““Open-ended games allow players to approach objectives freely, as opposed to a world with more linear and structured gameplay. While the openness of the game world is an important facet to games featuring open worlds, the main draw of open-world games is about providing the player with autonomy—not so much the freedom to do anything they want in the game (which is nearly impossible with current computing technology), but the ability to choose how to approach the game and its challenges in the order and manner as the player desires while still constrained by gameplay rules. A major design challenge is to balance the freedom of an open world with the structure of a dramatic storyline. Since players may perform actions that the game designer did not expect, the game’s writers must find creative ways to impose a storyline on the player without interfering with their freedom.””
Some of the most popular board and video games ever created are classified as open-world. To me, this sounds like the ultimate way to design a game. I spent literally hundreds of hours playing games like the Civilization Series and other real-time strategy games in my youth. I also learned more about history from the Civilizations games than I feel like I did in my elementary school classroom. The ability to gamify history made it much more appealing, resulting in me pouring much more time into the topic than I would have just listened to or read about in class. The ability to teach through games would become my life's calling, as that is what I strive to do with PE lessons that integrate with the classroom curriculum. The games I loved the most were open-ended, so I strive to make them whenever possible. However, they are also the most difficult to create, so when I make one that works, it is one of the best feelings in the world. Let's take a deeper dive into this explanation of open-ended games.
““(Open-ended games) allows players to approach objectives freely, as opposed to a world with more linear and structured gameplay.””
This quote perfectly encapsulates one of the tenets of the Montessori philosophy. The famous Montessori quote, "Follow the Child," is rooted in the principle that the child should choose work or pursuit, and our job as teachers is to guide their individual journey to self-actualization at every level. This looks different at the various classroom levels, but this is one of the goals of any good Montessori teacher and school. Traditional educational methods tend to have a one-size-fits-all approach, which can be like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Worksheets and non-engaging follow-up work provide conceptual practice but are no fun. I would argue if the goal is for concept mastery, the students will not apply themselves entirely if it is not fun. One of the strengths of games is that they are inherently fun. For some, open-ended games are the most fun.
““The main draw of open-world games is about providing the player with autonomy—not so much the freedom to do anything they want, but the ability to choose how to approach the challenge in the order and manner as the player desires while still constrained by gameplay rules.” ”
One of the Montessori curriculum's most significant strengths also gets questioned or critiqued the most. The idea that a Montessori student has unlimited freedom with no structure tends to become the prevailing notion when people have opposing opinions concerning Montessori education. However, I will memorize the above quotation as the appropriate rebuttal when someone asks me if Montessori students can do whatever they want. The fact that I can use the above quote to help explain core concepts of Montessori education would suggest that open-world games work seamlessly with Montessori.
If you want to ensure that someone will put effort into the task at hand, it is to give them autonomy on how to do it. When we give creative assignments to students, it never is, "Do whatever you want." It has constraints and objectives, but if students can choose how to present their information and knowledge, they typically have more success (and fun) doing so. The ability to choose how to accomplish a task better prepares the student for real-life problems.
““A major design challenge is to balance the freedom of an open world with the structure of a dramatic storyline. Since players may perform actions the game designer did not expect, the game’s writers must find creative ways to impose a storyline on the player without interfering with their freedom.” ”
This is the main challenge of creating these types of games. This is the same for me when creating games for physical education. However, the "storyline" I want the students to embark on is the information I want the students to learn from the lesson. I have to anticipate as best as possible all of the different actions the students may do and have a narrative as to how these actions apply to the real-world example. The more gameplay scenarios that serve as an explanation for the real-life concept, the better the game does as serving as a playable metaphor. The game's rules must be made so that players don't feel artificially constrained by me to achieve the specific outcome I seek. While one scenario may be more likely to happen than others, the players should not feel like it is inevitable, at most just probable. However, outside-the-box thinking should not be penalized but actually lead to other outcomes that have their own post-game explanation. Any scenario not discovered in the game turns into an interesting post-game discussion about the game's strategy and what that scenario symbolizes in real life.
In the next part, I will look at some of the distinct advantages of open-ended PE games over traditional (Montessori) lessons in the classroom.