Analyzing Whack-A-Bone’s 🦴effectiveness as an Educational Game
Whack-A-Bone by Anatomy Arcade is one of those few games that balance fun and learning exceptionally well in my opinion. It’s a web browser-based game that aims to educate people about human anatomy, specifically, the skeletal system. Let’s analyze why it succeeds as a game and as a medium of education.
The primary objective of the game seems to be for players to learn to identify various bones within the human skeletal system, focusing on their names and locations.
The game succeeds in doing so because it supports multiple ways to organize the knowledge in your head for the skeletal structure of the human body.
The core gameplay loop of “Whack-A-Bone” is structured around a cycle of learning, practicing, and testing the player’s knowledge of the human skeletal system through interactive gameplay.
It has three game modes:
- Build: You build a map of the skeletal structure of, say, the arm. First, you’re just seeing which piece of paper goes where and you’re looking at the bones and the labels. Next, the labels are removed and you need to correctly place the labels. And then, the visual depictions are removed (the labels stay) and you need to put actual bones together.
- Name: In this game mode, a part of the skeleton turns green and you need to click on the corresponding name on the name board. If you click on the wrong name twice, the canon goes off. Depending on how well you did — you get a medallion ranging from Wood to Silver to Gold to Crystal. If you get a Gold medallion or above, you unlock the next level.
- Whack: In the Whack mode, the game master nominates a bone that you need to whack. You need to whack the bone before the canon goes off. This mode has medallions too which help you unlock the next level.
The foundational knowledge introduced in the “Build” mode is then reinforced in the subsequent modes.
The game encourages players to develop spatial awareness and visualization skills in these various modes. The knowledge gained from playing this game is directly applied to biology and health education. Engaging with the game can also spark or enhance players’ interest in science, medicine, and related fields. The game does however assume that players have a foundational understanding of human biology, particularly the concept that the body is made up of various systems, including the skeletal system.
One interesting thing I noted while playing (which really helped me when I’d just started playing) is that the correct answer starts turning red with time. If the canon is almost about to go off, the correct answer turns bright red and you really cannot miss it. So if you are completely new and haven’t internalized the names of the bones and how they look, the visual aid helps.
The aesthetic chosen by the game designers is interesting — you are playing on a pirate ship with canons, and maps, the background is an island and the game master also talks somewhat like a pirate. Even the medallions you get at the end tie in with this aesthetic. However, there is no clear narrative that ties in this setting with the core game (building and whacking bones).
Nevertheless, that does not take away from the objective of the game which is to teach players about the various bones in the arm, leg, and core of the human body. If that’s the only thing that the designers intended for the students to learn, then the game does that very well. You do not learn anything more about the function of those bones or how they fit with the other organs in the body.
The game teaches and assesses the student/player at once by providing percentages and medallions. However, I do feel like the scores in terms of percentages are a little out of place in the game’s aesthetic. I also never really noticed the individual percentages for each bone — how many times I got that bone wrong. It seems like it’s meant to help students work on their weak areas.
I also like the fact that the game breaks down parts of the skeleton into — core, arm, and leg. It prevents information overload and uses repetition as a strategy to help players learn. In the end, you unlock the “Whole” mode where you can test your knowledge of the entire human skeletal structure.
To reiterate, the game uses tons of proven learning science principles to ensure that educational goals are met:
đź“šPretraining: Players get familiarized with the names and appearances of bones before advancing to more complex tasks, providing a foundation that enhances subsequent learning.
🗣️Feedback: The game provides immediate visual & auditory feedback during learning, crucial for reinforcing correct answers and correcting mistakes in real-time.
🚀Spacing: By dividing the skeletal system into segments and allowing players to engage with the game over time, “Whack-A-Bone” utilizes spaced repetition, a more effective learning strategy than cramming.
🎍Scaffolding: The game sequences instruction from simple identification to more complex tasks like placing bones without labels, guiding players toward higher learning goals.
🧪Testing: The inclusion of a quiz-like format for retrieval practice reinforces knowledge better than passive study, making “Whack-A-Bone” an interactive tool for learning.
👂Modality principle: While “Whack-A-Bone” primarily uses visual and interactive elements, the integration of auditory feedback and instructions reduces cognitive load & reinforces knowledge.
🏆Achievement principle: Performance is tracked with medallions that indicate mastery level, encouraging continuous improvement.
Overall, I think it’s an excellent game mainly because I went back to play it for fun not just because I was playing it for my school assignment but because I actually liked playing it.
