Using AI to Build Better Learning Games | Episode 436

Summary

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Professor Game Podcast, Episode 436

Using AI to Build Better Learning Games

Guest: Leif Sorensen (Founder of Acti)
Host: Rob Alvarez
Date: March 16, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on how artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the game for the learning industry—specifically, how AI supports the design and use of engaging learning games. Rob Alvarez interviews Leif Sorensen, founder of Acti, a global learning games platform, about AI’s impact, the biggest practical challenges, and actionable strategies to maximize learning impact using games. Leif shares hard-won lessons, the critical importance of focus, and the pitfalls of “magic powder” thinking in gamification. The conversation is lively, tactical, and accessible both for L&D professionals and innovators new to this space.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Leif’s Background and Daily Work

[02:40 - 05:50]

• Leif is deeply passionate about learning—games are his tool, not his end-goal.
  • “Learning is actually the core of my skill set. That’s where my love actually lies... Games are just such a powerful tool in that toolbox.” (Leif, 03:10)
• A typical day:
  • Starts with stand-up meetings with Acti’s developers
  • Focused on product development, client engagement (especially outside Denmark), and making game building faster and more accessible through AI
• Global reach: Only 30% of Acti’s business is in Denmark—the rest is worldwide.

The Classic Failure: Too Much in One Game

[06:14 - 14:35]

• Leif’s most common failure: letting games become too complicated at a client’s request.
  • “They think it’s a magic powder that you can spread over and then everything will be solved… and that’s simply not the case.” (Leif, 01:05 / 06:48)
  • "The biggest mistake is actually going with that flow... not adding too much into the game." (Leif, 06:48)
• Real-world story:
  • Leif agreed to condense a two-day L&D certification workshop into one day for a major telecom client.
  • Outcome: 32 of 35 participants left frustrated and incapable of using the game.
  • “I should never, ever, ever have said yes to that situation. And I was so much right… nobody was capable of using the game afterwards.” (Leif, 10:15)
• Key Lessons:
  • Hard conversations upfront with clients are essential to managing expectations.
  • It’s easier to negotiate before you say yes—after that, all the burden is on the provider.

COVID, LMS Failures, and the Need for Quality

[15:40 - 18:02]

• COVID-19 spurred a wave of investment in LMS/LXP systems, but engagement lagged.
  • “Nobody is visiting the LMS and the LXP. It was a total failure of investments into a system where there was no engagement.” (Leif, 15:40)
• The key: focus on quality (depth of learning) over overwhelming content or quantity.

Process of Designing Learning Games with AI

[18:19 - 22:02]

• Pre-AI: Building a custom learning game took a month; required deep interviews and manual scenario design.
• With AI:
  • Now, clients can use prompts to quickly generate games based on chosen theories/models (e.g., Daniel Goleman’s emotional intelligence).
  • The more context provided, the better the AI-generated game.
  • The role of friction: Real learning games need true dilemmas—obvious “right-answer” games don’t engage or teach deeply.

The Very Real Challenges of AI in Game Building

[22:02 - 27:34]

• AI’s output is only as good as its prompts; non-experts can get lackluster results.
• Major technical challenges:
  • Game balance: AI sometimes had characters use all resources up front or move through the game in a boring, predictable way.
  • Needed to ensure choices led to meaningful outcomes—some options must be stronger/weaker, creating tension and real decisions.
• Partnership with Roskilde University enabled Acti to spend a year refining their AI-based game engine for context, theory connection, and balanced gameplay.
  • “It took us a year… but that actually allowed us to create a really great engine.” (Leif, 27:11)

Inspiration and Recommendations

[27:34 - 31:24]

• Recommended Guest: Sune Gul Dixon (Professor at Danish Design School, LEGO Serious Play expert)
  • “He is an amazing nerd in the game and... always inspiring.” (Leif, 27:55)
• Book Recommendations:
  • For transfer of learning:
    • Transfer of Learning by Robert E. Haskell (English)
    • Transfer by Velgrain & Aarkrog (Danish)
  • Why: “Scrap all the noise and go with the one thing... If you want people to take something from one context to the other, it’s actually very difficult… that comes from the transfer theory.” (Leif, 28:59)

Personal Favorite Game

[31:31 - 34:39]

• Leif’s current favorite: Derby (“Horse Race”), a complex, engaging board game about capitalism—like Monopoly, but with more depth and story twists.
  • “It had enough elements of coincidence... all the elements combined game elements-wise, it was a really, really fantastic, balanced game.” (Leif, 33:37)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On keeping games focused:

  “The biggest mistake is making games too complicated, we add too much into them or we expect too much of them.”
  (Leif, 06:48)

• On “magic powder” thinking:

  “Clients… think it’s a magic powder that you can spread over and then everything will be solved, almost like a wand that you can just put on anything… and that’s simply not the case.”
  (Leif, 01:05/06:48)

• On AI challenges:

  “AI is giving you some output because it’s a specialist in giving you output, but not necessarily in giving you very good output.”
  (Rob, 22:02)

• On what makes a great game:

  “You have to have a game where you have dilemmas, where there’s really something at stake for the player. So you don’t know what to choose.”
  (Leif, 18:19)

• On new facilitators using games:

  “Don’t worry about what is said in the game, what is the options… Focus on how you lock people in. Focus on how you open up reflections… Ask the ones who played, it’s them who just played it. It’s not you.”
  (Leif, 34:57)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Leif’s background & daily work – [02:40–05:50]
• Biggest failure: overcomplicating games – [06:14–14:35]
• COVID and the lesson of LMS disengagement – [15:40–18:02]
• Process for building learning games (pre- & post-AI) – [18:19–22:02]
• AI’s unique challenges in game creation – [22:02–27:34]
• People and book recommendations – [27:34–31:24]
• Leif’s favorite game (Derby) – [31:31–34:39]
• Final advice for educators and L&D professionals – [34:57–37:10]

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Final Advice from Leif

Leif urges new facilitators not to worry about mastering the content or theory of a game before using it—instead, focus on the flow, reflection, and engagement.

“Don’t worry about what is said in the game, what is the options… Focus on how you lock people in. Focus on how you open up reflections… Ask the ones who played, it’s them who just played it. It’s not you.” (Leif, 34:57)

He also emphasizes that the hardest part for newcomers is the first couple of uses, but practice and engagement make it far easier very quickly.

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Learn More

• Explore Leif Sorensen’s work and the Acti platform: https://acti.dk
• Further resources and professional community at Professor Game: Professor Game Community on School

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For anyone building games for learning, this episode is a masterclass in the do’s, don’ts, and nuances of both old-school and AI-driven approaches.

Transcript

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[Leif Sorensen]

They think it's a magic powder that you can spread over and then everything will be solved. Almost like a wand that you can just put on anything and then people leave with a bigger head and. And that's simply not the case.

[Rob Alvarez]

Hey engagers, and welcome to Professor Game,

[Co-host of Professor Game]

the number one gamification podcast where we explore how games, gamification and game thinking help us boost engagement, multiply retention and build stronger products.

[Rob Alvarez]

And I'm Rob Alvarez. I'm the founder and also coach at Professor Game and I'm also the head

[Co-host of Professor Game]

of engagement strategy at the Optalysis Group, the leading gamification consultancy and behavioral design around the world. And I'm also a professor at top

[Rob Alvarez]

global institutions like IE Business School, the

[Co-host of Professor Game]

efmd, EBS Business School and many others around the world. And before we dive into today's conversation, super interesting. With Lit, Light Life.

[Rob Alvarez]

Am I saying that right?

[Co-host of Professor Game]

If you're struggling with retention, churn engagement in your product.

[Rob Alvarez]

Stop struggling.

[Co-host of Professor Game]

Just let us know what you're looking for.

[Rob Alvarez]

Click on the button below. Let's get on a chat and we'll get you sorted. And as I said a few seconds ago, today we're talking with life.

[Leif Sorensen]

Life.

[Rob Alvarez]

We need to know, are you prepared to engage?

[Leif Sorensen]

I am engaged already. I've been engaged for. For a long time, both in your podcast, but in gaming for like a lifetime. Sure. Super engaged.

[Rob Alvarez]

Let's do this. Because life. Sorensen. Sorensen. Leiv Sorenson. Is that a good pronunciation?

[Leif Sorensen]

Decent? No, that's perfect.

[Rob Alvarez]

He's the founder and the owner of acti, a global platform using games to develop soft skills and support learning change in organizations. And he works closely with companies, consultants and learning professionals to design engaging research based learning game experiences. And he's a frequent speaker and podcast host focusing on gamification, leadership and how games can make complex topics easier to understand and act upon. So Leif, is there anything that we're missing that we should mention for that intro?

[Leif Sorensen]

I think what we are missing is that I'm actually very, very, very much engaged, even more than games in transfer of learning. So learning is actually the core of my, my skill set. That's where my love actually lies, is actually how can we make people learn more in a better way than what we usually do. And games is just such a powerful tool in that toolbox. And that's actually the core for me in games is actually the learning part.

[Rob Alvarez]

Amazing, amazing. Love that. So Leif, if we were to sort of shadow you for a bit and see what you're up to, what would a day with you or a week, whatever you want to go for, what would that look like? How would we be feeling around all this stuff that you're doing?

[Leif Sorensen]

Yeah, if you shadow me, you will start my day every day. I start with a stand up meeting with the developers here at acti because we are a platform, we constantly develop, we have a develop team and I am engaged into the product development. It's very close to my heart. I'm also in sales but I always start with the development team because if you don't have a product that people want to use, if the product doesn't solve any problems out there, you basically have nothing. So if your game is not good, if nobody wants to use your game, you're out. And game today is for me it's not a board game, it's not a physical. It's also physical, but it's not a physical thing. First and foremost it's an online platform. So that's where I start up. So where are we going? And if we look for the last year back it's like AI AI, AI AI. It's like it's been a growing thing in, in my job is getting better at understanding what we can use AI for, how we can use it and doing a lot of trials and testing and. But it has really spun off a lot of great things into gaming if you ask me. So. But that's, that's my start of the day and then typically I have a team around me and, and then it's it's. It's all about what is in front sometimes. It's. It's the. It's the business that comes in. I also drive Germany as my area. So I. We are a. We only have 30% of. I'm from Denmark so only 30% of our income is Danish. The rest is from the rest of the world. So we have people playing from all around the world every day, all the time. So I'm engaged in clients outside of Denmark most of the time. I tried Germany as a market so I have a lot of engagement there too. But it's all about games. I do nothing else than games all day. So it's. It's whatever I do. And I think what. What really interests me in gaming and what have really made the change is how easy it has become to build games. To be honest, that's. That's what we have been very focused on here. And it's a new thing. We just launched it in November. So it's a. It's a new thing that you can build a game with AI, prompt a game and that game is there. So that's the totally new thing.

[Rob Alvarez]

Sounds amazing. So life. We always start also with some stories, right? Especially with the story of what we call first attempt in learning or fail or your favorite failure, however you want to call it. And there's many things that we learn from games and failure and how to approach it is one of them. So we would like to be around you in that story of failure, learn some of those lessons, see what's the feedback that you gathered that makes you make better decisions. After that, how did you get up from it? I don't know. Wherever that story leads us,

[Leif Sorensen]

when thinking about failures, I can point to a million of failures. To be honest, it's a super great question. But I think for audience who's about playing games and in our. In my world playing games is something that happens in a learning space. So I think I should point out some of the failures that I can see or one of the failures that I can see there and which stands out most for me one of them is that when you build a game or when you do a game, regardless of how you do it, one of the biggest mistake and one of the mistakes we have been also trying to fight for for years is not adding too much into the game. We have very often been in dialogues with clients and they have. We work with big corporations who's adding a game into a learning setting where they want people to learn something specifically from that game. When they leave for some learning engagement workshop somewhere in the company or somewhere around the world. And what they want when they build a game is very often like a thousand things they want in. They want people to understand change. They want them to be great at teamwork, they want some leadership profiles, and they want 10 models that they should leave with knowledge about. And I think the biggest mistake is actually going with that flow because you really want to do something good for the client. So how can you actually educate your clients? Because games is not. It's a niche thing. It's a thing you and I know about. It's a thing people in the gaming industry knows about. But clients, they don't know about it. They think it's a magic powder that you can spread over and then everything will be solved, almost like a wand that you can just put on anything. And then people leave with a bigger head. And that's simply not the case. So the biggest mistake I think we have made, and we still are making is that we make games too complicated, we add too much into them or we expect too much of them. And I think that's, that's. It's very often that you, you, you create a game, you play that game, and then you realize this is difficult to understand. You don't understand too much, too much.

[Rob Alvarez]

I was, I used to do learning games at IE Business School in our multimedia department. And one of the main things that was part of my. It sounds like it's repetitive and it almost was in a way, in that sense was drilling down that, you know, this especially the ones that we made were for a session. A session. So this was a, you know, let's say it was a marketing professor. And then this professor realizes, yeah, but, you know, this, this situation also is very good for, you know, financial decisions. So it could also be a finance material. And then, you know, an operating. And started spreading. I was like, that's all fantastic and maybe it ends up there, but what is the one thing that they have to leave that was. We were always drilling down on that one. So in that sense, I have many stories I could share about these ones, some of them proprietary, that I can't. But is there is a time when. Or again a story that you can share for sure of the time when this happened? It didn't go essentially, it didn't go well, maybe on the first try. And especially because when we talk about these sort of. Generally we get the idea if we've lived through them, but sometimes the audience has not necessarily gone through the pain of this happening. So is there a time when you remember that this happened that you can share as well?

[Leif Sorensen]

Yeah, I can share a story. It's a little bit in the same. We work with a big international telecom company. They've been a client for, I don't know, 12 years. And they are constantly using ACTI and have been using Acti for 12 years. I think some years ago they wanted we do certification because it's not. We don't go out as consultants. We only deliver the platform. We took ourselves away from the consultancy business in 2018. That means that we are not consultants anymore. You cannot purchase us to go out. So we have a certification model where our clients that can be consultants and it can be internal in house L and D people who then joins a certification. And then on that certification we kind of educate them or give them an idea about how do you actually use game when you have people in a workshop either online or face to face. And at that time it's very expensive for getting people in a big global company to get them all together in the Middle east or in somewhere. So what they wanted was that what was a two day program. They like to squeeze that program into one day. And they were a big client at that time. I was really, really, really fond of them and I didn't want to lose them. So I was going along with it, even knowing that doing this, meaning that nobody who's ever participated on this workshop is not going to be able to use games at all. Because at that time it was a little more complicated than it was today. But I went along and I went there. I think it was in Budapest and not even having 20 people, but having 35 people on such a program and what was supposed to be a two day program was boiled down to one program. And out of the 35 coming, I knew, because that's always the case, that you might have five people who's ever played a game before, a learning game. So who understood what does it actually mean to facilitate a game as a consultant so reversing their position. And this is the L and D from a global organization. So out of the 35, there was five people who have played the game before. And before half of the day was gone, they kind of understood the game and was really into what did they get out of it as players. But then having them in one day shifting from understanding what they are about to learn themselves to become teachers was just impossible. And in the end of the day, I had 32 out of 35 frustrated L and D people Saying, you're never ever going to be able to use this game. It's too complicated. It's too. And I just knew that from the beginning. And I just knew I should never, ever, ever have said yes to that situation. And I was so much right in the terms that nobody was capable of using the game afterwards. And I think that is one of the mistakes. And I can come with the same story on building the game where we also go along with the client. Oh, we have these models we want to embed them in and we say yes instead of saying, you know what, it's a very bad idea, it will not be possible. I can share stories like that too, but I think that's the most obvious for me. And sometimes I'm also trying to practice and as a team, we are together practicing to be honest enough to actually have that dialogue with the clients and say, you know what, it is not going to be a good idea. You are actually going to lose value. And we are short term thinking if we go along with it because we are going to lose you as a client, you're going to be unsatisfied. And there's another, like a strategic mind, mind thing here which is also coming into play. And that is when you are negotiating the terms for an assignment using something complex as a game. It's when you are negotiating, you have a little bit of leverage. Once you said yes and you don't deliver, it's all on you. So it's very, very difficult to fight your way back. But it's much easier to fight your way to, to the right point in the beginning than it is after you have said yes and comply to something that you actually know is not going to work out.

[Rob Alvarez]

Can totally relate to that for sure. Love the story. And it shows very clearly when. And it's not even ethical sometimes it's not, oh, I did the wrong thing. It's not the wrong thing. You know, you, you tried your best, you honestly tried to deliver in those terms. But then following your expertise and you know, the stuff that you've been doing and there's sometimes you're, you're backed by science as well. It's like, well, this is the right thing to do. You don't want to do it. You know, I understand there's other providers out there who can just give that to you. I can tell you from the experience I have, you can see your case studies, you can see what we've done. This is not the way. This is not the way. And holding that position is really Hard or at least finding a midway like oh, you know, maybe it's. I don't know if you think maybe a day and a half is still challenging but feasible is well not two days, not one day, maybe a day and a half. You know, we need a few more hours or we have some pre work online before. I don't know. There's always a way, there's always a pathway that can be kind of acceptable to the client. But it is true that it's hard.

[Leif Sorensen]

Yeah. But I think the hard thing is also there has been a huge shift in my gaming industry, which is the learning gaming industry. And the shift has been that we fight over time as we do with others in the industry. So it's not like it's not games only, it's all the learning industry we are fighting over time. It's about time that people want to spend with us. And 2000, the COVID pandemic did something really terrible to the learning industry because what it did is that it actually allowed a lot of great ideas float into the business. So there was a lot of money, a lot of great ideas that evolved into some LMSs, LXP systems. And we all thought that the whole world is going to be so happy about sitting in front of the screen and clicking and thinking, oh, it's a nice way of learning. We are all going into the LMS and learn something. And whenever I've done a speech I've asked the audience, so can you just raise your hand any one of you who has been into your LMS in the last 30 days and you're lucky if you have 2% raising their hands. Nobody is visiting the LMS and the LXP. So it was a totally failure of investments into a system where there was no engagement and you had to do it self paced and move on and so on because you're not interested in it. It's simply not working. But how it influences how we do today is that you still have that we have created amongst ourselves that concept or the idea that we can add so much into a piece of online software and in our case it's a game and that's actually we have to draw back and think of quality instead of think about quantity in the learning industry today. And in games also, it's also what we are fighting and I think that relates back to the story. So to me it's about quality. Talking about the quality, what is it like you mentioned, if we should choose one thing that we would like people to leave with regardless of Whether they played by themselves, they played in teams, or they played against each other, what would we like them to leave with after? If we can pinpoint that and go with that only we will achieve it. And we might even be capable of making a little more of their time because we can do a level two, we can do other things with games that are much more engaging than what you can do with.

[Rob Alvarez]

And you know, with all this experience that you have, you've been kind of hinting at some of this. I'm guessing that when you create one of these solutions for your clients, you follow some form of a process which adapts pretty well to the platform that you, that you've developed. Acti. Can you run us through that process? What does it look like?

[Leif Sorensen]

Yeah, the process have shifted in the last year because we now have the AI option to develop games. So basically now you prompt a game and when you prompt that game, you actually choose a model or a theory that you would like them to learn. And then you decide how many options should there be in the game, what are the scenarios, you can even upload files and then that game comes out. But all of that work was done prior to AI coming in on the scene by us. And it would take us a month to build your game. And we would do interviews in the organization and discuss what are the models that imagining a leadership development program for new leaders. Let's take that as an example. So you have new leaders they are upskilling from being regular employees to become leaders of a team, then what leadership model are you already using in the organization? And if the company is thinking we are using John Carter or not Carter is a bad example. But Daniel Goldman, we're using Goldman AI emotional intelligence in our organization. We like that to be included into the game. And then if we can avoid them mentioning 10 other models and just go with the Goldman model, that's a great idea. You can add more models in also. Then you create a scenario. So what is the typical scenario? What is the company looking like? So it's a production company. It's mainly for team leaders out in the production. So that's the context that you describe. So you, you look basically into the context of the game. So who is it that is going to be in the game? What is the personal gallery that people are likely to meet? And then the next process, which is very, very, very important is to understand where are the potential frictions, what's the issues that you're going to meet as a player of that game. And if it's A new leader. What are the typical conflicts that that new leader is going to be put into? Because the worst game that we have done that a thousand times, because sometimes it gets political, is to create a game where you know what option you should click on. I mean, that's like doing the. We all know the compliance training today, right? We all know what to click on. It's super boring, doesn't work. So you have to have a game where you have dilemmas, where there's really something at stake for the player. So you don't know what to choose. And maybe there are six options. And those six options, three of them are actually perfect. And free is maybe not perfect, but they will solve issues. And you have some reacting positively to your options, you have some reacting next to, to your options. So that kind of friction point is important to have into the game. So the process is one, understand the context where the game is going into because that also ties into this distribution model. It ties into what the storyline should be, it ties into what the friction point is. And then secondly, you also need to understand how they are going to play it. Are they going to play it by themselves asynchronically, or are they going to play together as teams and have opportunity to reflect and discuss with others? So once you have that in place, you build the game. And that was how we did it before. Now all of that knowledge that we have done since 2010 we have added into the AI situation. So now you basically prompted and then comes the game. But it's built in the same kind of way. You have to choose a model before you build the game. The more context you give, the better game you get, the more it's related to your context. And then you edit the game afterwards.

[Rob Alvarez]

Brilliant. And is there, is there, are there any challenges that you're facing with AI? Because for me, it's usually I'm doing more and more with AI. In fact, I'm leading a workshop on using AI for in higher education. But it's always a struggle if, I mean, I'm guessing you give it to people who are not necessarily experts at doing this. And the biggest issue with AI, as I've seen, is when you really don't know what you're prompting about the biggest risk is that AI is giving you some output because it's a specialist in giving you output, but not necessarily in giving you very good output. If you don't have a critique or, you know, there's expertise to say this is missing something, it's missing this and asking the AI to reframe, reframe, until you get the right thing. Have you been facing any challenges whatsoever in this sort of side of things with AI?

[Leif Sorensen]

Yeah, I was about to say we have faced challenges in all of the elements that you describe. All of them, without a doubt, to be honest, because like you said, that is actually the core of the issue. But maybe I should share some of the things that we have solved and how we have solved them. So the biggest challenge we have had is that out of sentence. You are supposed to create a game and that game can be built on different theoretic models and it should give an output of options, it should give you a context. That means that you are a manager of xzy, you are working in this company, XZ Y. So you should have all of that description and the options that are tied down are tied to the situation, the friction that you have. But we have, because we have built so many games before, we used all of our knowledge on friction, context, all of that. And we tried to add that into our prompt logic, which we have been successful with. So once we were successful on getting a story and get the options, then we had a problem in connecting them into the theory and the model. So each theory, theory or each option should be connected to a specific theoretic framework or specific approach. Because after the game the player gets a profile. So you have been playing this game. If you look at Goldman, this is how you've been playing, and the users can add their own theories in. So that was like the second problem. And we wanted it to be dynamically possible to add your own and to choose a theory. So the options and the descriptions that you get are connected to the theory that you have in the game. That was a huge problem, but they were not the biggest problem. The biggest problem were actually it's a game. And what is unique about the game is actually not how you describe it. I mean, you can take any book and read that. That's what comes out of the books, that's what the models are good for the game. The problem with games is that it has a movement pattern, it gives you points. And in our games you get points. And you have a game board where points are determined by how you move on that game board. And how you move on that game board is also giving you an idea about how successful are you in using that theory that your game has. That is complex. And the first issue we kind of had was that imagine you build a game, you have five chapters, you have six options in each chapter, and suddenly The AI uses all of the resources in chapter one or it doesn't use any resources in chapter one, two, three and four. And then in chapter five, suddenly you move from all the way from the beginning and suddenly to the end of the game. Those problems were like the first one that we needed to solve. And then when we solved that, the issue that then occurs was suddenly we had a game where everything was like in the middle. Regardless of what choice you took, it moved the same kind of idea. I mean, it was such a boring game that it created like regardless of what choice you took of the sex, it had the same movement plan. So you have 10 people you're trying to take through some specific situation as. Except like in the storyline, you are set in a place where you have to move somebody through some situation and regardless of what option you take, it's going to move almost the same. It was really, really boring. So we had to work with the fact that saying, okay, we have to have some options that are more closely connected to the theory and some that are not that closely connected to the theory. That means that some have to be moving people less and some have to be moving people more. So we have the deviation and the friction between people who you are trying to do something within the game are further in front or further in the back. So those problems were like huge problems. And this is, I'm now talking about it in 10 minutes, but to be honest, it took us a year. So, and, and, and, and lucky we are not a big company. So lucky for us, we were part of a project with Hoskin University where we were building game for environmental improvements in, in society. And that actually allowed us to spend that much time on developing an AI engine that was actually capable of that. But we used that project for actually building that. That was a. It's called Game for Green. There's a ton of game on it with Horsegill University. Super, super awesome opportunity for us because that actually allowed us to create a really great engine. And with the help of Roskild University and that project.

[Rob Alvarez]

Amazing, amazing. And you know, after hearing these questions, life, I'm guessing that maybe a few names might have come to mind, like, oh, I'd really like to listen to this or that person now answering these questions that I'd like to learn from, get inspiration from. Is there anybody that you recommend, so to speak, as a future guest? Professor Gane?

[Leif Sorensen]

Yeah. Who will be a future guest in my space? Sune Gul Dixon. He's a professor at the Danish Design School. He is like the person I know that knows most about games. And he's not like limited to game platforms like I am. He's into design. We've done some projects in the, in, in the past. We, we did a book together. Two books actually. He's, he's like, he's, he's amazing and he's an. He. He is an amazing nerd in the game and he's very playful himself. He's very much involved in LEGO serious play on Danish design school. Unfortunately, I have no projects with him for the time being, so I have nothing running with him by the moment. But he's, he's. To me, he's, he's always some of the inspiring persons I go back to when it's about games.

[Rob Alvarez]

He is very inspiring. Amazing, amazing. And in that same vein, is there a book that you recommend and of course, why?

[Leif Sorensen]

Yeah, to me it would be theories about transfer, Transfer of learning. That would be. And I have several. There are some great Danish authors that are not translated into English, called Velkrin and who's writing about how do you transfer learning, not specifically from games, but specifically from a learning situation to another situation. And that approach is to me very, very valuable in gaming. If you are talking about learning games and not only being engaged and having fun, but if you want people to leave with something, the transfer theory offers a lot of insights into what should you be aware of when you design your game. And that's also why I, I bluntly say that scrap all the noise and go with the one thing that is the true importance that you want people to leave. What's the really value that you want to get out of the game that comes from the transfer theory. If you want people to take something from one context to the other, it's actually very difficult. And that has nothing to do with games. That has something to do with us as human beings. It's a difficult skill to actually have and grow.

[Rob Alvarez]

So in transfer learning, any, any particular book is ideally of course, if it's translated to English so our audience can read it. But is there, is there any, any book in that sense or. No, not really.

[Leif Sorensen]

There is Robert E. Haskill that I think is a good book, Transfer of Learning. And then there is Velgrain with a W, a H, L, G, R, E, N and double A, R, K, R, O, G. And they made a book just called Transfer. It's like a little easy book to get into. It's in Danish, unfortunately. I don't know if it's translated, but these two I would recommend they are great books to support the games. They're not. If you are new to gaming, of course you need to learn about the game elements, what's important in game elements, blah, blah, blah, rules, clicks and engagement and so on. How, how easy does it need to be to win the game? All, all of those elements. But, but if you, if you're not new to games, if, if games is something that you work with already and you want to think about learning, I think you should go to transfer. It's. It's the most valuable part.

[Rob Alvarez]

Fantastic. Fantastic. And we get to the difficult question, right? We have to have a difficult question.

[Leif Sorensen]

Nice.

[Rob Alvarez]

Leif, what would you say is your favorite game?

[Leif Sorensen]

Oh yeah, my favorite game. I don't know if it's an English game. We play it at home right now. It's called Horse Race. I don't know if it's an English game. It's a board game. I have some great pictures. We played it in the weekend with one of my kids, he's an adult, but he bought it secondhand and it was 100%, it had all the elements there. And it's basically about. It's a game about capitalism, which sounds strange, but you are on horse field and you can bet on horses, so you are given a certain amount of money and those money can be spent into buying horses and then you bet on horses and then while having horses, while you win, you can then buy certain businesses around that horse field. And it's basically capitalism in the very raw format. And it's like monopoly times 10 complexity level. And it's just super interesting because they have balanced what you consider. It's always like games have that issue when you start playing a game, it's difficult to understand it. You need to spend that 15, 20 frustrational minutes before you get into the game. And that game has so many elements that it made me think this game is just way too complicated. But to be honest, it took. Took 10 minutes and then you were just into it because it was clearly that and it had that you could win. It had, it had 10 rounds. But each round were really interesting to try and see if you could optimize something. And then they also had the enough elements of coincidence because you had that element of turning a card that was a card that could suddenly blow the whole thing up not only for you but also for other players. So all of the elements combined game elements wise. It was a really fantastic balanced game, to be honest.

[Rob Alvarez]

I'm looking it up and I found something. Is it like a wooden Thing where horses have holes and they're moving around.

[Leif Sorensen]

Yeah. It's not wooden.

[Rob Alvarez]

It doesn't have to be wooden, I guess.

[Leif Sorensen]

No, it doesn't have to be wooden. I can show you a picture of it if I can do that on the screen, maybe. Let me see. It's a really great game. I was just checking to see if

[Rob Alvarez]

I found the right one.

[Leif Sorensen]

Can you see this one?

[Rob Alvarez]

Okay. Okay. Derby. Okay.

[Leif Sorensen]

Derby. Yeah, it's called derby.

[Rob Alvarez]

Derby. All right. All right.

[Leif Sorensen]

This is like the main board up there. So one is like the main board and bank. So it is. But it's really, really fun all the way through. And it took at least a day to play it and we played over two days and we left it on the table because it was so interesting to play and we were only three people playing. So that's my favorite game for the time being.

[Rob Alvarez]

Sounds like a very interesting one. Life before we take off, you know, this time is now for you to have any final words that you might have, any adv. Whatever you want to go for. And of course let us know where we can find out more about you, about acti, wherever you want to lead us.

[Leif Sorensen]

I think considering using games. For me it's considering using games is outside of the marketing space. To me it's purely within the learning situation. So it's in universities and it's in. Within its topic. Um, it's in organizational learning. It's behavioral people, behavioral science that, that I, I do my time with. That's where I spend most of my ideas. And I have one thing that I think is very important is that you consider using games is super, super, super engaging. It's super, super, super easy. Once you have done it at least one or two times. But it's the one in two times that is the critical moment. That's the barrier that you need to overcome. And to overcome that, start teaching a new book. You need to read the book point one. And secondly, you need to practice. So because you have technologies, you should practice, but you should not practice the content of the game. Don't worry about what is said in the game, what is the options. Don't go into the content of the game. Go into the context of you playing the game. Understand how you lock people in. Understand how you open up reflections, but do not worry about what people are experiencing on the screen at all. Focus on your own what you need to do. When you have people playing the game, focus on how to lock them in. Focus on how to find the host view. Focus on how to Find the profile, focus on what questions you would like to ask them. That's it. But prepare on that. And don't worry about you don't know the theory or you don't know what's inside the game. You have like a ton of examples in your life where you don't know enough. Games have the same thing. Don't worry about that. Ask the ones who played it. If you have a group of people playing and you're in doubt what happened and ask them it's them who's just played it. It's not you. You will not be remembering anyway. A game from us is like, I don't know, is it 40 pages long? I mean you cannot remember 40 pages in a pages in a situation where you're trying to teach somebody something.

[Rob Alvarez]

So absolutely, absolutely love it. So life. Thanks again for joining us today for taking the time to share your knowledge, your experience with the Engagers. However, Engagers, as you know, at least for now and for today, it is time to say that it's game over.

[Co-host of Professor Game]

Hey Engagers, and thank you for listening to the Professor Game podcast. And since you're interested in this world of creating motivation, engagement, loyalty using game inspired solutions, how about you join us on our free online community at Professor Game on School. You can find the link right below in the description, but the main thing is to click there. Join us. It's a platform called School. It's for free and you'll find plenty of resources there. We'll be up to date with everything that we're doing, any opportunities that we might have for you, you, and of course, before you go on to your next mission, before you click continue, please remember to subscribe using your favorite podcast app and listen to the next episode of Professor Game. See you there.

[Howie Mandel]

Hey, it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my How We Do It Gaming team take on Gilly the King and Wallow267's million dollars gaming in an epic global gaming league video game showdown. Four rounds, multiple games, one winner, plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to the championship match against Neo right [e-mail] that's globalgamingleague.com everybody games.