Guest Blog

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How Gaming Can Stimulate the Mind

Guest Blog post by Kelsey Simpson

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Video games are growing in popularity as the digital age thrives. More and more people are turning towards video games rather than other kinds of entertainment; this is for a number of reasons. Video games are not only entertaining, but they also can stimulate the mind; creating a wide variety of benefits for users.

No matter the age of a user, he or she can greatly benefit from video games in terms of brain function. Although not recommended to play for hours on end, video games can improve a person’s mental capacity, specifically his or her cognitive functions. Here is what you need to know about gaming and how it can stimulate the mind.

Learn How Gaming Can Benefit Your Brain

From children to teens and adults to seniors, video games offer hours of entertainment, and with that entertainment can come the added benefit of improving brain function. In fact, an in-home senior care specialist pointed out that seniors that play video games on tablets and other mobile devices seem to have sharper minds than those that do not; adding that gaming also improves senior’s moods.

With the vast benefits that gaming has to offer, the way it benefits the brain is the most significant.

Promotes Cognitive Functions

According to a study from the US National Library of Medicine, cognitive functions can be vastly improved by playing video games, here’s how:

  • Improved Memory

By gaming, users have the opportunity to improve their memories, this is especially true with games that are three dimensional. Gaming, according to AANS Neurosurgeon, can boost memory performance by up to 12% and could even decrease the chance of Alzheimer’s in users. Most games require the user to pay special attention in order for the user to win. This forces the gamer to employ memory skills, a skill that people don’t typically practice on a daily basis.

  • Spatial Orientation and Information Organization

Spatial orientation and information organization skills can be improved by gaming. Spatial orientation deals with a person’s ability to regulate and understand his or her body in the environment; while information organization deals with the ability to categorize information in the brain.

Spatial orientation is an important skill for humans to have, however, there are very few ways to learn this skill if one does not possess it; there are also very few ways for humans to improve and  practice this but gaming offers a solution.

Gaming puts the user in an environment and he or she needs to understand the environment in order to be successful in the game. With the need to understand spatial orientation in a game, the user is forced to apply it in real life as well.

Similarly, gaming requires a user to practice information organizational skills in order to win or thrive in a game. In most games, a person needs to think about how to be successful and pragmatic in order to achieve a certain goal, the user will follow a mental path in order to come up with a solution in the game. Therefore, the user will unintentionally do this in real-life situations as well.

A good example of a game that employs both of these cognitive function improvement skills is The Sims.

  • Preservation of Fine Motor Skills

This is especially beneficial for seniors and medical practitioners. Fine motor skills can always be improved upon in humans, and it’s important to preserve the ones that one already has. By using a controller, users are employing and preserving fine motor skills without even realizing it. When gaming, users will have to process what’s happening on the screen and react with their hands; this is true for users that play games on tablets and mobile devices as well.

Seniors and medical practitioners are the two categories of people that require the preservation of fine motor skills. Seniors need to keep their fine motor skills in order to carry out everyday tasks, while medical practitioners need their fine motor skills to perform their job requirements such as surgeries.

Gaming Can Benefit People of All Ages

Though people should still make it a point to remain active and productive in order to promote overall health and wellness, playing video games is a great way to spend free time. In fact, in order to remain productive as one plays video games, he or she can play brain games that are designed to give the mind a workout. No matter your age, gaming can benefit you; improving your all-around mental capabilities. Keep these points in mind as you think about how to entertain yourself next.

About the Author

Kelsey Simpson enjoys writing about things that can help others. She lives in South Jersey and is the proud companion to two German Shepherds and spends her free time volunteering in dog shelters.

Inside the World of a Game Designer

Guest Blog post from Elaine Reynolds, game designer of Eden Isle: Resort Paradise (download the game on iOS here), a building sim game where you can create your dream resort.

Ah the idyllic life of a game designer! All I do is sit around playing games, thinking of ideas for games and thinking about how perfect my job is…

Ok so that’s not quite true but I have been told by many people that I have the dream job. I mean what could be better than playing games all day? Funnily enough, I’ve never heard anyone say that mechanics just look at cars all day or that chefs just look at food all day. There seems to be some sort of mystical aura surrounding game design. I often get asked how I got into games. When I say my route into games involved studying games at college, getting work experience and applying for jobs, I can sense a twinge of disappointment and surprise. I think they’re expecting something more mysterious, some sort of alchemy rather than a career route with steps that mirror those of many other career routes.

Before I started making games, I thought that being a game designer was mainly about coming up with ideas for games. How wonderful to be a fountain of creativity coming up with an abundance of ideas, blessing the world with your brilliance absolved of having to do anything to see your ideas come to fruition! In reality, coming up with an idea for a game is the easy part. Famed game designer Peter Molyneux, who I was lucky enough to work alongside for a few years, was once approached by a fan who said “I have a great idea for a game”. Peter replied “I have a great idea for a painting”. As someone with embarrassingly bad drawing skills, I can relate to this! An idea on its own isn’t worth much. It’s a similar story with many pursuits – having an idea for a book, a business or a movie is the easy part. It takes time, skill, effort and most likely a great team to bring an idea to life.

In game design, you could have 100 game designers all starting with the same idea for a game but they could take it in 100 different directions. When I came up with the idea for Eden Isle: Resort Paradise, I knew I wanted to make a simulation game, because that’s the game genre I love most and the reason I pursued a career in game development. I set up my studio, Simteractive, with the aim of making simulation games. I also wanted to create a game where you build your dream resort because I think a resort is a great setting – who doesn’t love hotels, swimming pools and palm trees?

After this point, there were literally thousands of different decisions to make about the game – what causes guests to arrive at the resort? What are the game’s currencies and how does the player earn money? Does the layout of the resort matter? How do guests decide what to do? For each of these questions, the answer isn’t just a simple sentence, it’s a whole design doc with rules, flowcharts and excel sheets with numeric values that can be continuously tweaked. Being a game designer is about working out the details of each feature and also bearing in mind how fun it is for the player, how it fits in with the rest of the game, how easy it will be for the player to understand and solving problems that crop up along the way.

There’s a tendency to idolise game designers and to view games as creations stemming from the creative powers of one individual pursuing their singular vision. However, games are made by teams – programmers, artists, animators, producers, musicians, testers, user interface artists and many more are involved in making games. Although there are many people who have made games all on their own, that means that they have to take on all of the roles involved in game development and wear many hats.

Seeing a game go from being just an idea to a finished product that players enjoy is extremely rewarding. It’s also a long, arduous process. So even though the life of a game designer isn’t quite the fantasy world it might appear to be, it is amazing to see a game come to life. Eden Isle: Resort Paradise started as an idea to make a game that lets players create their dream resort. With a lot of work over a number of years and the efforts of a small, talented team, Eden Isle is available worldwide in the app store for iOS and enjoyed by players from all over. We’ve even won an award and been nominated for a few more but the best thing is when we get a review or a message from players saying they love the game.

So back to the question of whether I play games all day? To be fair, I do spend a lot of time playing one game in particular – my own game, Eden Isle: Resort Paradise. However, when you’re playing games as a game creator rather than as a player, it’s literally a whole different game. For one thing, you’re rarely playing the final, polished version that players get to play. During development, games can be unrecognisable from their final form with features missing, no artwork or animations, placeholder user interface elements and major bugs. As a game designer you’ve got to see past all these issues to look at the core of the game. It’s a bit like on Project Runway when you see a designer pinning rough muslin cloth on their model showing the first inkling of the outfit’s design, the final form of which is still hard to visualise for the untrained eye. It’s the same when you’re designing the core gameplay for a game, you have to see past the missing artwork and look at the gameplay mechanics. Games should be fun to play even without any artwork. When I was designing Eden Isle, I first created a prototype with cubes for buildings and cylinders for guests (although I did put a sphere on top of each cylinder for the head to make them vaguely human-looking!). I worked out the game design using this prototype because if something is fun in such a rough state, it will be so much better once all the artwork, animations and bells and whistles are added.

Another thing about playing your own game is that you play the same thing again and again and again. Luckily for me, I still love playing Eden Isle and creating a gorgeous resort, carefully choosing where I place each building, what decor items I choose and what path types I use. I feel a sense of loss whenever I have to delete a resort I’ve created in order to start again. When you play a game so many times you get to know it really well, too well in fact. Because of this, we love hearing from players as they experience the game differently. We read every single message that players send us and we really appreciate when players take the time to ask us a question or let us know about a bug that slipped through the cracks. The most important thing is creating a great player experience and responding to player feedback lets us do that.

Elaine

If you want to check out Eden Isle: Resort Paradise, you can download it here (the game is currently only available on iOS but Android is coming)

If you do have any thoughts on the game, feel free to email us on help@edenislegame.comor message us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/EdenIsleGame or through our website www.EdenIsleGame.com

If you are interested in becoming a game designer yourself, there’s a list of resources and links here that you might find helpful: https://simteractive.com/2016/05/17/games-industry-resources/

You can follow Elaine on Twitter @elaine_reynolds and Eden Isle on Twitter and Instagram @eden_isle

Eden Isle: Resort Paradise Gameplay by The Girl Who Games

  4 Clever Comebacks for Parents Who Hate You Gaming

by Lea, Lilou and Lee from mygames4girls.com

Everyone knows the situation: you want just a little more time playing the insanely fun and addictive game you’ve just discovered, and your parents are yelling that it’s time to put down the tablet and pick up your flute/textbook/knitting. 

Games turn your eye square and make your brain leak out your ears like grey porridge, right?

Wrong. So here’s some clever arguments with big words to help you fight your case.

Argument 1:

“Flicking exploding birds at green piggies is enhancing my cognitive development, actually.”  

It’s true. Whether it’s huge franchises like Civilisation or free puzzle games on your smartphone, your brain is having to solve problems facing you and think strategically to enable you to win the level. All without you even realising!

Argument 2:

“But Mom, my accounting and management skills are triplifying exponentially!”  

Also true. Simulation games like the Tycoon or The Sims series let you evaluate and test real life situations, exploring (and frequently suffering) the consequences of your decisions. Spending all your Simoleons on a hot tub meant you couldn’t feed your Sim’s kids and they got taken away; before video games, people learnt that lesson the hard way (probably).

Argument 3:

“I am creatively experimenting by giving my Level 37 Warlock blue dreadlocks and a wooden leg, you see.”

Better believe it. Crafting avatars, furnishing homes, forging weapons, styling characters; all are tickling your left­brain and getting your creative juices flowing. Think of all the fan art gaming inspires too ­ there’s creativity flying all over the shop.

Argument 4:

“I’m going to be a multimillionaire teen prodigy gaming entrepreneur.”  

A bit more of a gamble than the other arguments, we accept. But apps like Fruit Ninja; games like Grand Theft Auto; websites like Facebook and YouTube; they all took one great idea that started in the garage before hitting the big time.

So tell your parents that by playing games you’re conducting market research and brainstorming; smartly inform them about your creative expression, your cognitive development. Online games are also super sociable, and increase your reading skills AND computer literacy! Honestly, we are nonstop.

We’ve provided the long words, now you go play the games.  

Written by: Lea, Lilou and Lee

If you are interested in writing a guest post about gaming then please contact me via email, please note that the post will need to be approved by me to make sure it is suitable before it can be published 

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