Presentation from ALICT 2014 Summer School in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, July 28th 2014, sponsored by Slovene Scholarship Fund EEA/NFM

1. Matej Zapušek
Educational Game design

2. Games
• Is about playing, pretending
• Contains: goals and rules
• Is fair!
• State of flow
• Risk / Reward
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3. Activity
• Think of a game in which two players are competing against
each other. The game must include a ball but it is not
allowed to kick or throw it. Prove that the activity is really a
game by pointing out the main characteristics of every
game.
– Gameplay (how do we play it)
– Main goal / other goals
– Rules
– Why is this activity challenging?
– "State of flow"
– Risk / Reward
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4. Adventure games
• Activities
– Puzzle solving
– Gathering and using items
– Story, setting, and themes
– Dialog and conversation trees
– Goals, success and failure
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5. Game design
• Target audiance!
• Learning unit (programming, computer
communications, algorithms…)
• Learning goals + Game goals
• Mapping learning goals with game goals!!!
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6. • Our goal is to "blend" learning goals into game
activities -> student is enjoying the game and
doesn't even realize that she is learning
complex concepts
• Designing a game:
– Story is very important!
– Virtual, fantasy world
– Main character, NPC's
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7. Activity
• Think of a game from your field of interest.
Pick one learning goal and map it with ingame
activity.
• Also define:
– Target audiance
– Story
– Main character
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8. eAdventure
• Game engine for designing adventure games
• Easy to use
• No prior knowledge about programming is
required
• Integration with LMS (SCORM)
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9. eAdventure
• Introduction movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfi-
Bqp3YiI#t=97
• Download link:
http://e-adventure.e-ucm.es/download/
• Mac, PC & Debian
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10. Graphical materials
• Search words: sprite, sprite sheets, images,
backgrounds, textures, game graphics
repositories
• Useful links:
– http://www.cgtextures.com/ - high quality
pictures, PS tutorials
– http://opengameart.org/ - theme packages
(sports, space, medival..)
– http://tsgk.captainn.net/ - commercial games
graphic repositories
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11. – http://www.videogamesprites.net/ - materials
from Nintendo games
– http://www.bogleech.com/games.html
http://www.retrogamezone.co.uk/
http://www.spriters-resource.com/
backgrounds from older commercial games
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12. Implementing with
eAdventure
• Scenes
– Places where the action of the game takes place
– Player interacts with objects and characters
– Connected with other scenes by exits
• Cutscenes
– Slideshows
– Videoscene
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13. • Main character
– Player controlled character
– Define animations (standing, walking, talking…)
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14. • NPC – non-player characters
– Any character that is not controlled by player
– Same animations as for main character
• Game items
– Actions (examine, grab, use, use with, drag to)
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15. • Conversations
– Interactions with characters
– Action -> talk to
– Elements of conversations:
• Start
• Dialog
• Options
• Links between dialogs
• End
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16. Advanced features
• Global states
• Timers
• Macros
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