Games put us to the test and elicit strong emotions. Can you get the same result with warm-up games that cover more serious subjects? This tutorial includes seven essential components to add to eLearning games to improve emotional connectivity.

Important Emotional Connectivity Training Game Ingredients

People rarely relate emotions to online instruction. It’s merely part of the work description, and emotions aren’t involved. Developing an emotional connection, on the other hand, is critical for effective knowledge management and application. Employees should be able to submerge themselves in the environment, empathize with the characters, and identify with their difficulties. How do you decompose mental barriers and connect with your colleagues’ emotions? Include training games that push people to take chances, gain from them, and evaluate their performance. Here are some crucial components to incorporate into your eLearning games to create an emotional connection.

7 Essential Training Game Elements to Increase Emotional Connectivity

1. Settings You’ve Seen Before

Employees enjoy exploring various locations in games designed for amusement. Training games, on the other hand, are designed to provide practice. Familiar environments allow individuals to walk into the job and confront realistic difficulties without fear of failure. Learn to adapt to the sales floor, for example, so they know where all the merchandise is and where the POS terminals are. Use images or videos of the workstation if feasible to establish an emotional connection and feeling of immersion.

2. Real-World Obstacles

One of the benefits of serious games is the ability to face real-world difficulties without having to cope with real-world consequences. Learners can still face favorable or unfavorable consequences but in a secure online training setting. Practical challenges also allow people to take chances and learn from them, as well as to live through errors (even if they are fictitious) and alter their approach. Avoid a plethora of “what ifs” and stick to actual challenges that generate experiential knowledge.

3. Characters to Remember

Most of us recall the oddball characters long after we’ve completed an amazing adventure game. The same is true for designing training gamification. Create characters that are lifelike and full of personality. But don’t go too far and include their entire past. The goal is to capture employees’ interest and make them care about the figures, not to divert their attention away from the desired goals. To put a face to the name, utilize cut-out character pictures from your asset library.

4. The Story Arc

To entice learners, game-based learning necessitates a compelling tale. This contains a brief introduction to set the situation, followed by a barrier or struggle, and finally, the resolution. However, the structure is only one component. How will you assist students to feel like they’re a part of the scene? Will you provide some background on the main character’s job duties and competency gaps? What about their anxiety levels and previous work-related difficulties? They must understand the main point of the story without being distracted by irrelevant details that induce cognitive overload.

5. Multimedia that is relevant

A few crucial things to include in your training gamification layout include video clips, photos, audio effects, and theme music. All of these elements contribute to the atmosphere and establish an emotional bond with the viewer. There must, however, be a balance. Too many video segments impede mobile availability and can cause cognitive overload, while background audio can be distracting if it suffocates the dialog or generates the incorrect feeling. When it comes to auditory stimuli, provide them complete control over the loudness and mute features to allow for on-the-go training. Furthermore, some students may prefer to engage in quiet to concentrate on the job at hand.

6. Critique

What went wrong for them? Should they have taken one way over another? Did the game reveal undiscovered talents that they can develop on their own? There is always room for advancement. As a result, tailored feedback is essential in any game-based learning plan. In training games, there is no room for uncertainty. Outline their mistakes and how they connect to work performance. For example, they should have greeted the consumer and inquired about their account information right immediately to expedite the transaction and establish rapport. Emphasize soft abilities that need improvement and guide them on the right track. It’s their chance to uncover pain points in a comfortable environment, away from the congested workplace where mistakes can lead to disgrace, dismissal, and decline in business.

7. Related Resources

Many instructional game designers finish the plot and let it be. Employees have learned what they need to know and have discovered critical gaps. But it is only the beginning. You cannot leave students wondering how to tackle personal issues or where to seek assistance. Include follow-up services to provide continuous emotional and educational assistance. Links to lessons, podcasts, or other serious games, for example, can assist individuals to increase task performance. They are permitted to make errors, but they should be able to remedy them and know how to prevent doing them in the future; specifically, while they are at work and risk losing a sale or insulting a loyal customer.

Conclusion

What does it require to entice employees to become active participants? To genuinely profit from online training, corporate learners must understand what is in it for them and emotionally engage in the experience. These pointers can assist you in developing training games that allow them to relate to the characters, empathize with their situation, transition from theory to practice, and live through the bad and positive results of their choices so they don’t make the same mistake twice. They are more inclined to enroll in the training program if it provides immediate and practical benefits.

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