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Serious Games Summit 2005

Creating Life Experience Through Dramatic Simulations

By Michael Gibson

Overview

In this talk I am going to propose that dramatic simulations can give users years of valuable life experience in a matter of hours. I'm going to talk about how failure is a far more effective teacher than success because it kicks us into a hyper-conscious survival mode. I will propose that as designers we must orchestrate multiple failing experiences that withstand criticism on the basis of reality and sound reasoning. I will show how by exploiting user's assumptions, you can lure even the most clever user into the learning traps that are legitimate and logical. And finally, I will talk about the design process of our Professionalism and Ethics simulation, how to create revelations through failure, how to use characters to illuminate how bad decisions are made despite our best intentions and how to pull it all together into an entertaining, educational experience at a reasonable cost.

We learn from Experience

If we look back on our lives, what are the events that caused us to make the most dramatic changes? Were they the successes? No. The lessons of success are to keep doing what we're doing which is fine if we can figure out specifically what it is we're doing that's so successful. To keep doing what we're doing is the slow road to mediocrity and redundancy. So what were the experiences that made us change, develop and grow? Failure.

Failure is the mother of invention

Failure is the best teacher. If failure doesn't kill you, it will make you sit up and pay attention. It will make you re-evaluate your goals and means to get there. Failure makes us willing to learn. One of the most stinging types of failure is humiliation. I remember when I was about 10 years old going into a variety store and stealing a couple of chocolate bars. As I was leaving, the owner called out to me: “You got something in your pocket, boy?” (beat) “Yeah, you open your pocket.” As I opened my pocket I noticed my neighbor staring at me in the line, my parents were called. I was humiliated. So what did I learn from that experience? If someone catches you stealing, run, you fool! Or, better yet, check to make sure nobody is watching before stuffing chocolates into your pockets and don't forget to scope out the ubiquitous security cameras. All very valuable lessons if it's your goal to become a professional thief. I didn't realize it at that moment but I was working towards that goal. Every one of us in every moment of the day is working towards certain goals: champion sloth, champion channel changer, solitaire player, thief. I realized that professional criminal wasn't one of my goals and that experience helped me to make a major adjustment.

But failure often brings expensive consequences

Getting caught stealing was a very valuable experience for me but it could have ruined my life. If I were older when I finally got caught and if it was in one of those stores that prosecutes shoplifters to the fullest extent of the law, I could have got a criminal record and I wouldn't be talking here today. So how do we court illuminating learning experiences without risk of failure and humiliating career-destroying consequences? Simulations.

Simulations pack the learning without the consequences

The best simulations are the ones that place you the user in the decision making seat and where the outcome of your decisions provide you with real life experiences without, and this is the important part, without life-destroying, career-wrecking, personally humiliating consequences. The great thing about simulated life experiences is that they are totally safe and confidential. Simulations allow you to go back and explore strategies that you might never try in real life and to learn where they lead.

Simulations show what not to do and…

Simulations work to improve skills in two important ways .

The first way is what not to do . You do something, you suffer the consequences and get burned. This is what I like to call the “there but for the grace of God go I” type or experience .

Simulations allow you to explore different tactics

The second way is to allow the user to explore strategies and choices that they may never use in real life in order to discover a better way to do something that they thought they were doing well enough already. This is particularly valuable for people who have achieved a certain level of competency and have got stuck in a zero growth rut. When we go into negotiate a raise in salary with our boss, the stakes are too high to risk trying that new negotiation technique we learned in some book. Most of us will fall back on the techniques we've always used even if they are not always successful because we haven't practiced the new strategies. Negotiating that essential raise is not the time to try the untested techniques. The risks are too high. However, in a simulation we start off using our tried and true techniques and are surprised to learn at the end that we only did ok, but we could have done much better. The simulation then allows us to go back and try again. We start to play and in the play we make discoveries that we would be far too cautious to make in real life. Then we can practice using those discoveries in the simulation to build confidence so that the next time we encounter the problem in real life we can employ our virtual experience to achieve a better result. Commercial pilots use simulators to learn how to handle flight emergencies because in air travel you don't get a second chance to learn from your mistakes. If the engines stall and you're going down, this is not the time to try untested techniques. Bringing the plane down safely is totally dependent on the fact that the pilot has practiced this procedure several times on a simulator and knows exactly what to do.

The Raise

I have a short simulation here called “The Raise”. The animation is crappy, it's one of the first things I ever did, but it doesn't matter because the learning is really good. There are only four steps to success but very few people get it on the first try and this is a good example of how a simulation can help the competent but risk averse professional step outside the box and become a better more experienced negotiator in just a few minutes of play.

The premise is that you must ask your boss for a raise in order that you can afford to pay for an expensive operation to save your dear cat, Mr. Whiskers. In the preamble you are told that you have been working for a year as a copy-writer. You made one disastrous mistake when you leaked confidential information to a competitor but you made up for it when you wrote a hilarious speech for a shareholders meeting. Overall you believe your work has been adequate and you have learned that you are the lowest paid writer on staff even though you've been at the job the longest.

Let's give it a try. (on screen we enter the boss Rolf Klink's office and find him sitting at his desk.)

ROLF – It's my wife's 20 th wedding anniversary. No, please don't embarrass us both with congratulations as long as there's enough money, marriage is not that difficult, but I would like to acknowledge the event with a gift of some kind.

Ok, so should we get straight to the point or humor him by suggesting he get her china? Suggesting china is a good choice because he's begun the negotiation with a direct question and you've got the answer. This is a good way to build rapport.

ROLF – China?! Oh my goodness, we're wading knee deep in china. You can't swing a cat for fear of breaking a priceless piece of china. (zoom in on a cage on his desk where a mouse runs on its exercise wheel)

MOUSE – Pssst. Get right to the point.

Ok. Should we pay attention to a talking mouse or should we remain focused on the negotiation? In my experience if we start listening to talking mice we're not likely to get a raise and more likely to be visited by the nice men with the long-sleeved white suits. The best choice here is to use his reference to a cat to segue the conversation to address our need to save poor Mr. Whiskers.

ROLF – I see, your geriatric cat requires a ludicrously expensive operation. No doubt you are unable to afford it and you are seeking my advice, yes?

This is good. We've successfully steered the conversation to address our needs. Even better, he's offered to propose a solution, which could very well solve our problem for us. Everybody likes to feel his advice is important so let's indulge him.

ROLF – I'd put the bloody beast out of its misery. Now if you don't mind I'm sure we both have work to do.

Ok, now we're in trouble. But let's not lose our cool. The danger here is that he clearly wants to end this negotiation so we mustn't give him that opportunity. It would be best to stay on topic and try to get from him some information relevant to our purpose. Let's find out if he's satisfied with the quality of our work.

ROLF – Your work is adequate, however, this is a firm that prides itself on excellence. So, I believe you have room for development.

Ok, let's not panic. Everybody has room for development. So let's address the disparity in salary that exists between our colleagues, and us, remembering that the best way to keep the negotiation going is to ask questions.

ROLF – I don't like making comparisons but if you insist; your work is inferior. Your judgment is impaired. Have you forgotten the near-catastrophe with the leaked documents?

Ok, so we expected that this would come up, didn't we? The trick here is to remain calm and in control and remind him that that was our only mistake in an otherwise excellent year.

ROLF – My goodness, what have I done to deserve this! Turn around and march back to your cubicle before I put you in charge of cleaning the toilets!

Great! We did everything right and we lost. So what have we learned? He doesn't like cats, he does not believe we are worthy of a raise and, if pressed, he is likely to alter our duties to include cleaning the toilets. Yet, the game suggests that despite his opinion of us, we could have negotiated a solution to our financial crunch. Hmm.

Making Assumptions

Our big mistake was misjudging our worth in the eyes of the boss. But that can't be a mistake because we were never told that he didn't like us in the instructions. That's unfair! Well, yes but life's unfair and, I have to say, it's totally legitimate because in life we are constantly making decisions and getting into trouble based on assumptions which are not always correct.

What we have just seen is a very effective way of luring a competent negotiator into a negative outcome by exploiting a false assumption.

People who have invested themselves in this game usually have their back up at this point. They think they've made the best choices and yet they failed. Now they want to know what they should have done. Essentially they are now saying: "There better be some really useful insight here or I'm going to be really angry." This is a really good state for a designer to place the user because the user is now paying attention and really wants to learn.

So why does playing this simulation count as a life experience rather than simply a forgettable piece of advice from a book or lecture? It counts as a life experience because we the users were placed in the decision making seat and had to commit ourselves to achieving the best outcome. Initially, we thought we made the best choices and we were shocked when we failed. What we've learned was what we considered to be a competency in negotiation turned out to be inadequate.

This is why building in certain failure in a simulation is so important. Users must initially fail if they are going to learn. So how do we as designers ensure that users will fail without being intellectually dishonest or resorting to facile trickery?

The technique that I have found most useful is through my observation of human nature. The path to success must be logical yet ---and this is very important: ---counter intuitive. The powerful tool the we as designers have in our kit is people's assumptions . We all rely on assumptions in order to function. We assume that this building was built well enough that the ceiling won't come tumbling down. We assume that because we think we need to be here and, it would be stupid to worry about the structure of the ceiling even though we know somewhere at sometime ceilings have collapsed and killed people.

Now, in my book, using the fact that somewhere somehow a ceiling has collapsed to produce a failing outcome in a simulation on negotiation would be facile trickery and very unsatisfying for the user. The far better way is to employ our natural tendencies to leap to conclusions and fill in the dots. So when we're designing, how do we set up a scenario that forces the user to make an assumption that we can then use to blindside them? A good place to start is with the logic puzzles that you can find on the internet.

Are you familiar with the scenario in which a man is discovered miles away from any water, suspended high in the branches of a forest wearing only a bathing suit, flippers and snorkel mask? Picture it. The closest lake is ten miles away, there's no road or abandoned car and there's this guy dangling from the upper branches of a tree wearing only a bathing suit and flippers and a snorkel mask. How did he get there? It's pretty hard to climb a tree with flippers on so the only other possibility would seem to be that he was dropped there but by what? An airplane? Who jumps out of an airplane without a parachute? For that matter what would anybody be doing in an airplane wearing only flippers, a bathing suit and a snorkel mask. It doesn't make sense.

It's an interesting conundrum and yet there is a perfectly logical explanation. What makes it puzzling is that in my description I have left out important facts that would lead you to the right answer. By leaving them out I have forced you to make assumptions. It's these assumptions that we as designers can use to great effect if--- and this is very important--- if, the assumption is the common mistake that we wish to address in our simulation.

In The Raise, the common mistake was the we often go into a negotiation with only our objective in mind, what we want, our position. Our assumption was that we are worthy of a raise because of this that and the other thing and we have neglected to find out in advance whether the other party shares that view.

The “Ahaa”

A good simulation will expose the false assumption dramatically in what I like to call the “Ahaa” moment. One of my favorite “aha” moments in film was the scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and the others trembled at the foot of the great Oz who was ordering them to go out on another impossible mission and Toto started pulling at a curtain concealing a small booth to the side. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” Aha!

Nobody likes to fail or be made a fool of and so as designers we better have a really good “Aha!” to give the user which will immediately deepen their insight and improve their skills.

The Raise has a good “aha” which can be achieved in only four moves. Let's go back to the first screen: We now know he doesn't want china. Suggesting a horse seems silly and there's no evidence to suggest that he is interested in horses. Getting right to the point is attractive but relies on the ASSUMPTION that he regards us highly enough that he will consider giving us a raise. We now know that is a false assumption. He doesn't think we're worthy of a raise. So what other strategies could we employ to get the money to save Mr. Whiskers? Let's choose a strategy that doesn't rely on any assumptions and find out what his interests are by suggesting that he should get her something that they could both enjoy together.

ROLF – I'm afraid my wife and I enjoy very separate lives. She is…how shall I put it? …a pampered pussy-cat and I am a bull.

MOUSE – Psst Get right to the point.

ROLF - What do you want?

Now the mouse is a design eccentricity to be sure and everybody who follows the advice of a mouse deserves what's coming to him. A lot of people at this point want to tell him about their poor cat but we know now that that is not likely to move him to pity. So, the only other option is to ask why he feels it necessary to celebrate the anniversary. It's an odd thing to ask but of the choices available it's the only one that may lead us to some useful information about his interests.

ROLF - Ahh, because despite our broad differences, I do love her. To wit: my heart sometimes beats to the point of suffocation at just the sight of her! Oh, I wish that I could properly articulate the depth of my feelings. But why am I telling you this? We both have work to do. What is it you want?

Ok, so now we've learned that this is a very important event for him and he is at a loss for words to describe his feelings for her. Let's look at the options: Ask if he has a pet, ask how he plans to celebrate his anniversary, ask if he's satisfied with the quality of your work or come right out and say you deserve a raise.

Once again, the options here are playing to the ASSUMPTIONS that this simulation is designed to make the user question. There are two options that seek to address his interests. At this point the most irrelevant option to our purpose is to ask him how he plans to celebrate his anniversary. However, it's the only option that doesn't rely on a assumption of our worth or his interest in Mr. Whiskers.

ROLF – We've invited 300 of our closest friends to a little party. But what on earth business is that of yours?

Indeed. Now the solution is staring right at us and yet very few people get it on the first or even the second or third attempt. The “aha” in this simulation is that rather than single-mindedly pursuing our interest, we would be much better off investigating his and then trying to match our skills to his needs. We learned in the introduction that our biggest success was a humorous speech at a shareholders meeting. We've also recently learned that he feels unable to articulate the depth of his feeling for his wife. So, let's ask him if he's prepared a speech:

ROLF – A speech? No, I don't want to… You wrote that howler for the shareholders meeting. You could write me a speech. Look, I'll pay you $1500, will you do it?

The Raise simulation teaches us that we will be far more successful if we go in with the intent to find out what the other party's interests are, what he wants and then creatively explore ways to match his interests with what we have to offer in order to get what we want. It does this by playing to the ASSUMPTION that almost everybody makes that if we really negotiate well, we'll get the raise. I've seen people sweat away for an hour at this game because they refuse to let go of that assumption. The assumption is false. You cannot win this game by negotiating a raise. You win this game by matching your skills to his interests and discovering an alternate source of income. The real nugget of insight here is that in negotiation, as in life, we should not begin with the solution. By fixing on the idea that the solution lies with getting a raise we close the door to all other possibilities of solving our problem. To paraphrase the Rolling Stones you can't always get what you want, but if you open your mind, you can get what you need. A very successful film producer once told me that his strategy is to find out what the other side really wants, work like hell to narrow it down and then that he gets all the rest.

With each failure in a simulation, the user should be given a clue to help them with the next iteration. In the swimmer in the trees scenario the clue would be that the forest is charred black and denuded of leaves as a result of a forest fire. Now the solution is in sight. Now in our mind's eye we see a swimmer suspended in the charred limbs of a forest miles away from any body or water. The logical explanation is that the poor bugger was happily snorkeling in a lake miles away from a raging forest fire when suddenly a water bomber swooped down and scooped him up, took off and then dumped him along with its payload of water on the forest fire. This apparently is a true story.

Recap

Alright, so I've shown how simulated failure is an excellent way to get people to re-examine their goals and tactics and become willing to learn. In the Raise simulation, I've shown you two ways that simulated failures work to improve life skills: 1) by showing you what not to do and 2) by encouraging the user to improve upon their current skills by exploring different strategies. I've shown you an effective way to orchestrate failure that is legitimate and logical is to leave out information and force the users to make false assumptions, the same false assumptions that underpin the tactics or behavior that the simulation is designed to change.

Professionalism and Ethics Simulation

So now I'm going to lead you through the design process of our Professionalism and Ethics Simulation. Here is the problem that we had to address: The Agricultural Institute of Canada had prepared a thin handbook outlining the professional and ethical standards that they expected of their farm professionals, consultants who advise farmers on financial matters. The book simply said that they had to avoid conflicts of interest and also not disclose confidential information of their clients. The problem is that people read the book and said yup yup yup I do that, I do that. No problem and continued getting into trouble. Our challenge became to create a simulation that didn't simply tell them what not to do but rather SHOW them HOW conflicts of interest and unprofessional behavior sneak up on you and bite you from behind.

Begin at the End and work Backwards

When designing a simulation it is always important to start at the end and work backwards. So the first thing is to determine exactly what the learning outcomes are supposed to be. In this case there were three: The first was participation in unprofessional conduct, namely generating fees for useless work. The second was non-disclosure of a potential conflict of interest to all stakeholders and the third was pushing a solution that favored one shareholder over the others.

Once we figured out the outcomes the next step is to try to identify the assumptions that people make that enable the bad behavior. For unprofessional conduct, the assumption was that everybody was doing it so it was ok. Another assumption was that if I speak out about unprofessional conduct I will be despised by my peers and that will hurt my professional prospects. For non-disclosure of potential conflict of interest the main assumption was that just because one of the shareholders is a friend of mine, that doesn't constitute a conflict of interest because I can remain neutral. Another assumption is that if someone does not raise a concern, then it can be inferred that there isn't one. Finally, the assumption that enables pushing a solution that favors one shareholder over the other is that it's ok to do that if that's the best solution or at least I believed it was the best solution at the time.

Once we've identified the assumptions we have the various main branches of the simulation. Each learning outcome gives us a level or scene. So now we have:

Assumptions:

Failing Outcomes:

Once we've set our failing outcomes and determined what assumptions lead there then we go on to figure out what facts or circumstances lead to these assumptions. In the first case we create a colleague who seems friendly and strong. We make him into a leader who will bait you into bad behavior. Let's see how he does it.: (Roll P&E Sim)

ADAM – Hey, how's it going? Are you a baseball fan? This comedian gave me 2 tickets to tonight's Bluejays game. Like I'm going to drop everything and drive 200 clicks to Toronto. You want ‘em?

ADAM – If you really want to split a gut, I'll tell you a joke about Murray and Mary Farmer out on the eighth concession.

As a designer, I know that this opening will divide the users into two groups: the first group will be the suspicious ones who will immediately dislike and distrust him and try to keep him at arms length. This is the risk averse group, the group that cautiously goes through life avoiding not only the pitfalls but also many of the opportunities that lie on their path. The second group will attempt to give him the benefit of the doubt.

How do I set this up so that both groups are likely to fail on the first attempt? Let's looks at the choices. We're told that we went to school with Mike Farmer who is the son of Murray and Mary Farmer. Our choices are to tell him that Mike Farmer is a friend or ask him to continue. The person who plays along non-judgmentally will fail when he discovers that our friend Adam here is primed to spill gallons of salacious confidences. The more interesting problem is how do we catch up the cautious user who assumes that the right thing to do is nail Adam to the cross. Let's watch what happens:

USER - Mike Farmer is a friend of mine.

ADAM – Is that right? Well, I guess you know they're pretty well belly up.

USER – I had no idea.

ADAM - Yup it's a cryin' shame. Sheer incompetence if you ask me. I referred them to you guys.

Ok, so we'll stick to the high road here and tell him that the Farmers are a hard working family.

ADAM – I could tell on day one that it was a hopeless case but I stuck it out for the week and wrote the report. Of course, now the creditors are all stirred up.

Now Adam has just admitted to totally unprofessional behavior. He could see that the family was in serious trouble but decided to waste their precious time and write a report that would only serve to further alarm the creditors. Why did he do this? Because he gets paid to write reports. We can either be sarcastic here or express our professional outrage. Let's stay on the highroad:

ADAM – Sorry about that. Early bird gets the worm, if you know what I mean. (winks)

Again, let's speak plainly and avoid sarcasm. Let's tell him that he is supposed to do what's in the best interests of the client.

ADAM – (angry) I prepared a damn fine report! Check it out! That's my job.

Who cares about his stupid report? It's useless to them now.

ADAM - Ok, Florence Nightingale. Your patient is in a coma. (He leaves and Jennifer the supervisor appears.)

Ok, so far our suspicious, morally superior User is on the successful path having avoided the trap of condoning this guy's behavior. The lesson for those that condone the behavior is learned the hard way further down in the simulation. Guys like this bring you down. There's a scene later, which only plays if he thinks the User is his friend. In that scene he starts telling the User more unprofessional confidences which are overheard by the supervisor. The Supervisor is furious and tars both Adam and the User with the same brush of unprofessionalism. Ask anyone how many times that happens in real life.

So as a designer we still have to try to trap the morally superior user into a logical failing outcome. (Roll Sim as Jennifer the supervisor appears)

JENNIFER - Fern Thompson called this morning singing your praises. You did a great job and I've got another one for you. Murray Farmer from out on the eighth concession called yesterday. Apparently he needs some help with his creditors. Can you go out there this morning?

Our morally superior User is fresh from being outraged by Adam's unprofessional behavior and now the Supervisor has praised the User's work and asking the User to clean up the mess. The two choices are to “Act professional” and waste no time getting to work or to disclose that Mike Farmer is a friend.

As a designer I've shifted the paradigm and subtly introduced a critical piece of learning: The need to disclose possible conflicts of interest to your supervisor. If the user misses that he fails. We'll catch some here but let's see how we catch the rest:

JENNIFER – What's your point?

The User now has two choices either to make a weak statement that he sees Mike a few times a year or a strong one expressing outrage at his colleague Adam Smith. The second is appealing on a number of levels: It continues in the righteous vein of before, it stands up for the rights of his friend and future client and also gives his supervisor a heads-up that the situation has just got worse due to Adam's unprofessional conduct. It's also the wrong choice and will lead to a failing outcome.

In our beta testing we tripped up pretty well everybody right here. However, on the second attempt this decision screen brought a smile and they all knew to disclose the facts of the potential conflict of interest.

The Objective Third Eye

And here my friends is the ultimate advantage of a simulation game as a learning tool. In order to win the game the user must open his or her objective third eye and, while the apparently innocuous drama is playing out, observe and analyze what is happening and where it's going.

Let's proceed now. The purpose of the next scene is to ensure that the user knows that he or she must disclose the friendship with Mike and that all of the other shareholders in the farm are ok with proceeding.

As a designer, I wanted to create enough familiar banality fused with a little dramatic tension to throw the User off and make a mistake. (Roll sim: the arrival at the Farm. The four shareholders Mary and Murray and Mike and Sally sit around the kitchen table.)

MURRAY – We have to make a payment on the tractor.(to Mary) I can't believe you would miss a payment.

MIKE – There's not enough money in the account, Dad. We have to buy feed for the animals. That's got to be a priority.

MURRAY – (TO Mary) Why wouldn't you tell someone you'd abandoned the books? This is a crisis now!

SALLY – Dad, it's not her fault.

MURRAY – I can't be expected to be on top of every last detail.

Mary approaches with a cup of coffee. She quietly plays the role of the long-suffering wife.

MARY (to user) Do you take cream? Sugar? Would you like a biscuit?

Ok, so we're involved in a little sit-com here. The User is given two choices either to get right to business or to disclose the friendship with Mike. Let's make the right choice and disclose the friendship.

MURRAY – I think we're all ok with that. The real question is can you stop the bank from calling our loan?

So, Murray speaks on behalf of the family that everyone is ok and then turns the topic to the problem with the bank. Many professionals would consider the business of disclosure accomplished at this point and get right to problem. The important learning in this simulation is that if everybody has not indicated their acceptance of the fact that you are a friend of Mike, then there is a real possibility that if the outcome appears to favor Mike, you could be surprised by an accusation of conflict of interest and a lawsuit.

The right choice is to ask Mary and Sally if they are ok with you acting on their behalf.

SALLY – We're fine with that as long as you think you can help us.

MURRAY – The bank is calling our loan. They're going to seize everything if we don't act quickly. Can you buy us a little time?

Once again it's the same problem: everyone is speaking on Mary's behalf. We still need Mary's consent.

MARY – Well, my concern is that as Mike's friend, you may side with him; that the solution is to sell the farm and I don't want to do that.

MIKE - Mom, you've let things slide, I mean, you know this is a big operation and you guys should be considering your retirement.

MURRAY – That's exactly what we're doing and right now we're about to lose everything. We need some time. (to the User) Would you please answer my question? Can you buy us some time?

All right, so has Mary consented or what? No, she hasn't. In fact, she's raised a legitimate concern which, the professional must address. Now, the user must choose the best from three subtly different options. There's very little room for trying to second guess here. Either they bluff by avoiding the distinction and choose option one or they know the correct response is option 3.

MIKE – Alright, we've all had a chance to review this financial report.

MARY – I don't think it's as bad as all that.

MIKE – We're insolvent, Mom and the bank has called our loans.

SALLY – I think it's obvious that we're in pretty bad shape and I think we just have to knuckle down and work our way out.

MURRAY – I agree.

MIKE – I'm tired of pushing rocks uphill. The farm business is insolvent but we're standing on a million dollars worth of real estate. If we sell right now you guys could retire and Sally and I would both have some cash to start something new.

Screen note: The farm business is losing money on a monthly basis. To become viable the farm requires an immediate cash investment in new equipment, and/or buildings and/or quota. The farm has a very heavy debt load to contend with. There is some value in depreciated equipment assets but the major value is in the land base. The problems are due to the current beef industry situation and management issues on the farm. All partners have different solutions to solve the problem.

MIKE – Our equity is eroding with each passing day. I've given my life to this farm but I want out. I want out! (To User) Tell them that if the bank forecloses on the mortgage, we'll be left with nothing.

So now Mike is asking us to side with him and the User must decide how to proceed.

•  Tell them that Mike's right and that you can facilitate an orderly liquidation of the assets to get the best return. (mk14a) Variable (neutral = false)

•  Tell them that it may be possible to save the farm if they were to decide to downsize considerably and sell off some assets to pay off debt. (mk14a) (Variable neutral = false)

•  Explain their options and ask each one where they would like to be in 5 years. (mk14a) (Variable neutral=true)

This is intended to catch the Users who jump at the opportunity to problem solve. This is one of the key learning outcomes in the simulation. If the user chooses either option one or two they are either charged with favoring Mike or they end up pushing a solution that nobody likes and ends up with breakdown and lawsuits.

Option 3 seeks more information from the Farmers and starts them on a vital path towards resolving their problem.

SALLY – I think we need some time to think about all of this.

Screen note. No decision was made other than to meet again tomorrow.

So the simulation continues and I just want to show you how decisions made earlier in the simulation impact subsequent scenes. Remember our colleague Adam? Well here he is again. If we had chummed up to him he would finish us off here by drawing us into an unprofessional conversation which is overheard by our supervisor who then tars us both with the samem brush of unprofessional conduct.

We did the cautious thing and told him off so you see he doesn't want to talk to us and we avoid that problem. However, we made an enemy of him and watch how he tries to get us into trouble: (Jennifer the supervisor walks in as Adam skulks at the water cooler.)

JENNIFER – So how did your meeting go with the Farmers?

We can either say it went well or delve into the challengers. Either way this is what happens:

JENNIFER – That's great. (Adam walks up)

ADAM – (to user) Aren't you worried that you may have a conflict of interest given your close friendship with a minority shareholder?

How many of you have encountered snakes like this guy? He's now out to get us and the consequences of our earlier decisions come to bear. If we failed to inform Jennifer of our conflict of interest we get nailed here. Fortunately, we did tell her and we can tell the truth and continue.

JENNIFER (to user) That's right you did disclose the relationship to me yesterday and if they're ok with it so am I. Good work. Keep me posted.

The User approaches the car in the parking lot. Hear the sound of a woman's footsteps running up close. Two hands obscure the screen.

DONNA – Guess who? (pause) Your sister, silly!

The hands come off the screen and now we see Donna, an attractive 30 year old woman in smart clothes.

( Screen note: This is your sister Donna. She's a lawyer and married to John a successful real estate agent. )

DONNA – How are you? Long time no see! Listen, darling, I've made some money, quite a bit of money actually and I'm looking to invest in real estate. John tells me the prices are going to continue to rise and I should get in now. If you hear of something coming on the market, you know, would you let me know? You know the best deals and I'm looking for a deal, ok?

Ok, so as you can see the challenges continue to roll in. The purpose of this scene is not so much to catch the User in a flagrant conflict of interest by agreeing with the sister's plan but rather to plant information that the User will have to decide to disclose or not to disclose at the next meeting with the family. You can imagine how the knowledge of a wealthy cash buyer, sitting in the wings might influence the advice that the user gives the cash-strapped farmers facing foreclosure.

Containing Size

Obviously, this type of simulation could very easily balloon to an enormous size and complexity based on the users choices. On the surface, if you are going to give the user three choices at every decision panel the number of branches explodes exponentially: from the first three choices springs nine possible outcomes which in turn produce another twenty-seven and by the forth panel we could be trying to manage 81 different variations.

I can tell you right now there isn't a client in the world who will pay for a simulation with hundreds of different branches and yet, users expect to be able to interact frequently with the simulation and have a reasonable amount of choices in each interaction. So what is a budget conscious ambitious designer to do?

Parallel streams based on learning objectives

The most effective way to control the size of your simulation is to think about the flight simulator. If you are trying to teach a pilot the correct procedure for bringing down a plane with two conked out engines, how many outcomes are there? Two. The pilot either brings it down safely or he doesn't. End of story. Now if any of you have ever taken a look inside the cockpit of a commercial airliner you will know there are literally hundreds of different switches, dials and levers that the pilot can use. All of these switches and dials and levers represent the possible choices that the pilot can make. I would guess 95% of them will not make much difference to the outcome. In fact, there is probably only one correct procedure to bring that plane down safely, taking into account all of the possible variables and thousands of ways to crash the plane. Knowing that, the designer only has to script two outcomes. If the User follows the correct procedure, that's one outcome and if the User chooses any of the thousands of other choices, that leads to the other outcome.

Now, I know it's not quite that simple but the analogy is helpful to understand how we can create what appears to be a wide range of options when, in fact, we're only building a few.

In order to limit the number of story branches we go back to our initial plan. What are the learning outcomes of the simulation? In the professionalism and ethics we had 3 areas of learning and five possible outcomes. Therefore, each decision panel will provide choices that lead to one of only five pre-scripted endings.

Using character to channel storylines.

So how is that done? One way is by using the characters creatively. Let's have another look at our first conversation with Adam in the office.

ADAM – Hey, how's it going? Are you a baseball fan?

So here we have an option of yes or no. Now I could have written and built two branches here depending on user input but instead, I decided that Adam is the kind of guy who wants to chat and he's not going to be put off easily. So no matter which way the User goes this is what Adam says next:

ADAM - This comedian gave me 2 tickets to tonight's Bluejays game. Like I'm going to drop everything and drive 200 clicks to Toronto. You want ‘em?

So now we have three choices. If each option lead to a different branch we'd have two each splitting into three or a total of six branches. Once again, Adam objective is to tell you his story and none of these responses is strong enough to dissuade him. So, all three lead to the next line:

ADAM – If you really want to split a gut, I'll tell you a joke about Murray and Mary Farmer out on the eighth concession.

You see, it doesn't really matter which option we select; his response makes sense to all of them. We've given the User some fun interactivity without costing us a thing. But now our options do require a different response. Why? Because we have arrived at one of the learning objectives of the simulation. Should we indulge in loose conversations divulging the confidential information of clients or should we not? The only purpose of the first two screens was to get the User into a comfortable chatty space and so we were able to offer interactivity without making a lot of work out of it.

Now the story starts to branch but we can keep it under control by once again relying on the objective of our character. His objective is to bring you into his confidence and compromise you by sharing privileged information. If you oppose him by criticizing him, then his objective changes to defend himself. He's that simple and that makes him dangerous and realistic to the User and effective to the designer. With each successive screen the User only really has the same two choices: either to go along or to criticize. Now, as a writer I can disguise those choices to appear different.

Last time we told him that Mike was a friend. This time let's just go along with him.

ADAM – Well, I probably shouldn't be disclosing confidential information but I suppose it will be common knowledge soon enough. They're insolvent. It's a total mess!

You see how he tries to give the user justification for making the wrong choice? Let's try to temper him a bit by showing pity.

USER – I'm really sorry to hear that.

ADAM – Yup, it's a cryin' shame. Sheer incompetence if you ask me. I referred them to you guys.

Now look at these two choices. His next response will be the same no matter which one we choose.

ADAM – I could tell on day one that it was a hopeless case but I stuck it out for the week and wrote the report. Of course, now the creditors are all stirred up.

Now here comes the same branch that we got to the last time. This time we'll try a little sarcasm.

USER – At least you got your cheque.

ADAM – That's right! There's a serious gambler in that home. That's the problem. I found the kitchen drawer stuffed with casino receipts.

We've added a little new information here to keep it interesting but we're still on the same path. The User has already lost the opportunity to put him on the defensive. We can try to play the heavy here and see if it works. His response is the same.

USER - What people do with their personal finances is their private business.

ADAM – I agree. Sure you don't want these ball tickets? Ha ha.

So, we've just gone through seven interactions but instead of ending up at any one of hundreds of possible branches we've arrived at one of two. The benefits of this are two fold: The cost is minimal and, even more important, we know exactly what the user's experience has been and the learning that the user derived from that experience.

Interactive simulations are still experienced linearly

Another important thing to bear in mind is that no matter how interactive the simulation, the actual user experience is still linear through time. So it hardly makes any sense going to the trouble of creating sixty possible branches if the user is only going to choose one. What we must consider though, is how many iterations the User will go through before reaching the desired outcome. In this simulation, we determined that optimum learning is achieved after between three and five iterations. Therefore, we had to create enough variety to make each iteration new and interesting and convincingly lead to one of the six possible learning outcomes. We've found that even if the user is clever enough to win on the first go, if we've made the ride fun enough and rich enough in learning, they'll go back and play around with different strategies and still achieve the desired learning.

Summary

So how does this simulation provide years of life experience in only an hour or so of play? It takes the User through a few days in the life of a consultant that leads to humiliating and career-destroying consequences. It provides the user with the opportunity to explore a variety of different strategies to not only avoid failure but also to improve their current performance.

In real life we don't get many second chances. Most of us will do almost anything to AVOID failure and yet, failure is the best way to grow and develop as a professional. Simulations give users the opportunity to explore failing paths and learn from that experience. How can we lead experienced users into a failing path without resorting to facile trickery? The answer is to play to the very assumptions that people make that lead to failure. How do we do that? By forcing them to make those assumptions, by leaving out critical facts. We are all conditioned to rely on assumptions to get on with life because we don't have the time to check out every detail and most of us don't expect to encounter a “perfect storm” of conspiring events and people. Therein, lies the strategy for making an effective simulation that is cost effective and packed with years of experience.

A well crafted simulation creates the “Perfect Storm” and there but for the grace of God go we.