We hear a lot about the countless ways gaming can spoil us and decrease our grades. But can the games actually help us with our learning process? Yes, they can!
Be careful: we don’t mean that all play and no work will do you good. To really get help with your studies you have to choose proper games and use it wisely. Here are some examples of computer games that may really improve some of your real-life skills you need in your study.
Role-playing games and MMORPG
Role-playing games are exactly what is said on the tin: you play a role of another character, making decisions, developing that character and moving through the story, influencing it with your choices. Role-playing might be exciting by itself, but it also helps you to create your own stories, write texts in different styles and generally develop your writing style.
There are online “pen-and-paper” games (yes, they are still called this name) or text role-playing games that are dedicated solely to creating stories. They resemble the collective writing of a novel, where each character or a bunch of them belongs to a separate writer. But an MMORPG where you have to stay in character while farming resources and beating mobs work great, too! Just don’t be shy – try, practice, polish your writing style, and soon you’d be the proud owner of A+ grades for each of your essays! Find more about the impact of storytelling in games in essays on technology in education and you’ll find more reasons to play MMORPG. 🙂
Historical strategy games.
History can be tricky when all you see is names and dates. You can’t truly feel the reasons that made some historical events happen, you can’t grasp their causes and have to rely on someone else’s opinion described in the book. But historical games allow you to walk a mile in the shoes of the ancient kings and generals, politicians and rebels, feeling the conditions they experienced and making the decisions they could have made.
Historical games aren’t great because of their accuracy (though there are some of them that may be used as interactive history books). They let you understand the reasons, causes and the very rules on which history is based. Famine may cause a revolt, the development of science may bring you the new type of ships and broaden your trading routes; a rival king may make an alliance with your other enemies to conquer you together and divide your land. The modern AI can simulate real political decisions pretty accurately, giving you a feeling of the period politics. Next time it will be much easier to make a logical analysis of the events you read about.
Another great thing in historical games is the information given there. A special unit may have a brief description of their origin, traits and historical importance. A city’s history may be described as close to the real one as possible. A historical personality will be explained through dialogues with real quotes. These little things add flavour to the story, but also they allow you to immerse deeper into the period.
Special Quest games
Quest games are the perfect way to let you study difficult subjects. The course is technically a quest, too. You have to solve the puzzle (a problem or a test) to get to the next level and achieve the next part of the plot story together with a new puzzle. Add a story to your average college subject and you’ll get a quest!
There are lots of learning games already, some of them are indistinguishable from the “real” games. The only difference is that you have to solve the real problems you have in your course. But here they aren’t just figures on the paper: you solve a chemistry or physics task and see the result right on your screen. Science is the best material for such a quest because your computer can emulate laboratory conditions without any extra safety measures or expensive reactions.
There are lots of other ways games may improve your grades! Unfortunately, not all games are suitable for it, but today, with growing gamification of a study process, we can find more and more games that even your teacher will approve!
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