Videogames have become educational, communicative and social tools among the young, favouring the acquisition of skills, abilities and values, encompassing an endless number of themes, and helping them to experience and to face, in the first person, a great diversity of environmental situations and ecology problems. Thus, the present article aims: (a) to evaluate a sample of 20 educational videogames about water, making use of some empirical criteria of quality; and (b) to design, validate and apply an integrated quality indicator of educational videogames on water, based on the aspects of narrative, gameplay and education, which allows us to obtain a ranking. The findings reflect a ranking of games allowing us to suggest that the nature of the game (simulation, adventures, platforms or questions) does not determine the quality of the game, although generally simulations and adventure games are placed in a range of medium- or high-quality, as well as those games that pursue objectives related to the design and management of a territory in a sustainable way. The paper provides teachers with quality criteria based on narrative and gameplay that complement and enrich the pedagogical dimension.
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This paper presents the latest version of the Machinations framework. This framework uses diagrams to represent the flow of tangible and abstract resources through a game. This flow represents the mechanics that make up a game’s interbal economy and has a large impact on the emergent gameplay of most simulation games, strategy games and board games. This paper shows how Machinations diagrams can be used simulate and balance games before they are built.
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In this work, we trace and analyze some production and design choices taken during the developing of Progetto Ustica: a serious game about memory. The game tells the story of the Itavia civilian flight shot down over theMediterranean Sea, near the island of Ustica, on June 27th, 1980. We aim at discussing the implications of academic research in the context of a peculiarvideo game production and at connecting serious and applied games with the concept of ethical gameplay. We adopt a Research through Design perspective (the first author of this study is also one of the game designers of Progetto Ustica), supported by secondary texts, such as the development blog, and “working documents” such as the concept paper and the game design document. We document the relationship between designers and key stakeholders, including the Association of the Victims’ Relatives. We also consider the historical, ethicaland moral positions adopted by the designers, their communicative intentions, and their responsibilities facing historical narrative. In conclusion, we connectthe practice of ethical and serious game design with the concepts of catastrophe and massacre, thus opening a space for dialogue between design, academic research, and civil engagement.
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Binnen dit onderzoek is gekeken of het mogelijk is het creatieve denkproces van een hoogbegaafde leerling inzichtelijk te maken voor de leerkracht door middel van het spelen van een digitale game
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