Towards the end of the 7 week study, we asked the students to rank order all 8 games from favorite to least favorite. Once they had put the games in order, they talked with an interviewer/researcher about the choice they made and how they made them. What follows is one example of such an interview.

J's rankings looked like this:

1. - Operation Neptune
2. - The Incredible Machine
3. - Logical Journey of the Zoombinis
4. - Escape from Dimension Q
5. - Strategy Challenges of the World Collection 1
6. - Math Workshop
7. - Math Blaster
8. - Math Heads

--M: How did you decide about those top couple?
--J: Because I played the top couple of times and I thought they were pretty fun. And so then I played the bottom not as many times so I played it not as many times because I didn't really like them that much.
--M: Ok so if you played them more often would you would have liked them better, or do you think you didn't play them very much because you didn't like them?
--J: I didn't play them very much because I didn't like them.
--M: Ok. So how did you decide that Operation Neptune was first and the Incredible Machine was second?
--J: Because um I played Operation Neptune a lot of times not just in computer class. R. got it and so he just lives down the street from me and so we were playing it and we got very far we just need to go a couple more levels and then the game's like beat.
--M: What do you think's the hardest game out of all of these?
--J: The hardest? would have to be um Zoombinis.
--M: Zoombinis is the hardest? How come?
--J: Actually no. Escape from Dimension Q. (Dimension Q? Because...) Because it's hard and there's so many hard puzzles.
--M: What was the easiest game?
--J: The easiest was Math Workshop.
--M: Math Workshop was the easiest. Did you like games that are hard for you?
--J: Uh, I like all sorts of games. Just um it depends on like what kind of game they are.
--M: Ok. So what do you mean, what kind of game? What's a kind of game? (Like um...) What's a kind of game you like to be hard?
--J: A game that I like to be hard um would be Strategy Challenges of the World. I like that when it's hard because...it's challenging and it's not like any game you have around here so it's not like you'd be good at it or not good at it.
--M: Ok. And is there a kind of game you like to be easy?
--J: Uh Math Workshop.
--M: Ok. Which one of these games had the most story or the best story do you think?
--J: I don't know I kind of like all of them.
--M: Did any of them not have any story at all?
--J: Uh uh Math Heads like didn't have any real story and Math Workshop didn't have a story to go with it but everything else really did.
--M: Did you have of all these games all together, did you have any favorite characters? Like a particular character in one of the games that you really liked or didn't like actually. Any that bugged you or any you really liked?
--J: Uh the host on Math Heads.
--M: You did like or didn't like?
--J: Didn't like.
--M: Didn't like? How come?
--J: I don't know, just the way he sounds. And when one game I played on it he was mean he was mean to me.
--M: He was mean to you? (yeah) Huh. Did you have any characters that you really did like?
--J: Uh the professor on TIM and the submarine in ON and the robot in Escape from Dimension Q.
--M: All right. Um if we were to look like on this computer later I have what you guys played all the way, all the time you were here, what do you think you played the most?
--J: Operation Neptune.

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