How to Design a Knowledge Guru Game in 5 Steps

The Knowledge Guru® Game Creation Wizard is a fast, easy-to-use tool you can use to create learning games. It’s easy to put your content, facts and information you want learners to know “cold” into the game and create a highly engaging experience for players.

You can design a Knowledge Guru game from start to finish by following the five step process outlined below. The Game Wizard is crucial to most of these steps, but taking time to do a design meeting and plan out the topics and learning objectives FIRST is essential to success with the Wizard.

Step 1: Conduct a game design meeting

Before you open up the Guru Game Creation Wizard, invite your subject matter experts to a meeting to plan your game and create the objectives for it. You can download a PDF that guides you through this meeting.

In this meeting:

    • Agree on the game’s title. This title should be descriptive of what the learners will become gurus of: a product, a process, an industry, etc.
    • Answer the question, “What do we need learners to know or be able to do related to the game’s title? Your answers will help you define the game’s topics and write learning objectives. Identify up to four topics for your game.
    • Create three to five learning objectives for each topic. Use Bloom’s Taxonomy to help you select appropriate verbs to include in your objectives. Examples: Identify, Define, Explain, Distinguish, Compare, Contrast.
    • Assess each objective and decide how many question sets you need to enable a learner to successfully achieve it. Some objectives may only require one question set. Others may need up to three question sets.

Example: In Gridiron Guru, it only took one question set to enable learners to achieve the objective, “Recognize a play action pass.” It took three question sets (a total of nine questions) for them to be able to “Distinguish skilled from non-skill players and describe their roles.”

Step 2: Create a design document

You COULD take the information you gathered from your design meeting and go directly to the Game Creation Wizard. However, creating a design document can make your use of the wizard easier – and provide your project team members an easy way to review the overall game design. Your design document should specify:

    • The game goal (which is always to become a guru of something).
    • The target audience and your assumptions about them.
    • The game’s topics (you can have up to four unique topics; the fifth “topic” is always Grab Bag, which is a new game that unlocks once people achieve Knowledge Guru status).
    • The learning objectives associated with each topic and the question sets/content you plan to create for each objective. A timeline for creating and launching the game.

A sample design document is located here. Talk to a Product Guru to get this as a Word document.

Step 3: Use the Game Creation Wizard to Create Your Game

The Knowledge Guru Game Creation Wizard makes it VERY easy to create your Guru game. It guides you through the tasks you will need to complete: topics, objectives, question sets and questions.

The screencast below will walk you through the step-by-step process of using the Game Creation Wizard to create content.

Here are the basics for your review:

  • Divide your content into up to 4 unique topics.
  • For each topic, create up to 5 learning objectives: what learners will know do or believe after completing the game.
  • For each learning objective, create at least one question set: a group of three iterations of the same question. Usually, one question is basic recall, another is true/false, and the third question is a scenario.
  • You can attach images to questions if you wish.
  • Make sure each question has appropriate feedback. Players will see the feedback if they answer incorrectly.
  • Include a humorous “Guru Mountain” question for each topic. Learners see this when they master the topic.

Step 4: Publish “Alpha” and do a game review

Once you’ve created all your topics, formulated the learning objectives for each topic, and written the question sets associated with each objective, you are ready to publish an “alpha” version of your game.

An “alpha” version is a live version of the game – but you do NOT communicate the URL of the game to your potential players. Instead you communicate this URL address to your review team and provide them with a spreadsheet of the questions in the game so they can make comments or suggest any revisions.

Some reviewers find it easier to just look at a spreadsheet of questions to make their changes. You can Export a CSV file of your game data to give to reviewers, right from the admin dashboard. The process starts on the main menu:

CSV Export - Knowledge Guru

Click “Export CSV” to get your spreadsheet.

Select "Export Game Data" to get the right spreadsheet.

Select “Game Data Export.”

Select "questions table" to access all content from your game.

Select “questions table” to access all content from your game.

The spreadsheets cannot be re-imported into the game. You will need to manually enter any revisions into the wizard.

Step 5: Finalize Your Game

You will conduct a review meeting to discuss the game’s contents. We recommend you come prepared to display your computer screen so the reviewers can see the questions “in game” as you discuss any potential edits.

Questions are viewable in game from the “View Questions” screen. Instructions on how to use this screen are found in the tutorial screencast above. Here is the screen you will need:

Reviewing a Knowledge Guru game

Once you have reviewed and finalized your game, you are ready to launch it to players. Don’t forget to make sure the game is “online!” If it isn’t just click the button in the lower right hand corner of the main menu:

Knowledge Guru Site Access

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