This is more of a Game / Simulation than Gamification, but it has huge potential for uses in Gamification. The image at the top of this Blog is me in a Hospital. I could morph between being a patient or a nurse by stepping on a block. There are a few dozen other kids role-playing live in this space with me. I am supposed to find a doctor who can cure me of whatever disease I invent. My computer kept crashing so I didn’t get very far into the scenario. I get quite seasick in Minecraft but coped better with Roblox.
Roblox is free and works on PC (browser -based) and mobile apps. It is a 3D game design tool that is easy to learn. Last year I downloaded the builder app and very quickly made a pirate island.
My kids have been obsessed with Roblox as their number one game lately.The Roblox game my kids love the most is Dinosaur Simulator. You walk around as a dinosaur and you have to survive. You can die of hunger, thirst or get killed. You start as a baby dinosaur and then become a child, juvenile, adult, elder and die of old age. It all takes a few hours ! Then you respawn. You can make packs to hunt together. They say this game is fun because you can team up with people and go on missions. They like being able to pick if they are an herbivore or carnivore, land or sea etc type of dinosaur. Choice and customisation is highly motivating! They have been playing this game for over a year – even more than Minecraft! My daughter is much more into the role-playing games like the Hospital and Roblox city. (Which worries me a whole lot more than if she was just racing cars around tracks and killing plants or Zombies)
As educators we could use these free Roblox spaces in lots of ways. Check out their games and see what is popular. Once you identify what it is that makes the game fun you can add that element to your learning design.