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2016 | Buch

Games and Learning Alliance

5th International Conference, GALA 2016, Utrecht, The Netherlands, December 5–7, 2016, Proceedings

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Über dieses Buch

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Games and Learning Alliance, GALA 2016, held in Utrecht, The Netherlands, in December 2016.

The 27 revised regular papers presented together with 14 poster papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 55 submissions. The papers cover topics such as games and sustainability; games for math and programming; games and health; games and soft skills; games and management; games and learning; game development and assessment; and mobile games.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Games and Sustainability

Frontmatter
Sustainable Competence Development of Business Students: Effectiveness of Using Serious Games

A transition towards a safer, healthier, more equitable and more sustainable world requires focused Sustainable Development education. While this is true for all forms of education, it is particularly vital for business education curricula, and here it is sorely lacking. The main problem is that teachers lack the methods to teach sustainability competences. Gaming is proposed as a suitable method, as it involves action, direct feedback and high motivation. In this research we used a pre-post tests research set up to measure the learning effects from three simulation games. These games were played with 160 2nd year business students. We conclude that simulation games have limited contribution to cognitive learning about SD. However, a majority of respondents see additional value of gaming within their education.

Rink Weijs, Geertje Bekebrede, Igor Nikolic
The Design of an Augmented Reality Collaborative Game for Sustainable Development

In spite of recent efforts, there is still a demand for tools facilitating sustainability instruction. To this end, serious games offer remarkable possibilities to foster learning in this area. However, evidences suggest that these potentialities have not been fully leveraged yet. In particular, it is challenging to design games representing the different domains (ecology, economics, politics, and culture) and social structures (individuals, families and communities) involved by sustainability issues. This work explores the mix of augmented reality, collaborative gaming and theoretical guidelines in the design of Sustain, an educational game focused on raising awareness on sustainability topics. The paper details Sustain design decisions, highlighting their relation with the chosen methodology. Our aims are: (i) to exemplify the use of a not yet adopted theoretical background, and (ii) to present reflections concerning its use.

Alysson Diniz dos Santos, Francesco Strada, Andrea Bottino
Designing Virtual River: A Serious Gaming Environment to Collaboratively Explore Management Strategies in River and Floodplain Maintenance

Dutch river management is in transition from a phase of intervention and implementation to a phase of maintenance. In light of this transition, we discuss initial results towards the development of a serious gaming environment where river and floodplain management actors can collaboratively explore intervention and maintenance strategies. We introduce the design approach of a serious gaming environment based on qualitative interviews with river and floodplain maintenance actors. Based on these interviews, we identified two key variables to explore strategies for river and floodplain maintenance: maintenance intervals and floodplain scaling. We proceed with presenting the Virtual River; a concept for a serious gaming environment. In this environment, actors can play out intervention and maintenance scenarios around these two key variables over time using simplified hydrological, morphodynamic and vegetation models.

Robert-Jan den Haan, Vivian Juliette Cortes Arevalo, Mascha van der Voort, Suzanne Hulscher

Games for Math and Programming

Frontmatter
A Game-Based Approach to Examining Students’ Conceptual Knowledge of Fractions

Considering the difficulties many students and even educated adults face with reasoning about fractions, the potential for serious games to augment traditional instructional approaches on this topic is strong. The present study aims at providing evidence for the validity of a serious game used for studying students’ conceptual knowledge of fractions. A total of 54 Finnish fifth graders played the math game on tablet computers using tilt-control to maneuver an avatar along a number line for a total of 30 min. Results indicated that most of the hallmark effects of fraction magnitude processing as identified in basic research on numerical cognition were successfully replicated using our serious game. This clearly suggests that game-based approaches for fraction education (even using tilt-control) are possible and may be effective tools for assessing and possibly promoting students’ conceptual knowledge of fractions.

Manuel Ninaus, Kristian Kiili, Jake McMullen, Korbinian Moeller
EyeMath: Identifying Mathematics Problem Solving Processes in a RTS Video Game

Video games are promising tools in educational environments since they have features that can promote learning in a playful environment. Formerly, we identified mathematics learning opportunities in a real time strategy video game. Going further, in order to precisely understand which information the students use to solve the challenges provided by the video game, this paper presents an eye tracker based tool to identify processes of mathematics problem solving while playing the game. The first preliminary results show the potential of the tool to further identify metacognitive and mathematics problem solving processes.

Aura Hernández-Sabaté, Lluís Albarracín, Daniel Calvo, Núria Gorgorió
Building Arduino-Based Tangible Serious Games for Elementary Mathematics and Physics

This paper concerns the development of new tangible game tools for learning basic mathematic concepts. The prototypes can be easily implemented by exploiting new open source electronic hardware technologies, such as Arduino and related sensors and actuators, combing simplicity, wide diffusion and low cost. Two simple proof of concepts are presented. First, a music game, in which children collaborate to create a melody composed by different sounds controllable by changing the hand’s distance in a theremin-like approach. The second project intends addressing the concepts of distance and alignment. In both cases, they are not closed-box fully automatic games, but tools freely usable by an educator (e.g., a teacher or a parent) with children. The experience shows that several alternative configurations are easily implemented, calling for the possibility of developing a hardware/software component library for development/assembly of various types of tangible games also by non experts.

Luca Mollo, Francesco Bellotti, Riccardo Berta, Alessandro De Gloria
Database Engineering Game

Database engineering consists of several tasks like database modelling and SQL. Usually, these tasks are taught and practiced separately. This paper presents a game based e-learning system that combines these tasks of database engineering so that students can experience the later consequences of their work in earlier steps. Several tools are provided that check the students’ solutions and give hints what is done well and what has to be improved.

Markus Siepermann

Games and Health

Frontmatter
Effects of a 3D Virtual Reality Neurofeedback Scenario on User Experience and Performance in Stroke Patients

Learning to control one’s own brain activity using neurofeedback can cause cognitive and behavioral improvements in healthy individuals and neurological patients. However, little is known about the impact of feedback design. Therefore, we investigated the effects of traditional two-dimensional and three-dimensional virtual reality based feedback modules on training performance and user experience in stroke patients. Neurofeedback performance was comparable between conditions. Interest, perceived feeling of control, and motivation were higher in patients using the virtual reality application compared to the two-dimensional feedback condition. In contrary, patients who performed the virtual reality training showed higher values in incompetence fear and lower values in mastery confidence compared to the traditional training group. These results indicate that neurofeedback can be improved with the implementation of virtual reality scenarios, especially with regard to patients’ interest and motivation. However, stroke patients might be more skeptical concerning virtual reality technique and less self-confident in using it.

Silvia Erika Kober, Johanna Louise Reichert, Daniela Schweiger, Christa Neuper, Guilherme Wood
Looking for Metacognition
A Knowledge Taxonomy for Psychotherapeutic Games

Most of scientific literature on computer games aimed at offering or aiding in psychotherapy has little information on how the game exactly relates to the relatively recent development of the ‘third wave’ of behavioural psychotherapy, which includes metacognition. This paper first introduces metacognition and subsequently studies five cases of psychotherapeutic games (Personal Investigator, Treasure Hunt, Ricky and the Spider, Moodbot and SuperBetter) by looking at them through the lens of Blooms’ Revised Taxonomy of Knowledge. The paper offers design recommendations for future (metacognitive) psychotherapeutic games.

Priscilla Haring, Harald Warmelink
Evaluating a Gaming System for Cognitive Screening and Sleep Duration Assessment of Elderly Players: A Pilot Study

Using serious games for cognitive screening can provide a motivating and entertaining alternative to traditional cognitive screening methods. Cognitive decline is usually measured by tests of mental processing, however age-related changes in sleep may also reveal signs of cognitive decline among older individuals. The current work presents and evaluates a gaming system for cognitive screening and sleep duration assessment of the elderly. The gaming system consists of an original serious game for cognitive screening (Smartkuber) and a smartwatch (Basis Peak). A pilot study is conducted to identify and improve the weaknesses of the gaming system and to evaluate the gaming system as to its usability and the game experience it offers for elderly players, assesing its suitability for a large-scale study. The pilot study lasted for 6 weeks and 101 gaming sessions were recorded from 5 elderly players. Elderly players were entertained by the game, while they were impressed by the smartwatch’s performance. Limitations of the study and future directions are discussed.

Costas Boletsis, Simon McCallum
Introducing the Fling – An Innovative Serious Game to Train Behavioral Control in Adolescents: Protocol of a Randomized Controlled Trial

Behavioral control weaknesses are a strong predictor of problematic behaviors in adolescents, such as heavy alcohol use. Heavy alcohol use at this young age can lead to health and school-related problems and is a severe societal problem. Strengthening of cognitive control mechanisms through computerized training has been shown to have positive effects on behavior, but is often perceived as a tedious exercise. Applying novel serious gaming techniques to evidence-based training paradigms may offer a solution to this motivational problem. This paper describes the design and analysis plan that will be used to evaluate an innovative Serious Game called The Fling, aimed specifically at increasing cognitive control over impulses in adolescents. The game will be evaluated in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) among adolescents between 15–18 years in mainstream and special education.

Wouter J. Boendermaker, Remco Veltkamp, Robbert Jan Beun, Rens van de Schoot, Margot Peeters

Games and Soft Skills

Frontmatter
Social Agents for Learning in Virtual Environments

Several serious games have been proposed to practice communication strategies in formal contexts. Intelligent virtual agents (IVA) can be used to show the player the effects of a conversational move. In this paper we discuss the key role of using social context for the virtual agents in these serious games. Social practices are exploited to bundle social interactions into standard packages and as a basis to model the deliberation processes of IVAs. We describe a social practice oriented IVA architecture used in the implementation of a serious game for the practicing of communication in medical interviews.

Agnese Augello, Manuel Gentile, Frank Dignum
EscapED: Adapting Live-Action, Interactive Games to Support Higher Education Teaching and Learning Practices

Game-based learning (GBL) is often found to be technically driven and more often than not, serious games for instance, are conceptualised and designed solely for digital platforms and state of the art technologies. To encourage a greater discussion on the potential benefits and challenges of a more holistic approach to developing GBL, that promote human centred interactions and play for learning, the authors present the Game Changers initiative. The Game Changers initiative is discussed and focus is drawn to one of its programmes titled; escapED, for developing non-digital GBL approaches within the context of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics combined with Arts (STEAM) education. EscapED, aids the design and creation of educational Escape Rooms and Interactive Gaming Experiences for staff and students in further/higher education settings. The authors present the escapED theoretical framework as a tool to aid future design and development of on-site interactive experiences, in order to provide engaging alternatives for learning and soft skills development amongst higher education staff and students.

Samantha Clarke, Sylvester Arnab, Helen Keegan, Luca Morini, Oliver Wood
Parsifal a Game Opera
Experiential Learning in Gameful Performance Art

Richard Wagner’s Parsifal was recently rewritten and performed as a ‘game opera’. We used observations, questionnaires, and interviews to study how the 700+ audience were facilitated to experientially learn about the show’s main themes: compassion and collaboration. This case study contributed to our understanding how performance art may improve games for learning and training purposes, many of which now are notoriously ‘boring’. We concluded that performance art’s main contribution, in particular to games discussing fundamental values such as compassion, is to captivate players and ‘lure’ them into their natural behaviour. Thus the Parsifal game opera emotionally confronted its audience with their – callous and selfish – behaviour and intensified their learning through embodied experiences. However, some players lacked time and support to (collectively) reflect on their experiences and lacked catharsis. Therefore, we recommend using gameful performance art for learning and training purposes, provided that all activities in experiential learning are sufficiently facilitated.

Rens Kortmann, Arlon Luijten

Games and Management

Frontmatter
Design Considerations for Building a Scalable Digital Version of a Multi-player Educational Board Game for a MOOC in Logistics and Transportation

With more flexible and large-scale learning environments, new design requirements for games emerge. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are one of the most important innovations in the learning field. Still, it is a challenge to motivate learners and to keep them motivated in such huge learning environments. To address this challenge, we redesigned a board game targeting at an integrated view on disruption and communication management in an intermodal transportation situation. From the redesign, we have learned that an online game works better with fewer roles, requires immediate feedback, and an engaging way of challenge to keep players motivated. Our findings can inform the design of games for large groups of players in an online environment.

Heide Lukosch, Shalini Kurapati, Geertje Bekebrede, Simon Tiemersma, Daan Groen, Linda van Veen, Alexander Verbraeck
SOA Applied: Engineering Software as Processing Unit of a Serious Game

A mechanistic model is an essential component of any simulation game. The development of such a model, including its elementary components, their relations and calculation rules, is a demanding, costly and fault-prone task. This task becomes even more complex if very realistic models are required, as it is mostly the case for serious games. Alternatively, proven simulation software can be integrated into the serious game, turning the game into an easy to use and motivating user interface, and the simulation program into a verified processing unit. In this article, we present a serious game dealing with water infrastructure planning, which interfaces to an engineering simulation software for necessary calculations. After motivating the combination of game and simulation software in this special case of water infrastructure planning, we focus on the characteristics of the software architecture and the development process. Data availability and data aggregation are identified as issues central to a successful implementation of the presented architecture. This case study thus reveals advantages and challenges of serious games employing service-oriented architectures (SOA).

Daniel Schwarz, Heinrich Söbke, Andreas F. Hofmann, Gerald Angermair, Lars Schnatmann, Jörg Londong
Serious Gaming in Airport Management: Transformation from a Validation Tool to a Learning Environment

Traditional methods to model airport management for e.g. research or training are primarily simulations. These methods lack the ability to model social behavior in collaborative decision making. Serious gaming is an approach to fill this gap. Therefore, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) introduced the serious game D-CITE for research purpose. This paper describes its advancement to a training tool and the results of a first training session with different airport stakeholders. Their feedback emphasizes the importance of a strong communication culture.

Sebastian Schier, Maria Freese, Thorsten Mühlhausen

Games and Learning

Frontmatter
Using Comparative Behavior Analysis to Improve the Impact of Serious Games on Students’ Learning Experience

In the last decade, the use of serious games as a teaching and learning tool has steadily increased in many disciplines. Nevertheless, serious games are still facing crucial challenges, such as their integration in the global learning process. On the other hand, with the increased adoption of online applications and courses, it is becoming possible to collect and centralize large amounts of trace data generated by players. Such data may be used to produce statistics on students’ behaviors inside pedagogical serious games, both as individuals and aggregated as groups (e.g., classrooms). In this paper we propose a classification of potential uses of statistics in serious games and give new insights into how statistical analysis of groups’ behavior may impact positively on the learning process. We also present experimental results obtained during a large-scale game deployment using the Wegas platform, our open source platform for game authoring and execution.

Dominique Jaccard, Jarle Hulaas, Ariane Dumont
Immersion’s Impact on Performance in a Spatial Reasoning Task

The present paper presents the results of a first experiment aimed at assessing if different levels of immersion can affect performance in a Spatial Perspective Taking (SPT) task. Since SPT is an embodied skill, the hypothesis was that the more immersive a tool is, the better the performance should be. Ninety-eight students from a local primary school have played with three different versions of a game: immersive using a Head Mounted Display, semi immersive played on a computer screen and non-immersive in which no movement was possible for the player. Results do not support the initial hypothesis: no significant impact from the immersion level has been found on performance.

Laura Freina, Rosa Bottino, Mauro Tavella, Francesca Dagnino
On the Impact of the Dominant Intelligences of Players on Learning Outcome and Game Experience in Educational Games: The TrueBiters Case

This paper presents a digital educational game, TrueBiters, developed in order to help students practice the use of the truth tables to compute the truth-value of logical expressions in proposition logic. Next to improving the pass rate of our logic course, we also use the game to investigate whether there is a difference in learning outcome and game experience for students with different dominant types of intelligences. The results of a pilot study show that the use of TrueBiters resulted in an improvement of the learning outcome for logically-mathematically intelligent players. The results of a pilot study on game experience show differences for kinesthetically intelligent and logically-mathematically intelligent players with respect to certain game experience aspects. The number of participants was too small to draw definitive conclusions, but the results are an indication that the dominant types of intelligences do matter for the effectiveness of an educational game.

Pejman Sajjadi, Eman El Sayed, Olga De Troyer

Game Development and Assessment

Frontmatter
The RAGE Advanced Game Technologies Repository for Supporting Applied Game Development

This paper describes the structural architecture of the RAGE repository, which is a unique and dedicated infrastructure that provides access to a wide variety of advanced technologies (RAGE software assets) for applied game development. These software assets are reusable across a wide diversity of game engines, game platforms and programming languages. The RAGE repository allows applied game developers and studios to search for software assets for inclusion in applied games. The repository is designed as an asset life-cycle management system for defining, publishing, updating, searching and packaging for distribution of these assets. The RAGE repository provides storage space for assets and their artefacts. It will be embedded in a social platform for networking among asset developers and other users. A dedicated Asset Repository Manager provides the main functionality of the repository and its integration with other systems. Tools supporting the Asset Manager are presented and discussed. When the RAGE repository is in full operation, applied game developers will be able to easily enhance the quality of their games by including advanced game technology assets.

Atanas Georgiev, Alexander Grigorov, Boyan Bontchev, Pavel Boytchev, Krassen Stefanov, Wim Westera, Rui Prada, Paul Hollin, Pablo Moreno Ger
A Semantic Frame Approach to Support Serious Game Design

This paper proposes a methodological framework to support the design of educational games based on a semantic frame analysis. Starting from a Frame Semantics point of view, the authors provide a deepen analysis of game mechanics definitions using the key concept of verb. To demonstrate the advantages of the proposed model an example is reported to illustrate how we can explicit the game mechanics used in a management/construction game by means of FrameNet and WordNet ontologies.

Manuel Gentile, Giuseppe Città, Simona Ottaviano, Dario La Guardia, Valentina Dal Grande, Mario Allegra, Aki Jarvinen
The Game Jam as a Format for Formal Applied Game Design and Development Education

This paper introduces the design and results of an applied game jam integrated in a game design and development curriculum, which took place February 2016 at HKU University of the Arts Utrecht in the Netherlands. The game jam followed a four-phased structure over the course of four days. Forty-five participants shared their demographics, baseline competency, attitude towards game jams, and learning expectations in a pre-jam questionnaire. In a post-jam questionnaire they assessed their collaboration and learning outcomes. Results are generally positive, although some measures of collaboration constructs were unreliable. Nevertheless, a game jam is in principal a format worthy of introduction into formal game design and development education. Several implications and next steps are discussed.

Micah Hrehovcsik, Harald Warmelink, Marilla Valente
Analyzing Gamification of “Duolingo” with Focus on Its Course Structure

Gamification is the application of game-based elements and game design techniques in non-game contexts. Many learning platforms have applied gamification to increase motivation and engagement. Duolingo is a popular language learning platform which has applied gamification. In this paper, game refinement measure is employed to evaluate the gamification of Duolingo. The results show that the range of game refinement value of Duolingo is reasonable in such as serious environment. By assuming a milestone in a language course as a sub-game, it is supposed that the challenges in each milestone could adapt the advancement of learners’ skill.

Duy Huynh, Long Zuo, Hiroyuki Iida

Mobile Games

Frontmatter
Mobile Learning Game Authoring Tools: Assessment, Synthesis and Proposals

Mobile Learning Games (MLGs) show great potential for increasing engagement, creativity and authentic learning. Yet, despite their great potential for education, the use of MLGs by teachers, remains limited. This is partly due to the fact that MLGs are often designed to match a specific learning context, and thus cannot be reusable for other contexts. Therefore, researchers have recently designed various types of MLG authoring tools. However, these authoring tools are not always adapted to non-computer-scientists or non-game-designers. Hence, we propose in this paper to focus on five existing MLG authoring tools, in order to assess their features and usability with the help of five teachers, who are used to organizing educational field trips. In the second part of this paper, we present an approach for designing a MLG authoring tool, based on the lacks identified through the analysis, and tailored to the teachers’ different profiles and needs.

Aous Karoui, Iza Marfisi-Schottman, Sébastien George
Interest in and Willingness to Pay for Mobile Applications in Museums

Mobile applications (apps) are becoming more important for museums. In our research project SPIRIT, we develop a mobile location-based serious game, which enhances museum communications in an entertaining way. By integrating elements of interactive digital storytelling through augmented reality, e.g. interactions with virtual characters, the app converts history lessons into vibrant adventures. By using the app, mobile devices are transformed into “magical equipment”, which leads users to the spirit of the past in certain places on site. This paper examines selected economic issues of museum apps, focusing on the potential interest in and willingness to pay for these apps. We present selected findings from two empirical surveys, in which valid questionnaires of over 200 museums and over 1,600 museum visitors were analyzed.

Peter Winzer, Tamara Steffen
Gamification of Car Driver Performance

The potential of serious games can be used to captivate the road users in exhibiting green driving behavior. Serious games can be an engaging medium in conveying information effectively. We exploited the pervasiveness of smartphone and serious games concept to develop a gamified environment for the road users. Our approach comprises two games that would gamify the driver performance based on the driver performance assessment results. The driver performance will be evaluated using a smartphone-based evaluator and the assessment results will be transmitted through a Bluetooth module to the gamified environment (this happens on real-time basis). The game environment comprises various levels and indicators with the provision of audio feedback on the game status.

Pratheep K. Paranthaman, Gautam R. Dange, Francesco Bellotti, Riccardo Berta, Alessandro De Gloria

Posters

Frontmatter
Designing Working Memory Games for Elderly

Working memory is of central importance for acquiring knowledge and involved in a variety of complex cognitive tasks and thus the use of working memory training games can lead to a wide range of significant impacts in peoples’ life. The aim of this study was to investigate design principles for working memory training games. A game called Brain Farmer was designed and developed as part of this study. Brain Farmer is a working memory game based on n-back working memory training protocol and it is targeted especially for older adults. Users’ playing experiences were studied and design principles were identified based on observations, user feedback, and interviews. The most important design principles were found to be the simple and easily understandable game play, adaptation of challenge level as well as clear multisensory instructions and feedback.

Antti Koivisto, Antero Lindstedt, Sari Merilampi, Kristian Kiili
ACMUS: Comparative Assessment of a Musical Multimedia Tool

In this paper it is described the assessment of the ACMUS (Accessible Music), a multimedia tool that merges sound and colours in order to make music and its benefits more accessible. The aim of the assessment is to clarify the optimal educational field for this tool, either primary education, secondary education or special education through experiences in real context and its evaluation by teachers and students. Based on these data, the conclusion is that special education is the best field for this tool, which provides some useful applications in this context. Besides, the assessment also gives many useful suggestions to improve ACMUS.

Mikel Ostiz-Blanco, Alfredo Pina Calafi, Miriam Lizaso Azcárate, Sergi Grau Carrión
Serious Games: Valuable Tools for Cultural Heritage

Wishing to connect cultural heritage, games and social networks, the present work describes games to be used within the framework of a European H2020 project. For the purposes of supporting the museum visit, before, during and after, 5 games were designed for social networks to accomplish user profiling, to promote the museum and the application through social network dissemination, to introduce museum items and themes and to also function as visit souvenirs. The games are also presented in a generic framework for games in cultural heritage, which has been used successfully in the past.

Stavroula Bampatzia, Ioannis Bourlakos, Angeliki Antoniou, Costas Vassilakis, George Lepouras, Manolis Wallace
Let’s DEsign for MOtivation (DEMO)

Design for motivation can be defined as a “design practice focused on the activation of human motives, with short or long-term effects, to perform an action” in a context. The paper proposes and develops a design tool called DEMO (DEsign for MOtivation) that aims to address motivation in innovation communities. The DEMO tool is theoretically grounded in motivation theories and based on existing game-like approaches for the development of motivational concepts. The tool incorporates gamification elements, design elements and targets to support multidisciplinary teams in designing for motivation. One application area of the tool is in innovation communities where the design to support user participation and contribution is a complex task, while there is limited understanding how to practically apply motivation. An expert usability evaluation reflected a positive overall experience with the tool. The contribution of this paper lies in its description of the tool and its report on the usability evaluation. Future research in the field should focus on the application of the design tool with various methods in diverse cases.

Dimitra Chasanidou, Amela Karahasanovic
Exploring the Relation Between Game Experience and Game Mechanics for Bodily-Kinesthetic Players

This paper presents the results of a research on investigating whether tailoring the game mechanics and interaction modality of a game has an impact on the game experience of the player in the case of players with a high bodily-kinesthetic intelligence (with respect to the theory of Multiple Intelligences). For this purpose, we designed and developed a game called LeapBalancer, and evaluated it with a group of kinesthetic and a group of non-kinesthetic players. The results of the evaluation show that considering the intelligences of the players during game design matters and affects their game experience. In addition, we analyzed the players’ in-game behavior to explain the results. The finding are also important for learning games, since research suggest that good game experience is positively correlated with improved learning.

Pejman Sajjadi, Andreas Lo-A-Njoe, Joachim Vlieghe, Olga De Troyer
To Recall to Play in the Street: A Critical Review of the Transformation of the Game Concept, Importance and Place of Game in Children’s World

This argumentative study focused on the relationship between children’s traditional play cultures and their technology-based play. When the literature examined, it was seen that traditional games contribute children character development, as well as linguistic and communicative development. When children allowed to play outdoor and/or traditional games, they explore the nature, learn democratic behaviors, acquire creative and critical thinking skills, learn how to communicate politely with others, develop muscle strength and coordination, learn sharing and caring, and obtain problems solving skills and self-confidence. In other words, playing traditional games supports the overall development of mind and body of a children. However, nowadays, many children spend too much time indoors, by playing online games, and/or sitting in front of a screen (e.g. television, tablet pc, or smart phone). In contrast to traditional games, online games do not include social interaction. In this study, the significance of game was clarified, and both positive and negative effects of gamification was demonstrated. Consequently, the aim of this study to generate a theoretical framework that display an understanding of theories and concepts that are relevant to the place and importance of games on children’s world and disclose a critical perspective about playing games in digital world. Therefore, relevant research studies for theories and analytic models were reviewed and interpreted in order to present two sides of gamification and highlight the importance of games.

Pervin Oya Taneri, Mehmet M. Akgunduz, K. Funda Nayir
Towards Computer-Supported Self-debriefing of a Serious Game Against Cyber Bullying

It is argued that reflecting on the in-game performance in a serious game is important for facilitating learning transfer. A way to facilitate such a reflection is by means of a so-called debriefing phase. However, a human facilitated debriefing is expensive, time consuming and not always possible. Therefore, an automatic self-debriefing facility for serious games would be desirable. However, a general approach for creating such an automatic self-debriefing system for serious games doesn’t exist. As a first step towards the development of such a framework, we targeted a specific type of serious games, i.e., games displaying realistic behavior and having multiple possible paths to a solution. In addition, we decided to start with the development of a debriefing system for a concrete case, a serious game about cyber bullying in social networks. In particular, in this paper, we focus on different visualizations that could be used for such an automatic debriefing. We combined a textual feedback with three different types of visualizations. A prototype was implemented and evaluated with the goal of comparing the three visualizations and gathering first feedback on the usability and effectiveness. The results indicate that the visualizations did help the participants in having a better understanding of the outcome of the game and that there was a clear preference for one of the three visualizations.

Olga De Troyer, Anas Helalouch, Christophe Debruyne
An Approach to Entertainment Tuning in RPGs: Case Study Using Diablo III and Trails of Cold Steel

This paper proposes a novel method to tune the entertainment impact of Role-playing-game (RPG) with a focus on three bottlenecks of the current RPG: (1) weapon trading system, (2) linear turn-based battle system, and (3) game rhythm and time, i.e., level-up system. We have chosen Diablo III and Trails of Cold Steel as benchmarks, and game refinement measure is employed for the assessment. It reveals that a reliable level up system is the key factor to make the players feel more exciting and adventurous. It then confirms the effectiveness of the proposed method which enables to numerically identify the components that need to be enhanced to improve the game and help creators design a more attractive game by the paradigmatic rules. Future works include the application of the proposed method in other domains such as serious games.

Shuo Xiong, Ying Peng, Hiroyuki Iida, Abu-Bakar Nordin
A Generic Model for Emotional AI in Real-Time Multiplayer Fighting Games

This paper explores a simple generic model for emotional AI in the domain of real-time multiplayer fighting games. The outstanding point of this model is the simplicity. It can be used as a basis model to create a new emotional AI in other domains such as education and psychology. It proposes a notion of emotional component which contains three main factors: personality, memory and mood. All three factors are interrelated and may affect the decision making. For the assessment, a real-time fighting game is used where the proposed model is implemented. The results show the effectiveness of the proposed idea that only three simple factors are enough to show the emotion.

Chetprayoon Panumate, Youichiro Miyake, Hiroyuki Iida
Gamification and Scrabble

This paper explores Scrabble, scoring boardgames from the perspective of gamification. We propose the swing model, a new measurement based on game refinement theory for an assessment. The result indicates that Scrabble displays a stronger aspect of an entertaining game, compared to that of an educational game. Moreover, the present analysis reveals that increasing vowel tiles would be more appropriate for beginners. Our goal is to generalize game modification to influence a game’s usefulness in an educational way.

Suwanviwatana Kananat, Jean-Christophe Terrillon, Hiroyuki Iida
Proposal of a Serious Game to Help Prevent Dementia

The incidence of geriatric diseases is increasing due to population aging. The present study aims to investigate contents that can be used to prevent, not to treat, dementia. We classified dementia symptoms into different types based on previous studies and applied related factors in our Serious game to design 17 types of mini games. In this study focusing on the prevention of dementia, the necessary contents for a game aimed to help prevent dementia were explored and a medical Serious game was proposed and designed. Consequently, this study enabled the improvement of brain function and physical activity through designing a game composed of 17 mini-games. Our study aims to contribute to preventing dementia in the future.

Kiho Kang, Eun-Jin Choi, Young-Suk Lee
Towards a Human Machine Interface Concept for Performance Improvement of Cycling

Exercising tends to be tedious and boring. Users search for means of entertainment during their workout. Motivation is an essential factor that inspires a person to maintain physical activity levels. A number of exercise bicycle manufacturers have enabled their equipment to port data signals to computers for the purpose of training logs. However, they all lack the motivational and the fun factors in their system. Many people face obstacles to improve their physical activity due to lack of accessibility to physical activity facilities and physical trainers. Technology can provide immediate personal assistance anywhere and anytime. In this paper, we present a persuasive game environment integrated to cycle training. The system measures the performance of a rider and visualizes a scenario through which the virtual bike trip leads. The players maintain their excitement while riding the bicycle to improve their performance on how to enhance cycling skills.

Menah El Bastawisy, Dirk Reichardt, Slim Abdennadher
Development of a Serious Game for the Elderly (Title: ‘Paldokangsan4’)

Old people are prone to get weak in their physical bodies as well as their memorizations. We have developed a serious game for the elderly named ‘Paldokangsan4’ which is a walking game strengthening legs as well as the ability of memorization with the interface of motion capture using Kinect2, the next version of ‘Paldokangsan3’. This game machine has been installed in the show ‘PlayX4’ in Korea, last May and got responses from 40 visitors. They showed good subjective satisfactions in their responses that we could go on the project further to expand its applications to the elders.

KyungSik Kim
A Neuroscience Based Approach to Game Based Learning Design

In recent years designing a game for education has become very popular. Neuroscience has developed many theories of learning, based on how brain learns. We discuss a design approach for conventional teaching methods. The proposed approach illustrates the opportunities to exploit the concept of neuroscience and combine it with game for educational purpose. The pedagogies based on neuroscience and psychology have been adapted in teaching very well and the same is expected to work well with Game Based Learning (GBL).

Nikesh Bajaj, Francesco Bellotti, Riccardo Berta, Alessandro De Gloria
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Games and Learning Alliance
herausgegeben von
Rosa Bottino
Johan Jeuring
Remco C. Veltkamp
Copyright-Jahr
2016
Electronic ISBN
978-3-319-50182-6
Print ISBN
978-3-319-50181-9
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50182-6