Getting into a constant verification loop

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about how computer games could help us to stop forgetting essential things during a preparation phase.

Remembering all the things that need to be prepared in order to perform a certain task can often be a challenge. In most cases, it is not too dramatic if a certain thing is missing. Going on a hiking tour and forgetting some biscuits is mostly not a problem. Preparing a presentation and forgetting to prepare some helpful slides for the follow-up discussion could result in a more complicated approach in order to make the own point clear. However, sometimes it could be even more complicated, if a charger is missing during a week-long vacation.

In most cases, the issue comes from the fact that we are not trained to analyze an upcoming task and to figure out all the eventualities. Moreover, our daily life is relatively relaxed. Even if we forget a thing, it can easily be retrieved. However, sometimes it could be a situation that happens only once and a missing thing could be really problematic. But how to train for such an occasion, if the regular life does not challenge us enough so that we automatically get used to think about every part of the upcoming task?

I found a possible answer in playing computer games. Computer games can put the players into the role of a mission planner requiring them to think about every detail of a mission before starting it. Depending on the complexity of the game, the players need to think about every part of the scheduled mission in order to successful complete it. After the planning phase is finished, the players are commited and have to proceed on even if they have missed to prepare for a certain event.

One of the best mission planning games I have played so far is Kerbal Space Program[1] (KSP). The planning phase is basically the phase during which the players are constructing their space crafts. They have to think about every step of the upcoming mission: launch, flight, a possible landing, return flight and all the desired experiments. Due to the fact that some destinations in KSP are relatively far away and require a lot of play time in order to arrive there, it could be sometimes problematic, if a certain stage is missing and the space craft can not land on the celestial body after a lot of maneuvers were completed in order to get there.

Such a disappointing outcome can teach the players that they need to think about every step before launching a mission. Moreover, even if the players have done this, the game encourages the players to validate their constructions before it is too late. Over time the players get used to a verification loop and they automatically check their planned mission for any flaws. This verification loop can be then transferred on other tasks of the daily life. The players get used to think about every step in advanced and to double check their plan before they will switch to the execution phase.