Psychological approaches to drilling?

So I want to create a drilling program to get players to learn words of their chosen language. I want to create an association in the player's mind between the picture they see and the words that appear. My current idea is to rely on that subtle feeling of combat in games. Like when you play a game where the hits feel really solid or really floaty.

Essentially what I would do is make the correct options not only result in a "correct!" message, but also feel like good, solid hits. And then the wrong hits would feel like one of those bad, floaty games. In my understanding this would make those incorrect options feel wrong before the player even consciously thinks about it, and the correct options would feel right.


My question is regarding the psychology behind this engagement. I don't know a whole lot about the subject, so I wonder; is this a good approach at encoding the information in a person's mind?

 

Heheh, that's brilliant. Thanks for that; I'll keep in mind everything they said. "Juicy" is a nice word.

Now I just need to figure out whether this idea of making wrong answers not-juicy will help program a person to better associate the picture with the right answers.

 

Why not dive into some psychology literature and educational studies, this is a huge area. Fun idea though. You're on the right track regarding feelings, what feels nice and interesting makes it easier to learn (stay away from the electric shocks as an aversive method though

 

Psychology of games? My book chapter Flow, Motivation, and Fun was written to answer your questions. After you read that, here's a few specific suggestions for your game:

- Put the fun in the rules - make the experience ABOUT matching the words, where drilling is just part of the feedback.
- Make it FAST. Solving a word puzzle is a 5 second interaction, including the juice, and the feedback. Puzzle, thought, solution, Juice-BAM! Next! Fast, fast, fast.
- Simplify - drop 90% of the crap you think you think you need. One Gamasutra author summed it this way, "Give them a clear goal, give them a simply way to achieve that goal, give them fantastic feedback, and stop there. It might be enough".
- Once you have that, then add your juice.
- Remember the interest curve - draw a line that rises left to right, in a see-saw, up& down pattern - that's the emotional journey you take when you watch a good movie, plus the initial spike to catch your attention.

More than that, and I'll have to charge you ,
Gigi