This is a valuable contribution to the important area of designing computer games that teach people something useful. It draws general conclusions about how to design enjoyable, but effective teaching games from the story of the four versions of the Heart Sense Game (HSG), which is used to teach people that they should go immediately to a hospital if they suspect they have had a heart attack (apparently, most of us ignore heart malfunctions).

The first HSG version, designed by a professional medical education team, was far too boring. The second HSG version, designed by a professional storytelling team, was more entertaining, but largely noninteractive. The third HSG version, designed by professional computer game developers, was more interactive, but required skills irrelevant to what HSG was trying to teach (fine for teenagers, but not for the senior citizens more liable to suffer heart attacks). The final HSG version incorporated the good features of the earlier versions, and is a successful example of humans learning by “teaching agents in a computer game to behave appropriately in desperate situations.”

The crux of the analysis of the design of these teaching computer games is that one needs designers with very different backgrounds, and there is a conflict in their expertise, ideals, and goals that must be resolved harmoniously.