Overall Reflection

I have had a great time playing this game for the last several months. Although I have not beaten the game yet, I am very close and will continue to keep playing until doing so. With more free time coming up, I think that I will be able to finish it pretty quickly. Through playing this game I have been able to discover the many principles in both learning and motivation that games such as this offer. It has changed my perspective on how useful video games can be to the learning process and how beneficial they could be to incorporate into education. Overall, I have had a fun and educational experience.

What have I really learned?

After playing this game for several months, I decided to go back and reevaluate what I have actually learned through my game-play experience. After playing Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, I do not believe that this game involves great learning in the area of core educational subjects such as math, science, etc. however I don't think that this game was really designed with the intentions of doing so. One exception to this is that I do believe for the younger age groups that play this game, there is valuable learning that can take place involving reading. Because this game is a story mode based rpg game, there are many conversations and scenes that take place that introduce and develop the storyline which all involve quite a bit of reading. I think that younger children could increase there reading abilities through games such as this one.

For the older audience of this game however, including myself, I believe the learning and educational content lie elsewhere. I think that the main learning for this age group comes from the experiences the game provides for evaluating and relating to your identity. This game involves you taking on the role of Mario and Luigi, and Bowser, the traditional villain in the Mario & Luigi series. It is interesting to compare how you relate to each of these characters, and take on their identities based on your relationship. Also, I believe that throughout the game, as your identity, and the identity of the characters develops, the way you play each of these characters and relate to them may change.

Incremental Principle

This week , I have discovered another one of Gee's principles that is very evident in my game, the Incremental Principle. This principal involves the idea that learning in the game is ordered in a specific way so that things you learn early on can be generalized and can eventually help you in later more complex situations. I find these ideas present in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. Throughout my playing, I have found that I need things that I learned in the very basics in the beginning later in the game. At later times, I must take these basic skills I had learned and adjust them and build on them in order to be successful at later more challenging tasks.