THE WINNING GAME Briefing Paper

1. THE WINNING GAME Briefing Paper

2. The Winning Theory He cut his database into three parts: ‘the deliverers’, ‘the mediocre’ and ‘the poor deliverers’. He then set about searching for whatever qualities and attributes that only people from ‘the deliverers’ shared. He identified that there was no correlation between how talented or intelligent the person may be, and whether they belonged to the deliverer group or not. Shinar’s theory states that winners are committed to a concrete, systematic and pragmatic thought pattern with distinct rules of do’s and don’ts. 12 different thought patterns were identified as being critical to the creation of a winner. This kind of thought pattern is called: “Thinking Correctly Under Pressure” or “T-CUP”. The behaviour which derives from this distinct thought pattern and its principals is called: “Winning Behaviour”. Background to The Winning Game The Winning Game is a computer game which enhances your ability to make decisions correctly under pressure using an arcade style game, an in-game coach who provides instant feedback and suggestions for improvement, combined with an intelligent debriefing and assessment system for identifying strengths and weaknesses. Over time it gives users the same mental model for winning used by professional athletes, fighter pilots and other high pressured, success oriented occupations. The Winning Game is based on a computer simulation game that was developed by Winning Enterprises in the late 1990’s, which encapsulated “The Winning Theory”, as defined by Yehuda Shinar, of Winning Enterprises. Yehuda Shinar has been working with the Foundation since 2006, primarily with the Scottish Institute of Sport athletes in rugby, hockey and swimming. His work is ongoing with the high performance athletes of the Scottish Institute of Sport. The Winning Theory Shinar undertook an 18 year study to identify the psychological makeup of a “winner”. A one-time graphologist, studying handwriting to identify personality traits, he trawled through a database of 4,500 people to identify his formula.

3. Thinking Correctly Under Pressure – “T-CUP” T-CUP The 12 steps to being a winner are collectively grouped by Shinar into one single criterion – T-CUP. • Avoid getting trapped in unnecessary corners – your ability to avoid being caught under pressure unless strictly necessary. • Patience in creating opportunities – how much time and effort you are willing to invest in preparing the basic conditions needed to succeed. • Seizing opportunities – the degree to which you optimise personal/professional skills and experience in order to realise a given opportunity. • Awareness of faulty tactics/methods – your ability to realise within a reasonable amount of time that a specific tactic/method is not generating the right result. • Sticking to basics – the degree to which you follow procedures, operating instructions, proven techniques or a given methodology. • Decisiveness – the degree to which your decision making progress and natural performance are free from unnecessary hesitations. Maintaining momentum – the degree of persistence with which you maintain your highest standards throughout your performance – including the steps you take aimed at preserving your achievements. Quality of counter pressure – how well you optimise your personal advantages in one-on-one situations, by taking full advantage of your opponent’s weaknesses. Level of self-control – how well do you maintain the principals of Thinking Correctly Under Pressure? In critical situations, how effective are you in mastering anxieties and stress? Sticking to proven tactics – how strongly you adhere to proven, successful methods in critical situations. Thoroughness – the degree to which you are strict and orderly in completing your tasks. Time management – how well do you use your allocated time, quantitatively and qualitatively.

4. Tri-partite relationship The objective of the Foundation is to challenge thinking, change attitudes and create more winners by inspiring people in all walks of life to fulfil their maximum potential, whilst promoting greater self-confidence, leadership, motivation and success. The Winning Game serves this objective. Game development Shinar will have ongoing input to the further development of the Winning Game. He will provide consultancy services to TPLD to ensure that the Winning Behaviour is encapsulated within the Winning Game. Tri-partite relationship The Foundation was the catalyst for the development of this project. As part of it’s initiative, the Foundation commissioned a pilot project in early 2007 to evaluate the applicability and market readiness of the original Winning Enterprise computer simulation game for deployment throughout the Scottish education system. During this investigation it became clear that the Winning concept could be applied not only to any school system but across a broad sector of corporate organisations and widely used in sport. The Foundation reviewed the games based learning market, specifically in Scotland and TPLD were highlighted as the market leader for games development. TPLD, based in Dundee, is one of the global leaders in the emerging Games-Based Learning (“GBL”) market and has developed an online GBL platform to support the rapid development and deployment of GBL applications. The Foundation met with TPLD and explained The Winning Game and the Foundation’s concept for development and from here the tri-partite relationship has evolved.

5. Winning Game – Education fit Curriculum fit A close tie to the curriculum is essential for high uptake rates for any new piece of software in the Education market. There is a myriad of initiatives that schools must align themselves to in the curriculum. These initiatives are moving more towards the soft skills end of the spectrum, focussing on skills for life, and lifelong learning. The Winning game and theory fits comfortably within several of these initiatives and perfectly with the Curriculum for Excellence, Health Promoting Schools and Core Skills. Curriculum for Excellence (“CfE”) The Curriculum for Excellence is the Scottish curriculum review programme which aims to produce a streamlined educational experience for pupils from 3 to 18 years old. The CfE aims to enable all pupils to develop their capacities as: successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors to society. The CfE aims to ensure that children and young people are acquiring the full range of skills and abilities relevant to growing, living and working in the contemporary world. The four areas of the CfE are “Successful Learners”, “Confident Individuals”, “Responsible Citizens” and “Effective Contributors”. Winning can be classified as a life skill and meets three areas of the CfE, namely Successful Learners, Confident Individuals and Effective Contributors. The T-CUPs can be mapped directly to aspects of the CfE. A table setting out this mapping is included in the Appendices. Assessment is for Learning (“AifL”) AifL is part of the CfE. Personal learning plans are an essential aspect of AifL as well as the close interaction between the facilitator and participant. This relates to the personal coach within the Game who provides feedback to the user in order for them to improve. Core Skills There are five key core skills within the Scottish Curriculum and The Winning Game fits with three of them; problem solving, IT and numeracy. Lesson Plan An example lesson plan for utilising the game in a classroom environment is set out in Appendix 7. Appendix 8 sets out an example personal development plan.

6. The Winning Game Development The Winning Game development The idea behind The Winning Game is that videogames and artificial intelligence (“AI”) software can be used to build an intelligent computer game coach that players can use, and within weeks of playing the game will begin to see positive changes in their life as they practice the same basic ideas that help them get better at the game. During play, the game will track the user and the AI will be able to assess what they are or aren’t doing well relative to the Winning Behaviour concepts (the T-CUPs). It can then offer the player specifically calibrated coaching and advice, both in-game and after the game, which when utilised by the player, will result in increased performance. As the player integrates the coaching model into advancing at successive levels, they will not only get better at the game, but also begin to establish a system where they use self-critical feedback and reflection to drive themselves to continually improve. While we know that this is the process that many game-players use implicitly, the beauty of this game is that it flips that process into a more explicit mechanism for training the user at a higher-level in such skills, so they can apply the process more universally. This, in essence, is another key part of what athletes and other successful people do – they make critical assessments of themselves in a healthy manner, as part of a continual and deliberate debriefing process. When people learn to do this and see the results of such action in the game, they can begin to easily apply the same principles and techniques outside of the game.

7. Development to date Game Design – generally very positive with specific requirements requested for future versions of the Winning Game. Technical – the outcomes of the Technical Evaluation successfully mitigated any future technical risk through prototyping activities. Pre-Phase 2 Based on the feedback received during Phase 1 of the project the Foundation commissioned a pre-Phase 2 development where a prototype was created and a further pilot was conducted to validate the recommendations made during Phase 1. The prototype was much preferred by the pupils over the original game, with a particular preference towards the new graphics and player matching system that was incorporated. Common themes were identified during the pre-Phase 2 mini-pilot, namely the game was highly addictive for pupils and teachers, high desire to play the game again, the interface was not an obstacle and there was high levels of concentration and a quiet room! The results of this pilot were used to inform the game design activity at the start of Phase 2. Phase 1 Phase 1 of the project commissioned by the Foundation was concerned with the evaluation and market readiness of the Winning game in its original state (as developed by Winning Enterprises). TPLD undertook a technical and commercial gap analysis. TPLD evaluated the game internally utilising the combined skill sets and relevant GBL experience of existing staff, as well as externally within a school environment where the ‘end product’ would ultimately be used. The outcome of this Phase was as follows: Pilot – Winning is a very valuable lesson and that the Winning Game and concept is universally applicable and holds benefit to many people; Market – there is significant potential for the Winning game both in the US and UK markets and that the concept of Winning would be highly applicable

8. Pilot Feedback The schools pilot provided participants from diverse social backgrounds as well as participants with differing needs. The pilot focused on the effectiveness of the game and its fit within the current schools environment. • Blairgowrie High School (Learning Support) • After a bit of coaching one girl’s attitude turned around and she subsequently won one of her matches • Glasgow School of Sport (U-16 Hockey Team) • Loved the fact that they could challenge each other – they could see how the game maps back to their work on the pitch • Perth High School (Average Achievers) • Engaged immediately and understood the interface and purpose of the game • St. Saviours High School (High and Low Achievers) • Teacher noted that pupils who never normally speak were playing together and wanting to challenge each other

9. Phase 2 Development • Longevity • Longevity issues relating to the amount of content in the game to keep players engaged over an extended period of time still remain present following the pre-phase 2 pilots; therefore a number of mechanisms have been proposed to help deal with this. • Game balancing • The biggest single issue coming back from the pre-phase 2 results related to the fact that in a large number of games the match can often be won within the first few minutes. A number of solutions have been proposed to overcome this problem and will be developed during Phase 2. • Handicap system • Consistent feedback from the pilot has indicated that some kind of balancing mechanism is required to enable players of lower ability to fairly challenge players with high ability in the game. Prototypes of different handicap systems will be developed during Phase 2. Phase 2 Phase 2 is focused around the development of the Winning Game as specified in the Gap Analysis and commercialisation planning conducted in Phase 1 and pre-Phase 2 pilot feedback. Initial activities within Phase 2 have commenced, however the majority of the Phase 2 work will be undertaken from August 2007 to February 2008. The key components of Phase 2 development are as follows: User Interface enhancements A number of enhancements to the user interface were identified during Phase 1 and pre-Phase 2 and these will be developed further during Phase 2. These include: reticule movement, shot cycle, branding and graphical themes, heads up display, visual aids and sound effects and music. New Game play mechanics Further analysis of the Game has identified some new game play mechanics that will be developed during Phase 2. These include: defending, shot timer and power-ups.

10. Game Play Game play At the end of each round, and the end of the game, the player will be presented with an even deeper assessment of their play, and the ability to choose key reflective points they would like to work on more specifically in the next round of play in the form of a Personal Development Plan. For example, if the player felt they could have improved their time management skills, the game will recalibrate towards this particular goal in the next round. This basic element of play-reflect-improve is key to providing the explicit training model the game offers its players. This process is further enhanced by the incorporation of a replay model utilising freeze frame images and short video clips from the previous match to highlight specific coaching points and areas for improvement. Handicapping Players will play open “tuning games” to assess their arcade skills, ensuring that users who aren’t as physically agile with the controls, can still play and benefit from the game. A handicap mechanism will also be used to ensure that the players of lesser arcade ability are able to fairly challenge players with greater motor skills. Player development The goal is that each tutorial/training game is fun to practice and play, with a clear path from beginner to master. Player’s interest in how that process works will provide the initial hook for showing them that forming basic winning-oriented mental models will transfer beyond the game. Warrior mode Once all the required skills, such as thinking correctly under pressure and debriefing, have been acquired, a tournament structure called “Warrior Mode” will become available, which will not include the coaching aspects and will enable players to challenge others in order to determine who the ultimate winner is.

11. Appendices Appendix 1 - High Level Design Game Structure Appendix 2 - Coaching Appendix 3 - Debrief Appendix 4 - Assessment Appendix 5 - Curriculum for Excellence Appendix 6 - Mapping the T-CUPs to the CfE Appendix 7 - Example personal development plan

12. Appendix 1 - High Level Design Game Structure Technical Skills Tutorials Winning / Thinking Skills Tutorials Practice Mini-Games Single Player AI Practice Multi-player Free-play Practice Warrior Mode • Coaching • Handicap baseline • Coaching • Debriefing • Assessment • Coaching • Debriefing • Assessment • Coaching • Debriefing • Assessment • Handicapping • Coaching • Debriefing • Assessment • Tournament • Handicapping • Assessment • Observer

13. Appendix 2 - Coaching

14. Appendix 3 - Debrief

15. Appendix 4 - Assessment

16. Appendix 5 - Curriculum for Excellence

17. Appendix 6 – New Mapping

18. Appendix 7 - Personal Development Plan