Breath of Curiosity

Either way, curiosity has driven human progress in both research and education. “Video games are successful in eliciting curiosity in players," the researchers continue, "and are therefore worth studying for this purpose.”

What seems to drive curiosity in games is spicing up predictable structure with some uncertainty. Like obstacles.

Deviations in common patterns also invoke curiosity. Zelda: Breath of the Wild does this particularly well, which is why players rank it #1 on the curiosity scale.

What makes this particular cue so effective is that the trees appear natural, but the player’s eagle eye is responsible for spotting the fact that something seems a bit out of place.

The third way that games like Zelda: BotW trigger curiosity is by hiding Easter Eggs. “It is not the existence of Easter Eggs that motivates exploration, but the potential that there might be one.”

The tl;dr: learners’ curiosity is piqued when:

1. they encounter obstacles behind which they might find something good.

2. they detect subtle anomalies in general patterns.

3. there’s the possibility of juicy Easter Eggs to discover.

What are some ways you could bake some curiosity into the next learning experience you design?

SOURCE: Exploring Video Games That Invoke Curiosity, Journal of Entertainment Computing (2019) (FULL TEXT)