I'm working on educational software and trying to increase Engagement ("fun").
Clear Progress toward a Goal (one of the tenets of Engagement) would suggest we need to let the player know how they are doing. But we don't want the player to become demoralized. (These "players" have brain injuries, and so can become very demoralized easily.)
So I'm thinking that we'll want to only explicitly show forward progress ("You 'leveled up'"), but we wouldn't have "lives" (because you can "lose" them).
Think of this as Education "Tutoring" Software (sort of like the Kahn Academy) We already give them feedback when they get an answer wrong. We also help them get the right answer.
But when they do very well they Graduate to a higher level. If they do very well for a long time they get some sort of award/recognition that they are doing exceptionally well.
What I'm wondering is if they have a sustained period of poor performance, should we also give them recognition (obviously something kinder than "Hey, you suck"), so that this "failure recognition" doesn't really give them more information?
This is the roman emperor giving a thumbs down (the Gladiator already knows how he did in the battle).
Any downsides to that?
(I guess one might be that they lose faith in feedback from the game because it's not telling the whole story. Sort of like if a parent only gives you praise, you might start to think they're saying it to be nice.)