We had various Our Courts and ASU folks come on down to help us whiteboard and paper prototype argumentation. The first and foremost challenge was structural: if we're to let players argument using cards, how do you break an argument down into pieces that fit onto cards in the first place?
It took us a while to whittle cards down into two simple categories: Argument and Support. An Argument Card was the "head" of an argument, a basic statement that needed reinforcement. A Support Card was one of the myriad ways you could support an Argument Card. Players would make evaluative judgements on the quality of the relationship between arguments and supports, and that judgement included the evaluation of that support's intrinsic strength.
This system let us give the subject matter experts a deep level of evaluation of argumentation without cramming a dictionary sized rulebook down the player's throats. It meant that players interested in doing well would either have to play the game many times (an educational win!), research a hint document that maps out which card works well with each other (win again!), or evaluate the cards on their merits by reading them carefully and pondering (super duper win!).
With that more or less in working order, the next question in front of us was the judge. If the game gives you a bad score, the player is sure as heck going to want to know why. In order to make sure the player got useful feedback from the game to let them learn from their mistakes, we needed a system that could provide dynamic, contextual feedback.
Ah, but that is for another post, dear reader. Stay tuned!
