has 64KB, so it should be able to drive 640×200 in full 16 colors. I’ve checked the user guide for the card and indeed this mode was mentioned there. ATI manual says that there is support for it in AutoCAD, PC Paintbrush+, Lotus 1-2-3, Symphony and Framework II. I installed the PC Paintbrush+ as a bitmap editor can benefit the most from such a mode. The support for this card was built in the software so no extra drivers were needed. After selecting the mode, I was able to get the best out of a CGA 200-line monitor. What I really like, the bundled ATI driver disk contains a small example program to enable this mode (including its source code), so programmers could modify their own programs to get more than what a standard CGA offered.

Original article with hi-res photos: here

[zaneronaldtalbot-blog]

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons - An Objective Perspective

Released in August of 2013 by Starbreeze Studios, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons took a bizarre spin on a dual protagonist puzzle adventure game. The camera is set in the third person and the player gets the unique ability to control both the elder and younger brother at the same time for most of the game.

This is the main mechanic of the game, and is where the game draws its challenges and puzzles from. The two brothers must be controlled at the same time to solve puzzles that play into their very different attributes. For example, the older brother is stronger so he is used to move heavy objects and getting the younger brother to higher places. The younger brother is used to get into narrow places and to climb over ledges etc. It is this interplay between the brothers and their unique skill sets that push forward the main loops of the game.

In the moment to moment gameplay, the players can expect to be running between puzzles, interacting with the environment and with certain objects that are required to solve puzzles. Each puzzle itself forms the level loops.

There aren’t particular ‘levels’ per se but there are specific sections that differ from one another, however this writer believes that the level loops rest between each puzzle presented to the player.

Finally, a session loop for a player would involve a few puzzles before turning the game off, however as it is a short game the player may finish the entire game in two to three hours, so depending on the session a player may finish the entire game in a loop.

A suitable exit point for a player would be between puzzles, as the player has the ability to tackle something new and fresh when they come back to the game.

So what does the writer think of the game? 

Stepping away from the objective loops and core mechanics the game has a beautiful art style and great level design. The gameplay feels different from anything I’ve played before and the story is full of twists and turns (I won’t spoil anything), with a few super emotional moments dispersed throughout. 

I love this game.

Bye!

[microlearningplatform]

DDE Framework: The Secret to Engaging Game-Based Microlearning

The DDE Framework for Game Design in Microlearning: Transforming Training with Gamification

Gamification in learning is no longer a novelty—it’s a necessity. Traditional training methods often struggle to engage modern learners, who expect interactive, engaging, and dynamic experiences. This is where game design principles come into play, making learning more effective and enjoyable.

A structured approach to gamification in microlearning is the DDE Framework—which stands for Design, Dynamics, and Experience. This model provides a clear structure for integrating game elements into microlearning platforms like MaxLearn, ensuring that training is both engaging and results-driven.

In this article, we’ll explore: ✔ What the DDE Framework is ✔ How it enhances gamified microlearning ✔ Practical applications for corporate training

Understanding the DDE Framework

The DDE Framework is a structured approach to game design that ensures learning experiences are:

Engaging (keeping learners motivated)

Effective (improving knowledge retention)

Effortless (easy to navigate and complete)

Each component—Design, Dynamics, and Experience—plays a crucial role in making gamified microlearning successful.

1. Design: Structuring the Game Elements

The Design phase focuses on planning and structuring the gamification strategy. This step determines how learning objectives align with game mechanics to drive engagement.

Key Components of the Design Phase:

🎨 Visual & Interactive Elements – UI/UX, avatars, themes, and storytelling enhance immersion. 📜 Learning Objectives – Ensuring game elements support clear, measurable learning goals. 🎯 Gamification Mechanics – Defining leaderboards, achievements, levels, and challenges. 🕹 Game Rules & Rewards – Establishing rules, progression systems, and motivational incentives.

Example in Microlearning: Imagine a compliance training module where learners complete challenges to unlock new levels, reinforcing knowledge while keeping engagement high.

2. Dynamics: How the Game Engages Learners

The Dynamics phase focuses on learner interaction with the game mechanics. It’s about creating an emotional connection and ensuring the experience is interactive.

Key Components of the Dynamics Phase:

🔁 Progression & Motivation – Ensuring continuous engagement through levels, badges, and milestones. 🤝 Social Interactions – Integrating team-based challenges, leaderboards, and peer competition. 🚀 Instant Feedback – Providing real-time performance insights to guide learners. 🎭 Personalized Challenges – Adapting difficulty levels based on learner performance.

Example in Microlearning: A sales training module where employees compete in real-time quizzes, earning rewards for correct answers, creating a competitive and motivating environment.

3. Experience: How Learners Perceive the Journey

The Experience phase focuses on the user journey, engagement levels, and emotional response. A well-designed gamified microlearning course should feel rewarding and meaningful.

Key Components of the Experience Phase:

🎉 Intrinsic Motivation – Making learning enjoyable beyond just earning points. 🔄 Retention & Application – Reinforcing knowledge through spaced repetition and scenario-based learning. 📱 Seamless Accessibility – Ensuring learners can access content easily on mobile and desktop. 💡 Storytelling & Immersion – Creating an engaging narrative that learners connect with.

Example in Microlearning: A cybersecurity training program that places learners in a simulated attack scenario, allowing them to make choices that affect the outcome—making learning realistic and memorable.

Why Use the DDE Framework in Microlearning?

Microlearning platform is all about short, focused learning experiences. The DDE Framework enhances this by making learning:

✅ More Engaging – Learners stay motivated with game mechanics like badges, challenges, and leaderboards. ✅ More Retentive – Gamified content improves knowledge retention rates through active participation. ✅ More Personalized – Adaptive challenges ensure each learner gets a customized experience. ✅ More Enjoyable – Training becomes fun, increasing completion rates and participation.

Without gamification, microlearning risks being just another passive e-learning experience. The DDE Framework ensures it is dynamic, interactive, and rewarding.

Real-World Applications of the DDE Framework in Corporate Training

Let’s explore how different industries can leverage the DDE Framework to enhance training.

1. Sales Training – 🎯 Boosting Performance Through Gamified Learning

Design: Sales reps progress through levels as they complete negotiation scenarios.

Dynamics: Instant feedback helps them improve pitch strategies.

Experience: Leaderboards create friendly competition.

2. Compliance Training – 📜 Making Mandatory Training Fun

Design: Training modules turn compliance policies into mini-games.

Dynamics: Employees earn badges for each completed policy section.

Experience: Storytelling makes regulations easy to understand and apply.

3. Customer Service Training – 💬 Enhancing Communication Skills

Design: Interactive role-play simulations for handling customer queries.

Dynamics: AI-driven real-time feedback for responses.

Experience: Scenario-based learning makes training immersive.

4. Onboarding Training – 🚀 Engaging New Employees from Day One

Design: Employees navigate a virtual onboarding world.

Dynamics: Milestone achievements mark progress.

Experience: Personalized learning paths make onboarding engaging.

Best Practices for Implementing the DDE Framework in Microlearning

To maximize the impact of DDE-driven gamification, follow these best practices:

✔ Keep it Simple – Avoid overcomplicating game mechanics. Simple challenges work best. ✔ Align with Learning Goals – Every gamification element should reinforce the training objective. ✔ Use Meaningful Rewards – Offer badges, certificates, and real-world incentives to maintain motivation. ✔ Encourage Social Learning – Integrate peer challenges, leaderboards, and team-based competitions. ✔ Analyze & Optimize – Use AI-driven analytics to track learner performance and improve training effectiveness.

MaxLearn: The Ultimate Gamified Microlearning Platform

Platforms like MaxLearn leverage AI-powered gamification and microlearning to deliver engaging, effective, and customized training experiences.

🚀 Why Choose MaxLearn? 🔹 AI-powered adaptive learning for personalized experiences 🔹 Engaging game mechanics (leaderboards, rewards, challenges) 🔹 Mobile-friendly microlearning for on-the-go training 🔹 Data-driven insights for tracking and improving performance

If you’re looking to supercharge your training programs with gamification, MaxLearn’s AI-powered microlearning is the perfect solution.

Final Thoughts: Why the DDE Framework is a Game-Changer for Learning

The DDE Framework (Design, Dynamics, Experience) provides a structured approach to gamifying microlearning, ensuring training is:

🎯 Engaging 📚 Educational 💡 Memorable

By implementing game elements effectively, organizations can enhance learning outcomes, boost motivation, and drive business success.

🔹 Are you ready to transform your training? Explore how MaxLearn can help you implement the DDE Framework in your corporate learning strategy today! 🚀

[thesuperawesomeaarpong]

Great post! Not to plug myself too much but I just happened to have made a video on the MDA framework and the Aesthetics of play (or kinds of fun, as I like to call them).

"Games mean via their dynamics."

It's a sentence I've heard a few times from different people. These are professional game designers, who have thought a lot about this art form. I think a lot about this art form too, which is why I seek out every talk, interview, and book I can find on the topic. And these people are trying to find the answer to "How do games create meaning?"

"Games mean via their dynamics."

This is a reference to the MDA framework, which stands for Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics. It was some game scholars' attempts in the mid-2000s to put a science to the art of game design. In this framework Mechanics, which are the rules and logic behind the game, create Dynamics, all the interactions and behaviors that happen at runtime. These then create Aesthetics, the underlying feelings of the game, the reasons why we play it. As an example, a shooter having a low ammo count (Mechanic) forces you to conserve your ammo, (Dynamic) which leads to an atmosphere of tension and caution. (Aesthetic) Designers are trying to achieve specific aesthetics, but only have direct control over the mechanics. That middle layer makes all the difference, and that can be frustrating.

"Games mean via their dynamics."

This is an interesting thing for me, as a burgeoning game designer. I like to think that stories, characters, and themes can be conveyed through mechanics. A lot of my work on games like Fiora was done with this exact mindset. But what this sentence means is that I can create all the mechanics I want, deciding for myself what they mean, but all of that intent vanishes as soon as it gets in the hands of a player. And that terrifies me.

Games mean via their dynamics.

If a designer puts a mechanic into a game, and it creates no dynamics, does the mechanic mean anything? I think about this a lot when looking back on Fiora: Full Bloom, possibly my most well-known title. It's a turn-based RPG, made using the vestigial functions of an engine designed for walking simulators. It has a lot of clever ideas, and I'd recommend you play it to see them, but relevant to our conversation is this: The stats and formulas underlying Fiora's combat are deliberately obfuscated. It shows you attributes like Power and Resilience, but they don't mean what you think they mean, and it's on you to interpret their functions. I actually included a stat, called Logic, which does nothing. Literally nothing, it does not matter whether you raise or lower it. This was meant as a "checkmate, atheists" kind of burn, as logic alone cannot get one out of an emotional spiral. But crucially, in early versions at least, I didn't *tell* anybody that Logic was a useless stat. I wanted people to come to their own conclusions, hopefully realizing naturally that Logic doesn't do anything, and questioning what that means. I wanted players to create their own understanding of the mechanics, to have Fiora be a canvas of interpretation. But...

Games mean via their dynamics.

Ultimately, the open interpretation canvas didn't work. I'm sure for some people it did, but most players ended up confused, nonplussed, or just checking the guide I wrote. The game hid its true colors too well, and most people only connected with its message *after* checking the guide. The game was just better when it was explicit, and it was more meaningful once players understood the mechanics. A mechanic inert, standing in the code, means nothing unless the player experiences it.

A mechanic on its own cannot create an aesthetic, there *must* be a dynamic.

I'm working right now on a party game about pirates and capitalism, getting extremely antsy waiting for the first playtest. I have all these high-minded ideas of what the game is about, but ultimately the players are the ones who decide what the game is. In his talk, "Dynamics: The State of the Art," Clint Hocking argues that a multiplayer game like Go, Badminton, or Street Fighter might not mean much innately, but an individual session can be loaded with meaning. Go isn't "about" a conflict between traditionalism and progressivism, but Shūsai vs Kitani was. Two kids playing Badminton in the backyard might not be particularly rigorous, but a game between Djokovic and Federer can influence a nation's view of its own national identity. A fight in Street Fighter isn't really about Ryu vs Ken, but about two players with different ideas of what the game is about, fighting to see who's wins. By this framing, a game means something different each session. The mechanics just give players the tools to create meaning of their own.

Games mean via their dynamics.

This is death of the author, only so much worse. At least in a book, the words are the same. Each word might mean different things to different people, but we can still have a consistent idea of what a sentence, in the abstract, "means." A movie may be interpreted in countless ways, but it's still the same shots, the same cuts, the same directorial decisions. It's still the same story, you know? But when you make a game, each player will have a different story, even in a largely linear affair. Your playthrough of Pokemon Legends: Arceus will not be the same as mine, it will have different characters, different challenges, different arcs. Your player character may have been a trainer or a surveyor, but mine was a hunter. And that was achieved through my personal interaction with the game's mechanics.

It was achieved through the dynamics.

This is *why* Roger Ebert said that games could never be art! Creative control isn't strict enough, the creator doesn't get to decide what the game is about, they don't even decide what it *is!* But he said that over a decade ago, and he's dead now, so who really cares anymore? Well, I do. Not because I'm insecure about the legitimacy of games as an art form, but because I worry that my game's meaning is out of my control. I can say that my game is a critique of capitalism, but is it really? Will people really come out of this game liking capitalism less? Or will I fall into the Monopoly trap of making capitalism fun? It's not about what I personally want, because like,

Games mean via their dynamics!

In the 2010s the popular conception of games was that they are "empathy machines," letting you understand someone's situation in a way only games can allow. This was a big part of the conversation surrounding games like Depression Quest, Dys4ia, and Cart Life. But is that what they're trying to be, and are they successful? In his talk, "You Have No Idea How Hard It Is to Run a Sweatshop," Soren Johnson talks about the ways games have tried and failed to create empathy in audiences. A game that put you in the role of a poor person made players think the poor just need to ration their money better. A game that made you a sweatshop manager to show how increasing quotas make you sell more of your soul ended up creating more empathy for the managers than the workers. All of the mechanics were in place to make a pointed message about the state of our world, but when put in the hands of players they sent the exact opposite message.

Games mean via their dynamics.

This is all very high-minded and academic, from someone who cares about this stuff a lot. But maybe it's overthinking things a little? Like, both Hocking and Johnson say that games are about their dynamics, and not their cutscene narrative. But does it have to be an either-or? While people who don't give a shit about mechanics and play games for the traditional stories are enjoying games in a very different way than I tend to, I wouldn't say they're enjoying games Wrong. I think game literacy requires an understanding of how gameplay creates meaning, but that doesn't mean games have to be "pure" in their ludic narrative. I think back to Ian Danskin's video about Bastion, where he points out that there is no pure storytelling medium, and that all stories bastardize the medium they're told in. But every medium gives a unique method for telling stories, that we shouldn't dismiss just because they're not "pure" forms of the medium. Games mean via their dynamics, and they mean via many other things too, and that array of possibilities is what gives games their character. So just, make games, you know?

I wrote most of that last night, and now today's the day of my playtest. I think I'll be okay with whatever happens. Whatever dynamics the game creates will help guide my development in the coming weeks. I can't control the dynamics, and that's the beautiful thing about them. But I can create the right conditions for fun, entertaining, and thought-provoking dynamics. The designer of a playground can't control how the kids play, but they can influence it by giving them the means to make their own fun. Playgrounds are an art. And I encourage you, if you've gotten this far, to think harder about the meaning created by the games you play. Not just by the dialogue, or the cutscenes, or the "story" as it were, but by the moment-to-moment interactions in the game's dynamics. Think about what the game does to you, and what kind of person it makes you. Because I love this medium, and I hope I've made you love it just a little bit more.

[thesuperawesomeaarpong]

Right now i’m making a video on the MDA framework. I’ll be talking about some game design problems i’ve been able to solve when it comes to genre.

What are your experiences with the MDA framework and the aesthetics of play? Have ulyou bern able to apply them in your game design?

[jeremy-ken-anderson]

Design Theory: FFXV

For a class I’m taking, I’ve been asked to perform a thought experiment. At first I did this with XIV, but once we got into the “make improvements” section I decided I’d have an easier and also more satisfying time pondering a game that isn’t quite so critically acclaimed.

And I decided I’d rather blog it out than write it on notepad paper.

So. FFXV. One Final Fantasy With the Lads.

The MDA Framework - Mechanics, Dynamics, Affect (Aesthetics is the original A here, but for a game dev class we’re broadening it to include more things that evoke emotional responses) - translates into Mechanics being the rules, Dynamics being the play experience itself, and hopefully the play experience then produces an Affect of “fun.”

An example I’ve touched on before, where Mechanics produce Affect by way of Dynamics: In FFXV they have a very clean sense of being Injured. If you get down to 0 hp, your recoverable hp starts bleeding out. Get first aid or a potion and you stop bleeding out and recover some. But your “current max hp” remains lower than your true max hp. If you’re down to 1 hp and not injured and you get out of combat, you’ll be back at full hp in 10 or 20 seconds. If your “current max hp” gets down to half, you’re in a bad spot and it’ll take multiple minutes (current max hp recovers by 1 every 3-4 seconds, orders of magnitude slower than your normal health regen outside of battle). This mechanic produces a dynamic where during gameplay the player is heavily pressured to fight only when strong and run when weak. After all, you only die if current max hp hits 0, and getting to the state where you’re bleeding out is the full length of your health bar if you’re uninjured but could be much lower if you’ve already just barely survived a few fights. Emotionally this makes situations where you really can feel how much smaller the four of you are than the enemy army, especially when you get in a nasty cycle of them dropping more enemies on you just as you’re finishing up the prior fight. It ramps up tension, and makes you seek out safe havens and places the army can’t reach.

The storytelling angle on the MDA Framework sees the Designer’s Story as the Mechanics, the Storytelling (or play experience) as Dynamics, and the Player’s Story (aka the stories they tell themselves about how the game session went) as Affect. This is where FFXV loses a lot of people. It’s broadly panned by critics for how the Designer’s Story snaps from a freeform open-world game to being 100% on rails until shortly before the final boss, at which point it attempts to sell you on its open world again.

From a gameplay perspective, I don’t think XV gains much from its open world. There are a few counterexamples - the experience I had of encountering an Iron Giant at night, just kind of driving around the middle of nowhere is a good emergent gameplay moment - but I think similar experiences could be replicated in instanced content and meanwhile a lot of bland tromping across open plains could be removed.

Meanwhile because it’s so firmly about brotherhood and the fraternal bond between four young men, a lot of the moments that resonate most strongly with its themes are scripted to match appropriate story beats.

Ironically I think the better way to improve FFXV would be to strengthen its rails, not to take it off the rails. FFX was extremely on rails! Until basically the final boss, there wasn’t any way of going back to prior zones at all! The rails, clearly, weren’t the problem. I think a lot of the problem was in the expectation of freedom owing to the first portion of the story being so wide-open and choice-oriented. Because of the existing themes of Noctis entering adulthood, I like the idea of the nature of his options changing somehow. Maybe add in factions he can befriend in the political landscape, each with a specific flair and style. This gives the adult message of his actions now having consequences on people outside his immediate social circle, but also continues to expand options for self-expression. The idea that options for self-expression being constrained is part of the fundamental nature of adulthood is...perhaps one with cultural resonance for a lot of Japanese people, but a lot of people - Japanese people included - just plain hate it as an idea. So I’d make sure whatever options were present early in the game, there might not be the same kinds of choices but there would be just as many that felt meaningful. Perhaps the early game includes exploration and poking aimlessly at sidequests, but once the physical location gets on rails you get into a Mass Effect style of branching narrative tree instead, or that’s when the characters suddenly get access to a job system that lets you customize your play style itself like crazy.

As you can see, there are a lot of ways to do it and they can come at the problem from fundamentally different angles. I think the truth of XV is that the design problem was financial; They’d have made the whole game this freeform romp through the countryside if they’d had the scratch, but they ran out of money so they had to focus on getting the story told. Some of the lazier late-game assets (detailed in various reviews, such as this one from Super Eyepatch Wolf) indicate the same. I expect if I got into that situation I’d take the same approach. To my eye it beats the Lord of the Rings Cartoon approach, where they did production front-to-back and therefore released a movie that’s a really cool first 2/3 of a movie and then it literally just stops without the last 1/3 happening. I think I also prefer it to kicking the can down the road and trying to call it “Part 1 of 2,” because the odds of a satisfying Part 2 getting made are never good in that kind of situation. Once they were in that pickle, they did the best with what they had.

But if I could catch things just a little bit pre-pickle, those are the changes I’d make: I’d take the focus off of the open world - particularly I’d remove most of the real-time travel in favor of environments I could pack more densely with interactions. From a production standpoint I think I’d use a hex map “quadrant design” system, where design teams would make individual hexes of content for a world map and then we’d design the world map to fit the number of encounters we were able to get done, rather than making a world map and hoping we could fill it up with stuff. I’d ABSOLUTELY avoid constraining the player agency, especially in association with Noctis’ journey to adulthood. That just...seems to imply a really shitty theme, and I’m not here for it. To combat this directly, I’d probably add in another cool system associated somehow with adulthood in the second half of the game. There’d be a direct statement from the game that you might lose some choice about some things but you have SO MUCH more choice about others!

So yeah. Those are the Mechanics I’d add to FFXV and how I think they’d change Affect by way of the Dynamics of play.

[industrialillussions]

GamePie [#1] - Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics

Challenge: How to recognize different game elements such as Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics in games?

On the first day of the new semester GDT (Game Design & Technology) we got the assignment to play and analyse 5 HTML5 FPS Games. After playing these games for a while we had to describe the game elements such as: Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics or MDA for short. Though in order to not make the assignment way bigger then it should be we only had to analyse 1 of the games this way.

  With this assignment we learned how to analyse a game more in-depth, more thoroughly, by using the appropriate vocabulary and use objective, well substantiated arguments rather then vague, subjective statements. For this to be achieved we had to analyse the game we chose based on it’s MDA elements so that we could learn to understand and recognize these elements better.

______________________________________________________________

Methodology

Personally I liked the game DEEP the most because it felt the most complete, well rounded and I had by far the best gaming experience with it of all the games we had to try. Eventually as a group we unanimously decided that we were going to analyse this game. We documented our findings and analysis in a word document. In this document we wrote down the Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics we managed to recognize after playing the game a dozen times each, exploring new parts of the levels, see how far the player’s freedom goes within the game and looking into what the player could do while trying to reach the end. I contributed to this by researching all the MDA elements a bit, verifying findings that other players had and filling the document with findings we discussed.

 DOT Framework Methods Used:

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[minthwinkhant]

First Playable

My team's project is a game called "Fire and Ice". The project is contributed by Jonathan Sim, an artist and designer, and by Edward Khant, myself as a programmer and producer, under professor James Morgan, the product owner.

Being a novel to game dev, I took an ample time to make sense of certain concepts. MDA framework assisted me in organizing my understandings and thoughts on what I want to do, while my programming background contributed in realistically setting up what I can accomplish in the given timeframe for the product prototype. Despite the abundance of tutorials online, I find it difficult to feed myself consistent versions of certain implementations across different Unity iterations while digesting the syntax and abstractions of Unity's C# built-in functions is much as challenging.

Intra-team communications, I have to say, is decent at minimum; while I was able to keep ourselves on our toes through deadlines, I was surprised to learn the amount of correspondences between the designer and myself to have a compatible artwork's format, size or composition with our digital prototype.

From the two playtests, respondents commented on the vehicles' relative size and speed, the game's winning scheme and bugs in the game's track. We also got positive reactions on the inclusion of tropical background music, and received great feedbacks on the color scheme of our product: our respondents complimented on the calming and speedy aesthetics of the choice of colors and geometries used for our product's background.

Based on these feedbacks, mechanics-wise, I plan to minimally increase the size of the two vehicles -- this should compensate for the perceived high speed of the vehicles, but I'm trying to keep the speed relatively high as it's a racing game. I will also have to adjust the score table to show the leading player along with the ordinal number of laps the player is currently in during the game -- the player who first completes the three laps wins the game. I plan to fix the bug in track's rims as well so that players cannot accidentally go off the track when bumping the rims at certain angles. Suggested by playtesters and the product owner alike, I will also add certain tutorials on which keysets each player use to navigate the track as many testplayers have trouble intuitively figuring out which keyset moves their race car. If permitted by the timeframe, I'd love to fix the racing cars' engine and turning speed sound.

Fig - screenshot of our digital prototype