I’m not a cook, but I like delicious foodI’m not a game designer, but I like to play games.And in both scenarios I’m intrigued to understand the secret recipe for success. Let me first focus how we get success in the kitchen In doing so, we need first of all the best chefsSecondly, these chefs have to make a selection in the right ingredients and mix these in the best way Thirdly, the proof of the pudding is in the eating by the people who dine out in a restaurant
// quoteWhat this implies is that we need the best looking games, developed at a reasonable cost. Sounds like impossible, right? Today, I want to reveal to you how we optimized the game development process so that we could create nice and big game environments, that work well on everyday computers, and that can be used by everyday people. //transition next slideFirstly, we greatly invested in a efficient Facial recognition software
/QUOTELet me give some examples of the rich insights gained from this more participative approachMore particularly, when new mini-game concepts are prototyped and developed in a 360° fashion with participation of all stakeholders, this leads to a shorter development cycle due to a reduced amount of iterations. As shown in the pictures, we engaged in several brainstorms with domain experts, game designers, teachers, created various designs from sketches to paper prototypes, tested these with the child players, and only then, after these improvements, the digital games were being designed.LET me give some examples of insights gained from this participative design approach.Firstly, during the brainstorm sessions with the game designers and educational publishers, we discussed how we can give feedback in games on the educational topics. To ensure enjoyable game play, it soon became clear that integrating feedback mechanisms into the mini-games is no option, because this would have a negative impact on the actual gameplay. Therefore, it was decided that feedback mechanisms should be either be integrated before or after the mini-game, thus realized as instructions or remediation that is given outside the actual educational minigame, but still inside the overall 3D world. 2. Secondly, from observing the children, we learned that we need flexible games in terms of balancing the fun and the serious in the game. This way we can account for various learner profiles: those who ‘hack’ the educational content, those who enjoy the educational content and like to play math games again. 3. Thirdly, by consulting teachers in the design process, we learned that we have to invest time in getting them acquainted with the possibilities of digital media and secondly, that we have to design games that fit in the time constraints of class setting (and thus fit within the approach of instructional practices.4. Finally, from interviewing the parents, we learned that the replayability of the games makes it worth the monetary investment and that the educational part of the game motivated parents to let their children play more of these games than they were allowed to play regular games. Eventually, and in conclusion we got better designs tailored to the needs and capabilities of the end-users, reflecting the ambitions of both game designers and the domain experts, and this at reduced time and money spent in the development progress__But how do you make this educational games work? Or in other words, how do you ensure that the game will increase the learning skills of the gamers?In this context, it is important to understand that he effectiveness of a game greatly depends on the way it accounts for adaptivity. Indeed, not all children are equal in their mathematics skills, and similarly, not all children are the best gamers. Our research shows that when we integrate learning content in games, learners find these motivating, but they also experience more difficultyAlso learners do better when they can reduce the amount of interactivity. In games that involve a lot of interactivity, good gamers do betterSo in conclusion: we learned that: “READ QUOTE NEXT SLIDE”___So in conclusion: we learned that: “READ QUOTE”///So knowing how to develop and design these games, and make them work. The pressing question remains eventually, will it really work? In order to answer this question, we put Monkey Tales to the test and performed an effectiveness study.
