Climate Change Engagement: Results of a Multi-Task Game with a Purpose

Addressing the challenge of engaging people with climate change, this paper sheds light on the Climate Challenge, a crowdsourcing application in the tradition of games with purpose that relies on different strategies for informing and inviting users to adopt sustainable lifestyle choices. Towards building an extensive perspective of engagement, we statistically analyse specific game strategies based on users’ participation and performance, and build a panorama of users’ positioning in a behaviour change process. Preliminary results suggest features that should be considered in a Climate Challenge design roadmap

The Industry and Policy Context for Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion:Market Analysis, Future Prospects and Key Challenges in Videogames, Serious Games and Gamification

The effective use of digital games for empowerment and social inclusion (DGEI) of people and communities at risk of exclusion will be shaped by, and may influence the development of a range of sectors that supply products, services, technology and research. The principal industries that would appear to be implicated are the 'videogames' industry, and an emerging 'serious games' industry. The videogames industry is an ecosystem of developers, publishers and other service providers drawn from the interactive media, software and broader ICT industry that services the mainstream leisure market in games, The 'serious games' industry is a rather fragmented and growing network of firms, users, research and policy makers from a variety of sectors. This emerging industry is are trying to develop knowledge, products, services and a market for the use of digital games, and products inspired by digital games, for a range of non-leisure applications. This report provides a summary of the state of play of these industries, their trajectories and the challenges they face. It also analyses the contribution they could make to exploiting digital games for empowerment and social inclusion. Finally, it explores existing policy towards activities in these industries and markets, and draws conclusions as to the future policy relevance of engaging with them to support innovation and uptake of effective digital game-based approaches to empowerment and social inclusion.JRC.J.3-Information Societ

DOES PLAYING MATH GAMES IMPROVE STUDENTS’ATTITUDES TOWARDS MATHEMATICS?

Abstract In the last few years, math games have been introduced in the classroom as a way for students to have a fun and engaging means to practice math concepts. The purpose of our research was to understand the effects on students’ attitudes towards math after math games have been implemented into the curriculum. The questions we asked were: Does playing math games help improve students’ attitudes towards mathematics? Does the enjoyment of math correspond with higher math scores? We used multiple surveys to conduct our research and collect data. The surveys were given to third and fifth-grade students at the American School Foundation of Monterrey in Mexico and Colegio Jorge Washington in Cartagena, Colombia, two international schools with an American curriculum. In analyzing the data, we did not find conclusive evidence as to whether playing math games in school enhances students’ attitudes towards math. Although the data suggests a decline in attitudes, there were too many variables affecting the outcome to charge playing math games as the reason. While addressing the question of whether or not students’ math scores correlate with their attitudes towards math, we found that the majority of students with a higher understanding of math concepts in a unit had a more positive attitude towards math

Game-Based Approaches to Enhancing Public Understanding of Science: A Descriptive Literature Review

With prominent looming global issues such as climate change and COVID-19, public understanding of science (PUS) is increasingly perceived to be vital for humanity to address and adapt to global wicked challenges. Compared to conventional approaches that struggle with public engagement, games can potentially remedy this by proactively engaging players towards more fruitful performance in and outside games. While the employment of game-based approaches in pedagogy in general is not a new development, gamifying PUS has only recently grown to relative prominence for its superiority in engaging the public with active science-derived interpretation, deliberation, and consequent action. To understand the state-of-the-art of this field, we conduct a systematic descriptive literature review of the extant corpus. We reviewed 29 papers and investigated their types of interventions, contexts, populations, and outcomes. The results overall indicate diverse yet imbalanced research focuses thus far, for which we discuss implications for future research

The Official Rulebook for Choice in Video Games: An Examination of Choice in Modern Narrative Games

Film, drama, and novels are each capable of telling stories in a specialized way. This thesis makes the claim that video games are the newest means of storytelling and that they can tell stories in unique and engaging ways by using choice. The first goal of this thesis is to determine how and why choice is being used by game developers by examining several modern narrative games. After this examination, it is determined that the increase of choice-driven and narrative games have had an impact on the expectations of players, the goals of video games, and on game culture itself. The narrative applications of choice that were discovered are listed towards the end of the thesis. It is found that choice can (and is currently being used by developers to) provide several benefits to the narratives in video games. In addition to the benefits of choice, it is found that it can also pose several challenges for developers to overcome

Virtual Reality Based Serious Games for STNA Training

In this project, exploratory steps have been taken towards the development of a set of serious games for state tested nursing assistants (STNAs) education and training, which promises to make the training more engaging and effective. Tasks include getting familiar with developing 3D scenes with Unity, human activity recognition with Microsoft Kinect, creating holograms with Microsoft HoloLens, and help implement a gaze-based mechanism for performance assessment in patient transfer skills.https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/u_poster_2018/1071/thumbnail.jp

Game engines selection framework for high-fidelity serious applications

Serious games represent the state-of-the-art in the convergence of electronic gaming technologies with instructional design principles and pedagogies. Despite the value of high-fidelity content in engaging learners and providing realistic training environments, building games which deliver high levels of visual and functional realism is a complex, time consuming and expensive process. Therefore, commercial game engines, which provide a development environment and resources to more rapidly create high-fidelity virtual worlds, are increasingly used for serious as well as for entertainment applications. Towards this intention, the authors propose a new framework for the selection of game engines for serious applications and sets out five elements for analysis of engines in order to create a benchmarking approach to the validation of game engine selection. Selection criteria for game engines and the choice of platform for Serious Games are substantially different from entertainment games, as Serious Games have very different objectives, emphases and technical requirements. In particular, the convergence of training simulators with serious games, made possible by increasing hardware rendering capacity is enabling the creation of high-fidelity serious games, which challenge existing instructional approaches. This paper overviews several game engines that are suitable for high-fidelity serious games, using the proposed framework

PERANCANGAN APLIKASI GAME EDUKASI TENTANG MITOLOGI INDONESIA BERBASIS ANDROID

The rapid development of technology has significantly impacted various aspects of human life, including education and entertainment. One emerging trend is the utilization of technology to create engaging and interactive educational games. With technological advancements, educational games have become effective tools to teach various concepts and skills to the younger generation. However, in the era of globalization, the role of mythology in the lives of the younger generation has been overshadowed by foreign cultures' influence and technological advancements. By combining technology, elements of mythology, and educational aspects, a game based on Indonesian mythology becomes an innovative and attractive solution to ignite the interest and awareness of the younger generation towards their cultural heritage and national history. In this research will developed a technology-based educational game with a focus on Indonesian mythology using Unity, Adobe Illustrator and Visual Studio. The game was designed to present information about Indonesian mythology in an engaging and interactive manner, captivating the interest of the younger generation in learning and getting acquainted with their cultural heritage

Designing Serious Games for getting transferable skills in training settings

[EN] Nowadays, serious games are present in almost every educational context. The current work deals with the design of serious games oriented towards getting transferable skills in different kinds of training settings. These games can be a valuable way of engaging citizens and workers in the learning process by means of metaphors or similar mechanisms close to their user experience. They also contain an encouragement factor to uptake generic job competencies. An approach is proposed to develop this type of game by mixing traditional design steps with an instructional strategy to provide structured learning bites in training settings. Several game prototypes have been developed to test this approach in the context of courses for public employees. The obtained outcomes reveal the wider possibilities of serious games as educational resources, as well as the use of game achievements to evaluate the acquisition of transferable skillsThis work is supported by the TEA project (PAIDUPV/2791)Buendía García, F.; García-Martínez, S.; Navarrete-Ibáñez, EM.; Cervelló-Donderis, MJ. (2013). Designing Serious Games for getting transferable skills in training settings. Interaction Design and Architecture(s). (19):47-62. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/47743S47621