Exploration
Traveling: it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.
Ibn Battuta
Exploration turns gameplay into a personal journey. As players uncover new places, encounters, and details, they build their own narrative of discovery. The world becomes a source of stories shaped by what the player chooses to explore.
The Hitman games encourage thorough exploration of their levels to discover ways to discreetly get rid of a target, and for the highest score, to find a way to do it while making it look like an accident.
Exploration taps into the natural human curiosity to discover new areas, secrets, and information. In an educational context, it encourages learners to actively seek out knowledge and hidden elements within the game world rather than receiving information passively. This active discovery process makes the acquisition of knowledge more engaging and significantly increases memorability.
Designing environments that reward exploration – through hidden tasks or “extra” missions – provides a sense of autonomy and excitement. Learners who discover something for themselves feel a stronger connection to the material and are more likely to retain and apply that knowledge in the future.
A good practice with this method is to not worry that there is a possibility for some students to not see all the work the teacher has put in, because the work will be worth it both for the students whose curiosity emerges them deeper into the subjects and the few who decide to put in the extra time to search for every hidden detail and as such learn even more about the main topic.