The Sophia Engine: Defining Fun As an Emotion for Learning Erin Hoffman
Defining “fun” has been a dangerous prospect throughout the history of game development theory. Raph Koster defines fun as “the positive feedback given by the brain for cognitive learning, the process of building schemata for coping with the world” (Koster, 2005), notably connecting the mechanics of cognition and learning to this idea of engagement or entertainment. At the GlassLab, a division of the Institute of Play charged with creating formative assessment learning games, we have connected entertainment game developers to the learning process in a deep way, and have, over the past year and a half, encountered numerous new insights on the intersection of fun and learning.
What we have observed suggests that learning itself may be a distinct emotional state, and that it is this state, unique among those generally sought by entertainment games, that should be produced by the game mechanics derived from learning competencies.
