Game-Informed Approach to Teaching Request-Making in English

Game design is a complex process based on balance between educational and gameplay experience in a coherent way. In the context of instructional design, Constructive Alignment aims to develop an outcome-based approach for designing learning activities during which the learners’ engagement through the activity is aligned with learning objectives and outcomes. Constructive Alignment focuses on the proposal of constructively aligned learning experiences, where assessment is the result of specially selected training activities, which are proposed based on intended learning outcomes. In this study, we analyze the game design process in an online master course on Game Design from a Constructive Alignment approach. We operationalize the Constructive Alignment in game design as the coherence between Learning Objectives, Game Mechanics, Learning Mechanics and the Assessment in the educational DGBL. The results analysis shows that the Game Based Learning course had a positive impact on students regarding the proposal of game design documents with coherence between Game Mechanics and Learning Mechanics as well as Learning Mechanics and Learning Objectives, while little focus on integrating Assessment mechanisms was observed. Based on the results of this study we propose to increase the focus on assessment in the process of game design.

ABSTRACTThe aim of this article is to advance a framework for understanding and teaching game design in higher education, in order to address complexities inherent in teaching game design courses. Everyday teaching and learning game design often deviate from the standard textbook model of game design. In reality everyday teaching and learning operate with handling game design curriculum, how to think games, and how to organise the development process. The presented framework merge curriculum, thinking, and process guided by the game design concept of juiciness. The framework will be presented by dismantling the standard textbook model of game design into three; game design (curriculum), game design thinking (thinking), and game development (organisation). In this perspective game design is concerned with game mechanics, game design thinking preoccupied with paper prototyping, metaphor, and framing, while game developments addresses player experience including play and game testing. This article will coin vertical design as juiciness as opposed to horizontal design understood as expanding system layout. Juiciness will be placed as a guiding principle in the relationship between designers and designed content as an aspect of designer intentions and motivations. Lastly, the content centric framework will be presented by merging game design, game design thinking, game development, vertical design with selected aspects of accepted software development strategies as an approach to teaching and learning game design in higher education.

The integration of learning goals with game mechanics in serious games used in urban and spatial planning processes has the potential to enable game designers and planners to create games with narratives tightly aligned to particular processes and lead to increased learning outcomes. This study presents the results from testing Energy Safari, a serious game for the energy transition in the province of Groningen, and empirically associates specific game mechanics with learning events, derived from players' reports. The research is based on the analysis of post-play questionnaires. Play-testing Energy Safari illustrates that different learning events can be triggered by the same game mechanics, an observation which can be applied in serious game design to facilitate players with different learning needs and styles. In addition, play testing to evaluate the learning performance of serious games should be integrated in the game design process. However, to achieve lasting learning and actionable knowledge, serious games should be used complementarily with other civic participation methods.

The focus of this study is directed towards the examination of the design, development, and analysis of user feedback for the hyper-casual game known as "Obstacle Run," with the aim of enhancing mathematical skills. A comprehensive analysis of the game's design, mechanics, and user experience is conducted. The primary objective of the game is to foster the improvement of mathematical skills in an enjoyable manner and to provide support for the learning process through straightforward game mechanics. An in-game mechanism, requiring players to engage in solving mathematical calculations and problems, is presented by the game titled "Obstacle Run." Increasing the character count within the game is envisioned as a means to bolster mathematical proficiency. This study meticulously focuses on the detailed examination of this unique game, where game design, mechanics, and mathematical calculations come together. Additionally, an exploration of the potential of gamification within game development and education is carried out. The results have been derived from the testing of the game prototype and the subsequent analysis of player feedback. This research is also regarded as a step towards comprehending the connection between hyper-casual games and mathematics education, with the aim of presenting a novel perspective in this domain. It is to be noted that this study is intended to serve as a valuable guide for game developers and educators alike. Its findings are poised to serve as a significant resource for future game projects and strategies in mathematics education. In conclusion, this study provides a summary of a significant endeavor aimed at elucidating the potential of hyper-casual games, such as "Obstacle Run," in facilitating the development of mathematical skills and exploring the possibilities of gamification in the realm of education.

Games are fundamentally a social activity. The effects of this foundation can be felt at every level - from the social negotiation of rules, through cooperation and collaboration between players during the game, to the effects of relationships and social status on play. Social effects can change the way the game is played, but the mechanics of games can also affect the patterns of social behaviours of the players. The arrangement of game mechanics and interfaces together defines a ``social architecture. This architecture is not limited to directly social mechanics such as trading and messaging - the game design itself has a holistic effect on social activity. This dissertation frames games around these social aspects, and focuses on analysis of the patterns that emerge from these playful interactions. Firstly, a model is defined to understand games based on the social effects of play, and these effects explored based on the varying impact they have on the play experience. Mischief and deviance is also investigated as forces that challenge these social effects in and around games. Based on interaction data gathered from server logs of experimental social games, social network analysis is used as a tool to uncover the macroscopic social architectures formed by each design. This allows the use of quantitative methods to understand the nature of the relationship between game design and the social patterns that emerge around games in play.Key findings confirm that social activity follows a heavy-tailed distribution - a small number of ``hardcore players are responsible for a disproportionately large number of interactions in the community of the game. Further than this, the connections between active hardcore and the rest of the player base show that without the hardcore users, the community of games as ``small worlds would collapse, with large numbers of players being separated from the society within a game. The emergence of grouping behaviour is investigated based on the effect of social feedback. Following findings of social psychology in non-game environments, evidence is provided that highlights the effect of socio-contextual feedback on players forming strongly bound tribal groups within games. The communities formed through the play of games can be described in terms of network graphs - webs of interactions flowing around a network of players. Social network analyses of social games show the emergence of patterns of reciprocity, clustering and tribal behaviours among the players. The evidence also shows that the collections of game mechanics, or social architectures, of games have a predictable effect on the wider social patterns of the players. As such, this suggests games can be specifically engineered for social effects based on changes in the patterns of interactions, and issues around mechanical or interface elements can be identified based on anomalies observed in the network graph of player interactions.Together, this dissertation provides a link between the theoretical ideas around social play to the measurable effects of social behaviours of players within games. It proves that game designs, as mechanical systems, have a demonstrable effect on the social patterns of play, and that these patterns can be examined and used to engineer better game designs for the benefit of social experience.

This paper offers an approach to designing game-based learning experiences inspired by the Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics (MDA) model (Hunicke et al., 2004) and the elemental tetrad model (Schell, 2008) for game design. A case for game based learning as an active and social learning experience is presented including arguments from both teachers and game designers concerning the value of games as learning tools. The MDA model is introduced with a classic game- based example and a non-game based observation of human behaviour demonstrating a negative effect of extrinsic motivators (Pink, 2011) and the need to closely align or embed learning outcomes into game mechanics in order to deliver an effective learning experience. The MDA model will then be applied to create a game based learning experience with the goal of teaching some of the aspects of using source code control to groups of Computer Science students. First, clear aims in terms of learning outcomes for the game are set out. Following the learning outcomes, the iterative design process is explained with careful consideration and reflection on the impact of specific design decisions on the potential learning experience. The reasons those decisions have been made and where there may be conflict between mechanics contributing to learning and mechanics for reasons of gameplay are also discussed. The paper will conclude with an evaluation of results from a trial of computer science students and staff, and the perceived effectiveness of the game at delivering specific learning outcomes, and the approach for game design will be assessed.

Digital multi-player learning games are believed to represent an important step forward in risk management training, especially related to human factors, where they are trusted to improve the performance of a team of learners in reducing serious adverse events, near-misses and crashes in complex socio-technical systems. Team situation awareness is one of the critical factors that can lead the team to consider the situation with an erroneous mental representation. Then, inadequate decisions are likely to be made regarding the actual situation. This paper describes an innovative communication system designed to be used in digital learning games. The system aims at enabling the learners to share information and build a common representation of the situation to help them take appropriate actions, anticipate failures, identify, reduce or correct errors. This innovative system is neither based on voice-chat nor branching dialogues, but on the idea that pieces of information can be manipulated as tangible objects in a virtual environment. To that end, it provides a handful of graphic interactions allowing users to collect, memorize, exchange, listen and broadcast information, ask and answer questions, debate and vote. The communication system was experimented on a healthcare training context with students and their teacher. The training scenario is set in a virtual operating room and features latent critical events (wrong-patient or wrong-side surgery). Teams have to manage such a critical situation, detect anomalies hidden in the environment and share them to make the most suitable decision. Analyzing the results demonstrated the efficacy of the communication system as per the ability for the players to actually exchange information, build a common representation of the situation and make collaborative decisions accordingly. The communication system was considered user-friendly by the users and successfully exposed lifelike behaviors such as debate, conflict or irritation. More importantly, every matter or implicit disagreement was raised while playing the game and led to an argued discussion, although eventually the right decision was not always taken by the team. So, improving the gameplay should help theplayers to manage a conflict and to make them agree on the most suitable decision.

This paper describes the social actions called ‘affective actions’ that are implemented in the prototype multiplayer game world The Pataphysic Institute (PI). An aim of this paper is to demonstrate how a game mechanic can result in a certain set of dynamics or play patterns. Affective actions are but one feature of the many that make up the game world of PI. In this paper, the feature is used as a vertical slice into the game design. The aim is to, by using this slice, show the founding the principles of the game, the play tests that informed the design, as well as the play patterns that were observed as they emerged in a series of game mastered play–test sessions.

A virtual laboratory is an instructional approach to facilitate learning on a scientific procedure or experimental procedure to motivate students to think critically and to improve problem-solving skills through virtual media. A serious adventure game is a game that has a serious purpose for example Education but with an adventure genre that allows the user to go on adventures and explore within the game. The merging of a virtual laboratory and a serious adventure game will contribute to the progress of the education field and motivate students in virtual practicum activities. But currently, there is no particular software development framework for developing a serious adventure game for a virtual laboratory. This study aims to produce a serious adventure game framework for a virtual laboratory called SAGD-VL (Serious Adventure Game Development for Virtual Laboratory). SAGD-VL is obtained from analysis of characteristics of virtual laboratory, adventure game, similar software, existing game development methods, and game mechanics mapping framework so that an appropriate development framework will obtain and improve student ability. SAGD-VL consists of pre-production, production, testing, and post-production, and each of these steps has specific components. The SAGD-VL framework was tested by building a game according to the proposed framework. The proposed game mechanics is also the result of testing players repeatedly to get optimal game mechanics. This test aims to see the effectiveness of the game produced with SAGD-VL on improving the player's abilities and determine the importance of specific components in game design. The game was tested on 128 high school students by dividing them into reading groups and playing groups and tested by doing pre-test and post-test. The results show that the game produced by the SAGD-VL framework indicates a better positive impact than learning by reading and obtains an increase in post-test results achieving 115.74%.

Knowledge Representation and Inference Engine Model of SAPS Gaming Concept

Learning digital games can influence both older adults' health condition and their capacity to carry on activities in their actual environment. The goal of the current study was to explore and define the user requirements for developing digital learning games for older Europeans, focusing on types of learning games, motivational and social aspects, and preferences on game controllers. For this initial stage, a qualitative focus group study was performed in three participating countries (Spain, The Netherlands, and Greece) where both games existing in the market and others developed in other European Commission projects like HERMES were presented to them, both on video presentations and also with the possibility to actually test some of them. Challenge, socialization, fun, providing learning opportunities, and escape from daily routine were extracted as the main keys why older people would be interested in playing digital games. Users described themselves as active and participating in many leisure activities, and this level of activity appeared to be related with the contents proposed for digital games, such as physical activity, culture, arts, and other human sciences (history, geography, traveling, foreign languages, music), and daily life skills (cooking, computer use, first aid). The knowledge gathered from the focus groups will be used as input for the design of a learning game that will be largely compatible with the needs and abilities of a wide range of older Europeans.

<p>This course offers an expansion to the core elements of game design, focusing on the specifics of game mechanics. It provides students with the opportunity to develop game mechanics based on the core ideas for personal game projects previously explored. Using an iterative design process that involves genre and demographics research, students will begin to prototype mechanics as part of the development of their own interactive 3d creations via written or digital productions explored in the first course. </p> <p><br></p> <p>For each of my courses, which are typically hybrid, students are greeted with a new trailer each term. This is the 2023 version of Game Design II: Game Mechanics.</p>

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to design and incorporate gamebased pedagogy grounded in self-determination theory (SDT) for a higher education course in a business school program.Design/methodology/approachThe study evaluates the learning outcomes of students from higher education in gamified and non-gamified contexts. The study was conducted over a period of two years in a management institute in the National Capital Region of India. The participants of the gamification study were the students in the age group 22–25 years with 0–3 years of work experience.FindingsIn general, findings of this study suggest that the group that underwent the course with the game-based pedagogy had better learning outcomes. In the game design, this study found that the addition of “meaningfulness” to the game elements improved the engagement with the gamification process for the learners. Consequently, this study found that “meaningfulness” played an important role in engaging the students, thereby, leading to improved learning outcomes.Research limitations/implicationsThe study suggests that when the game design is rooted in theory, it is likely that the desired results from gamification will be achieved. The evaluation of the courses was done by the researcher themselves. An external evaluation is required to confirm the results of the gamification elements used in the course as enumerated in the paper.Practical implicationsAll the game elements used in the game design were underpinned by SDT which suggests that if the three innate needs of competence, relatedness and autonomy in individuals are met, the desired learning outcomes is likely to follow.Social implicationsDue to the use of an online environment for the conduct of the evaluations, the study permitted the students to receive and have access to constant feedback enabling them to improve and enhance their learning.Originality/valueExisting research shows inconsistent results with the use of gamification in the learning process. This study suggests that by grounding the gamification design in learning theory is more likely to achieve favourable results. In addition, if the game elements provide meaningfulness to the participants, the gamification process is more likely to succeed.

The ongoing project is a prototype in various stages, following a game design approach to create an organized and coherent virtual reality experience. It requires a fusion of multidisciplinary concepts, including engineering, three-dimensional design, and programming, demanding that involved professionals possess strong knowledge and creative skills. Game design is valued as a process that demands dedication and passion, while also emphasizing the importance of establishing rules and genres to guide game development. In this project, the game is classified as a first person adventure focused on interstellar space exploration, where the player must adhere to preset rules to achieve objectives. Ludology, as an academic study of games, highlights the constant essence of playing, learning, and socializing within games. The construction of the game world is based on a Game Design Document describing the vision, genre, and objectives of the game. "Space Travel" focuses on space exploration, featuring a minimalist spaceship and an icy, rocky exoplanet. Game mechanics revolve around object collection and activation, with rules guiding the player's interaction with the environment. This project aims to deliver an immersive and engaging virtual reality experience centered on the user. The focus on game design principles and planning through the Game Design Document demonstrates a commitment to creating a rewarding and meaningful experience. Attention to immersion and game mechanics supports the assertion that it's a user experience focused development.

Studies have shown that digital game-based learning (DGBL) can stimulate learners and increase motivation. However, in order to accomplish these goals, we must understand the role and impact of the game elements. This study aimed to examine the effects of four-game elements on player performance: Instructions and assistance, narrative, Competition, and Challenge. An additional factor examined was players' age. The data was collected using BIG DATA from the game platform, which recorded the scores of 3,281 users across nine different games, during the period 2015-2020. Users played as part of their visit to 'Musa', a multidisciplinary museum of local cultural materials in Tel-Aviv, either in 'Family' game mode or in 'Group' mode. According to the results of our study, players performed better on 'Group' games. In addition, players' performances improved when narrative depth was significant and the play area was smaller. Separating our data into two groups led to additional results: players in 'Family' mode performed better when the game instructions included a video, while in 'Group' modes participants performed better when a human guide was available to some extent. The results of this study and their implications can assist educators and game designers in planning more accurate and effective learning games.