"...it takes you back a step which is very demoralizing. Game designers would never put that in a game, because they know people hate it."
I agree that people hate this (I know I do, at least), but game designers put that in games all of the time, regardless:
You just died ten minutes into the level with the finish line in sight--start over again at the beginning of the level.
OR
You are only allowed to save at particular save points. These are spaced out just far enough that you are likely to lose significant amounts of progress every time you die.
The type is the same, but the implementation is wildly different these days.
Save points in particular are far more numerous and well-placed in today's games. Notably, challenges are now intentionally separated by save points, so that a single skill-type is in focus during each unit.
That way someone who has trouble with, say, a vehicle section won't fail and be faced with five to ten minutes of run-and-gun before they can even attempt (and thus practice) the vehicle portion again.
Essentially, that's precisely what the OP's approach to education is: adding more save points and breaking up the challenges better by type: solo vs group, oral presentation vs written proposal, etc.
Further, failure penalties are only really used in games where the player has an open-ended amount of time to defeat the challenge, precisely to encourage learning and/or mastering of a technique or skill. In a setting where the player has a time limit (such as in education) it would be unnecessary and inappropriate to additionally penalize failure as "repetition + luck" wouldn't be a valid strategy in the first place.
Mass Effect 2 auto-saves seamlessly before every battle, before most non-battle challenges, and at regular intervals when navigating or collecting resources. It even saves at different stages of boss battles. You hardly ever lose progress--yet it's a runaway success, both critically and commercially.
Comments
"...it takes you back a step which is very demoralizing. Game designers would never put that in a game, because they know people hate it."
I agree that people hate this (I know I do, at least), but game designers put that in games all of the time, regardless:
You just died ten minutes into the level with the finish line in sight--start over again at the beginning of the level.
OR
You are only allowed to save at particular save points. These are spaced out just far enough that you are likely to lose significant amounts of progress every time you die.
The type is the same, but the implementation is wildly different these days.
Save points in particular are far more numerous and well-placed in today's games. Notably, challenges are now intentionally separated by save points, so that a single skill-type is in focus during each unit.
That way someone who has trouble with, say, a vehicle section won't fail and be faced with five to ten minutes of run-and-gun before they can even attempt (and thus practice) the vehicle portion again.
Essentially, that's precisely what the OP's approach to education is: adding more save points and breaking up the challenges better by type: solo vs group, oral presentation vs written proposal, etc.
Further, failure penalties are only really used in games where the player has an open-ended amount of time to defeat the challenge, precisely to encourage learning and/or mastering of a technique or skill. In a setting where the player has a time limit (such as in education) it would be unnecessary and inappropriate to additionally penalize failure as "repetition + luck" wouldn't be a valid strategy in the first place.
Remember that save points / levels were often a technical limitation
Mass Effect 2 auto-saves seamlessly before every battle, before most non-battle challenges, and at regular intervals when navigating or collecting resources. It even saves at different stages of boss battles. You hardly ever lose progress--yet it's a runaway success, both critically and commercially.