Design and Use of Serious Games

Design and Use of Serious Games

International Series on

INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS, CONTROL, AND AUTOMATION: SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING VOLUME 37

Editor Professor S. G. Tzafestas, National Technical University of Athens, Greece

Editorial Advisory Board Professor P. Antsaklis, University of Notre Dame, IN, U.S.A. Professor P. Borne, Ecole Centrale de Lille, France Professor D. G. Caldwell, University of Salford, U.K. Professor C. S. Chen, University of Akron, Ohio, U.S.A. Professor T. Fukuda, Nagoya University, Japan Professor F. Harashima, University of Tokyo, Japan Professor S. Monaco, University La Sapienza, Rome, Italy Professor G. Schmidt, Technical University of Munich, Germany Professor N. K. Sinha, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada Professor D. Tabak, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, U.S.A. Professor K. Valavanis, University of Southern Louisiana, Lafayette, U.S.A. Professor S. G. Tzafestas, National Technical University of Athens, Greece

For other titles published in this series, go to www.springer.com/series/6259

Marja Kankaanranta • Pekka Neittaanmäki

Design and Use of Serious Games

Pekka Neittaanmäki University of Jyväskylä Dept. Mathematical Information Technology Fl-40351 Jyväskylä Finland

Marja Kankaanranta University of Jyväskylä Institute for Educational Research Fl-40014 Jyväskylä Finland

ISBN: 978-1-4020-9495-8

e-ISBN: 978-1-4020-9496-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2008939845 © Springer Science+Business Media, B.V. 2009 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper 987654321 springer.com

Preface

During the last few years, a new area of creative media industry, namely Serious Games, has started to emerge around the world. The term serious games has become more popular for example in the fields of education, business, welfare and safety. Despite this, there has been no single definition of serious games. A key question, what the concept itself means, has stayed unsolved though most have agreed on a definition that serious games are games or game-like interactive systems developed with game technology and design principles for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. In this book, serious games are understood as games which aim at providing an engaging, self-reinforcing context in which to motivate and educate the players. Serious games can be of any genre, use any game technology, and be developed for any platform. They can be entertaining, but usually they teach the user something. The central aim of serious games is to raise quality of life and well-being. As part of interactive media industry, the serious games field focuses on designing and using digital games for real-life purposes and for the everyday life of citizens in information societies. The field of serious games focuses on such areas as education, business, welfare, military, traffic, safety, travelling and tourism. This book focuses on the field of serious games from various aspects. The book contains 13 papers and four aspects of serious games: game production, learning, the social point of view, and technical applications. Part I is devoted to game production and it consists of four articles. The first article presents three approaches towards teaching game production. The second article describes the design and architecture of a cave based firefighter training game. The human-centered design process of a location-based sport game Fitness Adventure is presented in the third article. In the last article of this part, children’s involvement in the design of two game-based learning environments is discussed. Part II addresses topics related to learning: language learning and the use of commercial games in instruction. The first article presents a framework for development and analysis of an educational design for a platform used for teaching English as a foreign language in primary schools. The second article continues in the field of language learning. It discusses experiences from designing a role-playing game for language learning and explores competence requirements and cooperation required from the development team. The other two articles in this part strive to understand and look for the ways of using commercial games also for purposes of learning. In the third article, the attitudes and experiences of Finnish school teachers towards commercial educational games are portrayed. The fourth article examines introduction of social simulation videogame as an educational tool in classrooms. The focus is on the activities and conversations among teacher, children and researchers. v

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Part III is dedicated to the social point of view. This part consists of articles on playing together with the camera of a mobile device, social networks in gaming, and a multiplayer interface for a computer-augmented learning game. The first article presents an approach to a multiplayer mobile game. It discusses how an integrated camera would be used to support communication and collaboration in multiplayer mobile games. The second article considers social networks in gaming and describes a study on social networks built during the prerelease campaign of the AnimalClass game series. The last article of this part presents a multiplayer interface for a computer-augmented learning game. Part IV is devoted to technical applications of serious games – a driving game and a game-like tool for process simulation and analysis. Firstly, a noncommercial driving game which became a serious tool in the research of driver fatigue is presented. After that, the last article of the book introduces a game-like tool for visual process simulation and analysis. Material consists of selected papers or game presentations from Serious Games conference organized by Agora Game Laboratory of University of Jyväskylä in February 2008. Additional material has been included in order to broaden the scope of the volume. Special acknowledgements are due to Terhi Tuukkanen from University of Jyväskylä for her most constructive role in the various stages of this project. We would also like to express our gratitude to the reviewers of the papers, as well as all those involved in the publication process. Finally we want to thank Springer Publishing house for flexible and efficient collaboration. Jyväskylä, September 2008

Marja Kankaanranta Pekka Neittaanmäki

Contents

Part I Game Production Three Approaches Towards Teaching Game Production Tuomas Mäkilä, Harri Hakonen, Jouni Smed, Andy Best

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Design and Architecture of Sidh – a Cave Based Firefighter Training Game Mikael Lebram, Per Backlund, Henrik Engström, Mikael Johannesson

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Human-Centred Design and Exercise Games: User’s Experiences of a Fitness Adventure Prototype Antti Väätänen, Jaana Leikas

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Children’s Involvement in the Design of Game-Based Learning Environments: Cases Talarius and Virtual Peatland Tuula Nousiainen

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Part II Learning Designing Serious Games for Computer Assisted Language Learning – a Framework for Development and Analysis Bente Meyer, Birgitte Holm Sørensen

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Comptence Complexity and Obvious Learning: Experience from Developing a Language Learning Game Ellen Brox, Audun Heggelund, Gunn Evertsen

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The Attitudes of Finnish School Teachers Towards Commercial Educational Games Minna Klemetti, Olli Taimisto, Paula Karppinen

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Using Videogames as Educational Tools: Building Bridges Between Commercial and Serious Games Pilar Lacasa, Laura Méndez, Rut Martínez

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Part III Social Perspective Let’s Play Together with the Camera of Your Mobile Device Ekaterina Kuts, Carolina Islas-Sedano, Erkki Sutinen

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AnimalClass: Social Networks in Gaming Harri Ketamo, Marko Suominen

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Multiplayer Interface for a Computer-Augmented Learning Game Ari Putkonen, Markus Forstén

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Part IV Technical Applications RACER: A Non-Commercial Driving Game which Became a Serious Tool in the Research of Driver Fatigue Narciso González, Igor Kalyakin, Heikki Lyytinen

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VIPROSA – Game-like Tool for Visual Process Simulation and Analysis Tapani N. Liukkonen

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Three Approaches Towards Teaching Game Production Tuomas Mäkilä1, Harri Hakonen1, Jouni Smed1 and Andy Best2 1) Department of Information Technology, University of Turku; FI-20014 University of Turku, Finland [email protected] 2) Digital Arts, Turku University of Applied Sciences; FI-20520 Turku, Finland [email protected]

Abstract: Teaching game production benefits computer science and engineering students, because game applications are usually complex interactive real-time systems, which are non-trivial to implement. Moreover, game production has a multi-disciplinary nature, because – in addition to software development – a game production process can include areas such as commercialization issues, game design, graphics design and implementation, sound engineering, level design, and story design. This kind of project environment teaches the development team to work and communicate efficiently. Having organized a variety of game production project courses in the Department of Information Technology in the University of Turku the students have implemented complete computer games or game proto-types. Our focus has been on teaching game related algorithms, software technologies and software engineering aspects of game production. We have used three different teaching approaches to organize the courses: (1) the traditional home assignment model where the students take full responsibility of organizing the production, (2) research seminars where the teachers act as direct customers for the production, and (3) intensive courses where the teachers participate in the production as coaches and mentors. In this presentation, we describe the three different teaching approaches, present them as formal process models, and compare them to commercial game production processes. Additionally, we consider the multidisciplinary nature of game production and discuss how the issue can be taken into consideration in a study environment where the students are mainly technology oriented.

1 Introduction to Game Production This article discusses how game production can be used as a teaching tool in various different situations and what requirements different types of course set to the 3 M. Kankaanranta and P. Neittaanmäki (eds.), Design and Use of Serious Games, 3–18. © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009

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production process. The article is based on the case studies of three different course types held by the authors. All have utilized game production as a teaching tool. The qualitative aspects of the cases are analyzed and compared. The goal of game production is to produce fully-working game products. Game production is a discipline that builds on the tradition and the methodologies of project management, software engineering and cultural productions. The game production life-cycle defines the basic activities which have to be accomplished before a game idea actualizes into a working game product. Although every game and every production team has its own ways of working, some generic models for game production life-cycle activities have been proposed (game production process, game production hand-book).

Fig. 1. Comparison between two game production models (Manninen et al. 2006) (Chandler 2006) and one software product development model (Hohmann 2003). The development phases are described on the upper half and more detailed production phase steps on the lower half.

If we compare game production models to the generic software product development model we find notable similarities (Figure 1). All models have a starting or a pre-production phase when a (game) product idea is defined and its feasibility is evaluated from the production and business viewpoint, a production phase when the actual product is developed, a quality assurance phase when the final quality of the product is tested, and a release phase when the project is wrapped up and the product is released to the customer. Manninen et al. (2006) address the postrelease activities, e.g. bug-fixes and user support, which are a natural part of the product life-cycle.

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The development and production activities are also quite similar between the game production models and the software product development model. The multidisciplinary nature of game production forms the greatest difference. While the activities in the software product development model focus solely on the software development and testing, the game production activities include the cooperative work of artists, animators, game designers, level designers, musicians, and programmers. Although production modes and best practices exist, surprisingly many game production projects do not utilize well-known project management practices. Some of these productions still manage to be highly successful (Larsen 2002). This shows that there is not one right way to do or teach game production, but also that production training has its place.

2 Three Perspectives to Computer Games Computer game research and education includes three academic perspectives depicted in Figure 2. The Humanistic perspective is concerned with how a game affects and changes the users, gaming communities, other social networks, and society at large. The Business perspective is concerned with the economics around computer games. As an example, this includes issues of competing in the marketplace, productization, and investment strategies. The Construction perspective deals with the actual making of an executable computer game.

Fig. 2. Three perspectives that affect the game production process.

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Although each of the perspectives provides essential topics for study, in this paper we focus on the construction perspective. In other words, our viewpoint is the constructional aspects of software development in the domain of computer games. This has four sub-perspectives: 1. Game design: What is the intended end-user experience and what game elements contribute to it? 2. Content creation: What are the entertainment artefacts and functionalities and how they are represented? 3. Game programming: How to implement the software mechanisms that serve the content creation so that the game design goals are achieved? 4. Software construction: How to weave the digital game components into the executable game? These perspectives target product design and development and they categorize the main artistic and technical concerns in the making of computer games. Let us consider how the perspectives relate to one another. Game design encapsulates the vision, intention, concept and theme of a game. For example, it includes activities for designing the back-stories, composing the opposing forces and major roles, and developing the synthetic participants, such as in-game characters, sidekicks, and deus ex machina. The game design is a creative process but it is governed by the rules of play, since we need an outcome that fulfils the definition of a game. Nowadays, there are high demands on the aesthetics, end-user experience, and re-playability of a game. To meet these challenges cost-effectively the game design is implemented on two fronts at the same time. Simply put, the intended features of the game can be divided into art and technology. The ‘art’ is entertainment content, which is run by the technology platform. The platform requires specialized programming effort in some form even if it is purchased. These two fronts require deep expertise, and thus they form their own profession. However, these areas of expertise are not disassociated in game development, instead, one of the key challenges is how to bring them together. In other words, when making a game we have to consider, for example, programming, 3-D modelling, and animation together. The game industry has pioneered finding practices and technologies for the interaction of many disciplines, such as computer science, art and design, business, management, and productization. One can argue that game development is an expertise area in itself that connects these disciplines. Software construction involves practices and tools for integrating the art and technology assets of the game into one executable system. This is an often complex technical process that is automatized as far as possible. Because all these perspectives are present at the same time in a game, they are often developed in parallel: at first the emphasis is on the game design and gradually, as the game attributes and features become fixed, the focus moves towards

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content creation and software system issues. However, it is only seldom possible to stabilize and freeze the whole game design. Thus, there must be feedback activities that evaluate and control the possible changes to the game design. This uncertainty is intrinsic to software development and it arises from the digital nature of computer programs. Especially due to different cost structures, the making of software differs considerably from the manufacturing process for physical products. In this article we identify challenges and opportunities that lie in the teaching of game production. Then we go through three cases based on different course formats we have used to teach game production. After the presentation of each of the cases we summarize the lessons learned from the course types. Lastly, we conclude our article.

3 Teaching Game Production: Opportunities and Challenges Originally, the teaching of the game production process itself has not been our main goal in any of the courses we have taught. Our curriculum has included other game related issues, such as game algorithms, artificial intelligence, object programming patterns, interactive storytelling, game design, and co-operation between artists and programmers. Since our university does not have a degree program in making games our goal is to teach the students general skills within computer science and software engineering. Even so, we constantly end up with course formats where students go through the game production cycle. The reason is that using game production as an educational format creates several opportunities: •

• • •

•

Versatile but demarcated setting. From the teachers’ point of view a game can serve as a mixing pot for various study subjects within a curriculum. Also, the project-like form of instruction shows how to distinguish and intermix the essential activities and work products. Pragmatic teaching approach. It is easier for a student to understand advanced issues connected to the game content when the students actually make the games. Higher motivation. The students are motivated by real game development; simple tic-tac-toe assignments do not intrigue the students. Visible results. A working game demonstrates the acquired knowledge, e.g., have the students made rational decisions and have they fulfilled the given requirements and specifications. Also, in a game the user features are presented more visually than in the other kinds of software products. General applicability. We claim that computer game development is one of the most challenging software product domains, and thus students also learn beneficial practices used throughout the software industry (Hakonen 2006) and in the multimedia industry in general.

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There are also several challenges in using game production as a teaching method: Sufficient multidisciplinary teaching skills. To facilitate this extrapolation, the teacher, or the group of teachers collectively, should have profound experience on the whole computer game domain, teaching methods, and project work. • Readiness to learn. The students participating in the game development courses must be proficient at their own field of study. The digital design and art students should have traditional visual art skills as well as experience with the software tools used for digital art creation. The software developers should master programming and information system design. However, they must also be able to apply the acquired knowledge in the game domain and be ready to work in teams and to quickly learn new work practices. • Uncertainty. It is not uncommon that in advanced education the resources are scarce, the working environment is volatile, and the planned results change over time. For this reason the students must be able to cope with uncertainty and to have confidence that the topics get more understandable later. • Controlled simplification. Over-simplification of complicated and intertwined topics can lead to misconceptions and conceptual distortions that ruin the learning experience. However, to keep the project feasible and manageable we have to reduce the requirements for the teaching. Apart from getting rid of irrelevant details, we recommend that the inherent complexity of the domain knowledge is preserved. We claim that injecting more assumptions, i.e. non-volatile requirements and forces, into real-world project carries out the actual simplification. •

When game production is taught within a concrete software development project we have to know how to actually configure the project. In general, the setting of the project configuration is as follows. Before starting the project the teacher must determine what are the educational goals to be demonstrated with respect to the actual real world issues. Next, the teacher establishes the perspectives from where the selected study topics are to be approached. Then, by using hands-on experience and imagination, the teacher collects the simplifying assumptions so that the project becomes feasible without loosing the intention and the central aspects of the real world work. In our case, we select and abstract topics within computer game development. For example, the goal can be an introduction to multiplayer gaming via a local area network (LAN) and the perspective can be a construction of communication technology. From this sub-domain we can select the topic, for example, the implementation of proper balance between consistency and responsiveness for a given game. To simplify the project, we can stipulate the LAN connections are slow and have narrow bandwidth, the self-steering software team is located into one room, and the customers only want to see the alpha-release of the game with just the placeholder graphics in place. Note that although the project can be configured to be simple, the inherent complexity can be kept: the project, product, and process issues can be presented together by adjusting their balance intentionally (Hakonen et al. 2008). Consequently, the students recognize all the key expertise fields and interest groups that are concerned with game production.

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4 Case 1: Traditional Assignment Course In a traditional assignment course the students form a team and solve the given problem assignment as a homework exercise. The teachers observe and monitor the development but avoid partaking in the actual work. In the software development industry this kind of arrangement is called outsourcing, and the goal of the assignment is to implement a complete computer system. To concentrate the students’ effort on the relevant issues the teachers lecture the theory behind the selected study topics beforehand. Hence, the assignment should demonstrate the practical applications of those theories. Although the course concentrates on the production phase of a game project, the preceding phases must also be taken into account. To give the students grounding for ideas each student analyses individually some existing game that fits in with the course topics. Then each student writes a game treatment that suggests the main ideas and features for the new game. These game treatment documents form the basis from where the actual game concept is developed at the beginning of the production phase. To keep project management issues simple one team consisting of three to five students runs the game production lifecycle. If more students have enrolled for the course the same assignment is given for each of the teams.

Fig. 3. The main activities of the traditional assignment course.

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The main activities of the course type are illustrated in Figure 3. The project work can be divided into three phases: inception, construction, and conclusion. At first in the inception, the teachers prepare the assignment and the theory lectures. This activity begins with selecting the study topics, outlining the game concept, and determining the results of the pre-production phase. These three work products determine the perspective and depth of the theory issues that are tackled in the project. Then, the project setting is introduced to the students in lectures where the theoretical backgrounds are taught. To support the game production aspect the lectures should include practical guidance for solving the most crucial problems. Whereas the lectures ascertain that the students’ starting levels match the pre-requirements, presentation of the actual assignment acts as a decision point where the students either commit themselves to or drop out of the course. The presentation of the assignment is one of the key activities for the successful execution of the assignment. The assignment milestones, communication mechanisms and practices between the teachers and the students, references to guidance and extra resources, and the grading principles should be written explicitly for the students. This focuses the students’ work on the assignment and they do not have to consider the organizational details of the assignment itself. An the beginning of the course the students are taught and prepared for the forthcoming teamwork. Especially if the students already have experience in teamwork and the assignment is extensive the teachers can advise how to divide the work into sub-teams. However, the main idea of a traditional assignment course is that the students organize their own work during the more elaborated design and creation of the game. The teachers’ role is not to control how the team operates, nor how the development conflicts become resolved, or what tactical decisions are made. Thus, this is the most demanding project course format we give to our students. The teachers act as outside customers and they follow the progress through the project milestones set in the assignment. As an example, a teacher assesses the feasibility of the work plans. The teachers also provide external support on request for the project, for example, by advising, guiding, and coaching in situations that stop the project. In extreme cases, the teachers can intervene and freeze the project until the problems are analyzed and further actions are found. It should be noted that the rationale for this kind of autonomous assignment is to teach tacit knowledge about software development in teams. For example, the students should find out themselves how to take responsibility, communicate, and share know-how. From our experience, if the students have sufficient base competence and the preceding activities are effective, they do not need extensive assistance to accomplish advanced results. As with the projects in general, the assignment has a strict deadline after which the students present the game, demonstrate its features and write a post-mortem document about the project. The writing of a post-mortem from a game project is a retrospective practice where the participants list and analyze the most influential successes and failures. In addition to ending discussions the post-mortem document sums up the tactical and strategic lessons learned and it provides the teachers

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feedback from the inception and construction phases. Lastly, the teachers evaluate the results and grade the students on the team level. We prefer not to evaluate each student individually because a team should be seen as one development unit; the balancing and fairness issues must be considered during the project, not after it. In principle, a student can be expelled from a project but in our experience, situations have never escalated into this.

5 Case 2: Research Laboratory Course In a research laboratory course the students examine a scientific problem alongside the teachers, work on a practical solution to it, and report the results of the work to the whole class. Usually, the course is at an advanced level because it requires the participants to have pragmatic skills of collaboration and knowledge acquiring methods. In the software development industry similar work is carried out in customer-on-site projects. This course format has two goals. Firstly, the students learn about the newest scientific topics and they have hands-on training into scientific work. Secondly, the teachers, who are also researchers, benefit from fresh ideas and possibly new solutions to the research topic. In our case this kind of cooperation has often lead on to further studies and even to joint research. The latest instance of this course we held focused on software technologies, and especially, how certain object-oriented design patterns affect the software architecture of a multiplayer game. When the research question is a specific and mainly technical one the influence of the preceding and succeeding phases of the game project can be reduced. This lessens the risk of failure, although the outcome of the project tends to stay unpredictable until the deadline. However, this also poses an educational problem because we are leaving out real-world problems concerning, for example, the launching of the project. Fortunately, the problem has adequate solutions, and as an example, it is possible to organize a separate project course without a detailed construction phase. To keep project management as simple as possible one team includes five to seven students. If more students have enrolled for the course the same problem is given for each of the teams and the teams are encouraged to balance between cooperation and friendly competition on technical and content issues. Also, if the problem turns out to have many differentiating aspects the teams can share them. The main activities of the course type are depicted in Figure 4. The project work consists of three phases: inception, cooperative construction, and conclusion. In the inception, the teachers also conduct the whole preproduction phase. At first, the teachers prepare the assignment on their research questions and this activity determines the main concerns of the project. Then, to make the experiment repeatable and to have case setting the teachers design the game concept and features. The game design is used for constraining the general research question; the idea is to have a nontrivial case example that is feasible to solve with the given resources.

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Fig. 4. The main activities of the research laboratory course.

The assignment and the game design are presented to the students after which they commit themselves to the course. Finally, the teachers guide the students to organize the teamwork, practices, methods, and development tools. Unlike in the traditional assignment course, the inception phase can be rather informal as the research problem is well-defined. The construction phase of the pre-made game design is realized in several iterations where the teachers and the students work alongside each other. The students make decisions and construct the game mainly at the operational and tactical levels. They are responsible for software and game level design, iteration planning, system and content development, and unit testing. To aid the construction the teachers can also operate at the tactical level but they should avoid affecting the results. Instead of giving ready solutions the teachers reveal on a need-to-know basis what aspects and alternatives the students should consider. In other words, the teachers act as on-site customers who are interested in outcomes, not means. This puts the students into a situation where they have to think out proper questions and possibly find out unforeseen answers. The teachers control the strategic work by organizing frequent follow-up meetings where they verify the progress, prioritize the game features, and guide the forthcoming tasks.

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The construction phase has a strict deadline after which the project proceeds to the conclusion phase. At first, the students present the game, demonstrate its features, and discuss the project in retrospect. Unlike in the traditional assignment course the teachers should write the post-mortem document because they are more experienced in reflecting scientific issues. Then, the teachers evaluate the outcomes and grade the students. Although we consider the team as one, individual grading is also possible because the iteration work has been transparent and the game design is complex enough that it leads to clearly specialized and dedicated roles. Lastly, the teachers, preferably together with the students, analyze and report the scientific results. Often, this results in other research questions, study papers, and theses.

6 Case 3: Intensive Production Course In an intensive production course the students and the teachers work together as one team to produce a computer game that demonstrates both digital art and software technology. The production goal is to create a functional game prototype in a short period of time. The project proceeds in intensive workdays of six to eight hours at one site with inter-connected computers. In the software development industry this is called as customer-as-expert project. Due to intensiveness each participant must attend all the workdays to be at the team-mates’ disposal and to keep up with the project pace. The educational goal of the course is to encourage students having dissimilar backgrounds, i.e., digital art and software technology, to work together. Also, we foster mutual learning and extending understanding of the multidisciplinary nature of game development. The main focus of the course is collaboration between the different disciplines resulting in a working computer game. This approach gives us leeway to adjust what we want to emphasize in the course without changing its format. For example, if all the participants are already familiar with the development tools of their own expertise area and skilled in versioning tools, more content creation and technological challenges can be tackled in the course. On the other hand, it is possible to emphasize the challenges in multimedia design and art by selecting ready-made technology platforms with uncomplicated scripting languages. Thus, the teachers can put the students in such a situation where they keep motivated: the students have meaningful tasks from their own discipline, but at the same time they have to understand their impact on the whole. The latter is not possible without collaboration over discipline boundaries. As with the other course types, we prefer one-team co-located projects because we want simple communication practices. Because the project has many disciplines and the teachers also work as team members, each team has a number of members with various skill-sets. To keep the number of participants between ten and twenty the students apply to the course with curriculum vitae. This also allows the teachers to plan the course adjustments, possible sub-teams, and role descriptions beforehand. From these three course types this

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one is the most challenging for the teachers because the schedule is tight, the workdays turn sporadically into chaos that must be managed, and in-advance and on-the-fly planning have to be balanced constantly. The main activities of this course type are presented in Figure 5. The project work has three phases: inception, continuous construction, and conclusion. In the beginning of the inception the teachers prepare a preliminary schema for the course assignment and setup the infrastructure for the project. For example, we have had an intensive production course for a non-violent shooter game and for a humorous point-and-click game. The actual game idea and design are still left open. The inception ends with assignment presentation where the students are introduced to the project topics and facilities. Because the students have passed the application process they are already committed to the course. The continuous construction begins with an open debate and brainstorming on the game ideas, their possibilities and the students’ interests in them. It is important that at this stage the students form a mental bond with the game, and thus, the teachers should act only as moderators. Then, the most promising ideas are refined and among them the core game idea is selected. The actual project work iterates

Fig. 5. The main activities of the intensive production course.

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the idea into a computer game. The teachers take the responsibility for project management and product level quality assurance. Their first activity is to organize teamwork, practices, methods, and development tools. Then, they coach and guide the students, verify art assets and software quality, resolve workflow conflicts, and plan and prioritize the creation process. In other words, the teachers act as on-site customers who are experts on the disciplines and actively participate in the development of the game. The students are responsible for game design and its implementation with digital art and software technology. In other words, they have to make decisions on the game creation from the operational level up to the strategic level. For example, a level designer must look after the playability and immersion of the game. The most difficult problems arise from where the disciplines are bound tightly together into one. As with the other course types the construction phase has a deadline at which the conclusion phase begins. Despite the teachers participation in the project the students present the game in the final project meeting. The relaxed atmosphere fosters open retrospective discussions and the teachers can verify their understanding about the successes and failures before writing the post-mortem document. Finally, the teachers evaluate the results and grade the students. As in the traditional assignment course we prefer to evaluate only the team as one unit because in this kind of intensive project individual work is subject to circumstances.

7 Lessons Learned from Cases Previous chapters described the main activities of the three different teaching approaches and showed the differences between the approaches. In this chapter we define the common characteristics of three approaches and summarize the key lessons learned during the courses. Lesson 1: Game production provides a natural framework for project courses. Game production provides a suitable context for project oriented courses. This is because the assignment projects done in each approach are not mock-up projects which are constructed to suite the teaching needs. Instead, game production acts as a practical framework and the pedagogical elements are injected into that. This might explain why the students are motivated to pass these courses and feel that the course setting is rather realistic. Lesson 2: Larger team sizes have to be managed. Another characteristic of game production is that productions are usually self-organizing one team projects. This might make course organization and evaluation harder when the course size increases. We have found two methods to handle the problem: 1) Divide the students into smaller teams with their own responsibilities or 2) Divide the students into smaller teams and give the same production task to each. With the latter method it is surprising that the teams always end up with completely different results.

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Lesson 3: Course formats do not restrict what kind of games can be developed. During the courses presented in the case study the students have produced a wide variety of different games from 2D real time strategy games to 3D shooters. It must been admitted that none of the games would have met modern commercial standards, but with further development some of the games would well be equal to modern shareware or independent games. Since the majority of the students have been computer science and engineering students, the emphasis of the game development has been on the technical issues of game production. Still, some of the games have also been visually appealing. During the courses some of the student groups have been experimenting with unorthodox game concepts. It can be said that the course formats presented do not set restrictions themselves on what kind of games can be produced. Of course, the timeframe of an average university course set certain limits on what can be done and how polished the resulting games will be. Lesson 4: The assignment format can be seen as easy for the teachers but there are pitfalls to look out for. For the teachers the project courses are basically easy because the students do most of the work. Of course, the preparation of the course and the assignment have to be done well so that students can focus on the assignment work itself. In the research lab and the intensive course approaches the preparation activities can be seen as a part of the pre-production of the game and therefore these preparations directly affect the end results of the course. The teachers have to follow the students work throughout the course and coach them as needed. The success of this task depends on the activity and skills of the students. Lesson 5: Pre-production and production steps were emphasized during the projects, but the whole production cycle was done. Although the main goal of our courses has been on teaching game production related issues, not game production itself, it is important to know which parts of game production the presented approaches teach. If we compare the workflow models of each teaching approach and generic game production models, we can see that the activities of the preproduction and production phases are emphasized. However, all the most characteristic activities of game production models are included in the course structures in one way or another. The only significant part that was missing from our courses was the business aspect of game production. It can be said that the basic activities of a non-commercial small scale game project are the same as the activities of a large scale commercial game project. Only the scale is different. Therefore the previously presented teaching approaches give students a good insight into actual game production. In addition to the production phases, the taught production disciplines are another important factor to be considered. As mentioned before, basically all activities of a game production have been done in a small scale during the courses and therefore all disciplines of game production are covered, from digital arts to software technologies. The emphasis between the disciplines is adjustable via the course objectives and needs. Alas, the teachers have to set the main focus of the course and understand that the student may not have excellent skills in each necessary discipline.

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Lesson 6: Game production teaches skills that can be used outside the game production domain. Yet another issue to be considered is how well the skills learned using the presented approaches can be generalized outside the domain of game production. During a game production course, software engineering students can deepen their knowledge of the software engineering issues, since the game production process resembles the general software engineering process so much. The skills obtained are also applicable to other kinds of software projects besides game production. The multidisciplinary nature of game production teaches the software engineering students that during software projects there are lots of other things to be taken into consideration other than just programming the applications. The multidisciplinary nature also makes the game production project more challenging to manage but at the same time makes concepts like project roles and release integration more concrete for the students. From this perspective it can be said that game production assignments are good all-around project management and team work practice. The comparison done between the game production models and the software product development model in the introductory chapter reveals that game production is actually a product development process rather than just a software engineering or art production process. This means that the end result of the process is a complete package which can be more easily evaluated than an individual algorithm demo or a prototype application. At the same time the starting requirements have to be set more carefully and end-user needs have to be taken into consideration throughout the process. This finding might at least partially explain other lessons presented in this chapter.

8 Conclusions In the computer game industry a production project binds together many perspectives and disciplines by inventive balancing of conflicting interests. Because the balancing decisions culminate in the game product, game creation is a holistic process. In other words, it is not possible to isolate the disciplines such as digital art and software technology assets, project activities (e.g., requirement management, risk management, budgeting, resource allocation, prioritization, quality assurance, and motivation), productization, product line management (i.e., strategic business decisions on products), and marketing from each other without losing a realistic representation of the game development. However, due to time and budget limitations game creation education cannot take into account all of these perspectives at the same time. Instead of being content with mock-up projects where some of the production perspectives are just ignored, we have identified three project schemas used in the software development industry that also suit to student projects. The traditional assignment course emphasizes game production work, the research laboratory course

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focuses on technological design and implementation of a game, and the intensive production course weight collaboration among selected game disciplines (in our case digital art and software technology). These three case schemas demonstrate that it is possible to arrange game projects for students that have both educational goals and reflect the projects in the software industry in general. There are game production models as well as general software product development models that support this observation. The successful injection of the educational goals into the game projects is also well-founded; the details are discussed in (Hakonen et al. 2008). The three game project schemas include much software technology work because computer games are always executable programs, and hence, the software platform runs the game content. We utilize this relationship to give the project adaptations concrete form and to determine the consequences. For example, there are tried practices for estimating how much time certain software implementation work takes. From a study topic aspect the reason is that we have wide know-how on how to implement the game technicalities (Smed and Hakonen 2006). However, it is a misconception to believe that the essence of a computer game comes from technological solutions. The game must have an intriguing end-user experience (entertainment, education, or of any other kind) that is only obtained by creative content and playability. Both the teachers and the students of the Digital Arts division lead the development on this front. To sum up, the teaching of game production requires that the teachers jointly understand the practicalities of the computer game domain, education methods, software development projects in general, and the ludic values of game playing. Thus they can provide the students with an enlightening experience of, not only game production, but also general software production and modern teamworking practices.

References Chandler, H. M. (2006). The Game Production Handbook. Game Development Series, Charles River Media. Hakonen, H. (2006). Game Industry versus Software Industry: Similarities and Differences. In A. Tuominen (Ed.), New Exploratory Technologies 2006 (pp. 124–132). Salo. Hakonen, H., Mäkilä, T., Smed, J., & Best, A. (2008). Learning to Make Computer Games: An Academic Approach. TUCS Technical Report 899, Turku Centre for Computer Science, Finland. Hohmann, L. (2003). Beyond Sofware Architecture – Creating and Sustaining Winning Solutions. Addison-Wesley Signature Series, Addison-Wesley Professional. Larsen, S. (2002). Playing the Game: Managing Computer Game Development. Technical Report International Edition. Version 1.1. Blackwood Interactive. Manninen, T., Kujanpää, T., Vallius, L., Korva, T., & Koskinen, P. (2006). Game Production Process – A Preliminary Study. Technical Report v1.0. Ludocraft/ELIAS-project. Smed, J. & Hakonen, H. (2006). Algorithms and Networking for Computer Games. UK, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

Design and Architecture of Sidh – a Cave Based Firefighter Training Game Mikael Lebram, Per Backlund, Henrik Engström and Mikael Johannesson University of Skövde, School of Humanities and informatics P.O. Box 408, SE-54128 Skövde, Sweden [email protected]

Abstract: This paper presents the architecture of a game-based training simulator environment developed in collaboration with the Swedish Rescue Services Agency (SRSA). The learning objectives for the game relates to training of firefighters for Breathing Apparatus Entry, and in particular to develop systematic search strategies. The hardware and software system is based on off-the-shelf computer components in combination with tailor made units. The game has been developed as a Half-Life 2 mod – extended to be played in a cave using 5 standard gaming PCs in a local area network. The game environment is a cave where the player is surrounded by four 80” screens giving a 360 degree view of a virtual world. Each screen is projecting a fixed-angle view of the virtual world and the player’s orientation in the virtual world corresponds to her orientation in the real world. A novel interaction model has been developed for the game in order for it to be played in the cave. The player navigates and performs game actions using course body movements which are captured through a set of sensors.

1 Introduction Simulator training is becoming more and more common and is used in a number of situations. Recently, there is a movement towards utilizing computer games and computer game technology to achieve adequate functionality for, e.g., training (Zyda 2005; Squire and Jenkins 2003; LoPiccolo 2004; Backlund et al. 2006). This effort is commonly referred to as serious games (Serious Games Initiative 2007). Even though serious games may have many applications training is considered to be a major one. Consider the following usage scenario. Steve is in training to become a firefighter. He is just about to start a simulator training session. Wearing his boots, coat and air mask he enters the cave to meet his virtual instructor. Steve receives his mission via the air mask radio unit. He is instructed to search the premises and save all victims. The hallway is filled with thick smoke and Steven has to take a low position to see below it. From the crouching position he can orientate himself to see that there are three doors, one 19 M. Kankaanranta and P. Neittaanmäki (eds.), Design and Use of Serious Games, 19–31. © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009

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on each wall, apart from the one he just entered. Remembering his tactics he chooses to open the first door on his right and enters the bathroom. Still crouching, he finds the room empty and checks that there is no one in the bathtub. Steve returns to the hallway and continues his search to the right to find the bedroom. The bed is on fire and he moves along the wall, searching behind furniture and in closets. He finds an unconscious man in the far end of the room and lowers the fogfighter nozzle to pick him up. Steve sees that the fire is increasing in strength and that his stamina is decreasing to a critical level. He has to get out quickly in order to gain health. The instructor asks him whether the search is completed. Steve remembers the third door and reenters the apartment. After the mission Steve enters the virtual debriefing room with an information board and an overview of the apartment. The assignment is evaluated and the areas covered by the search are highlighted. Steve gets feedback from the virtual instructor and the mission is summarized on the information board. In this paper we present the architecture and software solution for a game based firefighter simulator based on a commercial computer game and computer game technology. Our solution implements an advanced game based simulation, with a novel interaction mode, to be played on multiple screens (i.e. in a cave) which can be used for training and simulation. The utilization of standard off the shelf hardware has produced a cost-effective solution in a relatively short time. The game itself has been developed in close cooperation with the Swedish Rescue Services Agency in order to guarantee accurate content and relevant scenarios.

2 Background In this section we will introduce the central concepts of serious games and some applications to the subject area of firefighter training.

2.1 Serious Games Today, the term serious games is becoming more and more popular, see e.g. (Serious Games Initiative 2007; LoPiccolo 2004). The term itself is established, but there is no current singleton definition of the concept. Zyda (2005, 26) defines a serious game as: “a mental contest, played with a computer in accordance with specific rules, which uses entertainment to further government or corporate training, education, health, public policy, and strategic communication objectives.” Furthermore, Zyda (2005) argues that serious games have more than just story, art, and software. It is the addition of pedagogy (activities that educate or instruct, thereby imparting knowledge or skill) that makes games serious. However, he also stresses that pedagogy must be subordinate to story and that the entertainment component comes

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first. In our work we define serious games as games that engage the user, and contribute to the achievement of a defined purpose other than pure entertainment (whether or not the user is consciously aware of it). A game’s purpose may be formulated by the game’s designer or by the user her/himself, which means that also a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) game, used for non-entertainment purposes, may be considered a serious game. The desired purpose, i.e. a serious game, can be achieved through a spectrum ranging from the mere utilization of game technology for non-entertainment purposes to development of specifically designed games for some non-entertainment purpose or the use and/or adaptation of commercial games for non-entertainment purposes. We also propose that any combination of the above would constitute a feasible way to achieve the desired effect. Serious games can be applied to a broad spectrum of application areas, e.g. military, government, educational, corporate, and healthcare. A question of interest concerns the claimed positive effects of such games, or of applications from related and sometimes overlapping areas such as e-learning, edutainment, gamebased learning, and digital game-based learning. In addition to obvious advantages, like allowing learners to experience situations that are impossible in the real world for reasons of safety, cost, time, etc. (Corti 2006; Squire and Jenkins 2003), serious games, it is argued, can have positive impacts on the players’ development of certain skills. We also note that some of these positive effects of gaming are not necessarily associated with any specific training or information objectives. As discussed by Mitchell and Savill-Smith (2003) analytical and spatial skills, strategic skills and insight, learning and recollection capabilities, psychomotor skills, visual selective attention, etc. may be enhanced by playing computer games. Lager and Bremberg (2006) have summarized studies of the effects of playing computer games and indicate positive effects on motor and spatial skills. More specific positive impacts have been reported, e.g., by Enochsson et al. (2004), who found a positive correlation between experience in computer games and performance in endoscopic simulation by medical students. The better performance of gamers is attributed to their three-dimensional perception experience from computer gaming. The positive effects of games may hence be further utilized if we can identify the correct content and accurately exploit the user’s experience as a driving force for developing serious games. Swartout and van Lent (2003) identify the areas of experience-based systems and experience based education as potentially benefiting from such a game-based approach. The general idea is to influence users by exposing them to some type of experience. Even though gaming is not a replacement for simulation it may well serve as a complement in some regards (Sawyer 2005). In this sense we find the intersection between gaming and simulation to be an interesting one. The goal is hence to retain the immersion and motivating factors by means of a game element and to utilize computer game technology as a cost effective way to achieve the capacity of a mid range simulator (Lebram et al. 2006). In particular, game based training simulators (i.e. serious games) are feasible when training risky missions in inaccessible or dangerous environments.

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2.2 Immersive Visualization There are several ways of visualizing virtual worlds in order to offer a more immersive experience to the viewer than can be achieved using ordinary computer displays. The choice of visualization system depends on in what purpose it shall be used and, what resources in terms of time, space and finances are available. 2.2.1 Head Mounted Displays The term HMD is used on a category of visualization systems which presents a virtual world directly in front of the viewer’s eyes, via one or two small displays. Used with a head tracking system the viewer is able to look at different parts of the world by turning his/her head. There are many different types of HMD:s in the market, for instance helmets, goggles, and lightweight glasses. There are also a number of features which may be supported by a HMD device, such as stereoscopic vision, semi transparent displays, et cetera. A common property of HMD:s is, however, relatively low resolution and a small field of view. 2.2.2 EVL CAVE A CAVE is an, usually super computer based, environment for visualization of, and interaction with virtual models and worlds. The first CAVE (CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment) was developed by Electronic Visualization Laboratory (1991). The purpose was to build a system for scientific visualization, with high demands on performance (Cruz-Neira et al. 1993). The original CAVE had three walls, consisting of screens for rear projection, and measures 2.5 × 2.5 × 2.5 meters. On the walls and the floor stereoscopic scenes are presented for a viewer, whose head movements are tracked in order to correct the projection in real time. The viewer is also able to interact with the virtual world, for instance by using a special glove. Several variations of CAVE have been built since 1991. One example is the six-sided VR-CUBE which was built at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in 1998 (Center for Parallel Computers 1998). Here the viewer is completely surrounded by video and audio from the virtual world – in all directions.

2.3 Fire Fighter Training The Swedish Rescue Services Agency (SRSA) is the government authority responsible for the training of fire and rescue operatives. All municipal fire and

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rescue services staff are trained and certified by the SRSA. Breathing Apparatus Entry (BAE) is one of the tasks a firefighter has to perform. It is of crucial importance that the firefighter can remain orientated with very limited or no vision in a building. Traditionally the firefighter students practice search methods with and without smoke in different physical buildings. Training is typically organized to start without smoke where students use a mask with translucent visor. This type of training is time consuming and requires flexible buildings. The optimal training for BAE search methods would be in an environment with a great number and types of buildings. Training would also be more efficient if students could practice individually yet with professional feedback and evaluation.

2.4 Virtual Environments for Fire Fighter Training As firefighters have to handle extreme tasks there is a continuous need to develop training programs to prepare for such tasks (Lasky 2004). There exist a number of reports of the use of virtual environments for firefighter training in the literature. Tate et al. (1997) present a study where a virtual environment training system was used to prepare shipboard firefighters for a mission. The virtual environment allowed users, equipped with a HMD device, to navigate in a 3D-model of the exUSS Shadwell fire research and test ship. A group of 12 trained firefighters participated in a study where their performance in a firefighting training mission was evaluated. Half the group was offered traditional mission preparation and the other half prepared using the virtual environment. The result of the evaluation showed that the second group had a better performance than the group using traditional preparation. In a different study, Julien and Shaw (2003) present a virtual firefighter command training environment which allows its users to inspect a house on fire and to command virtual firefighters. The fire is extinguished by issuing the correct sequence of commands to the firefighters. Perdigau et al. (2003) present an application for managing virtual reality scenarios and their main scenario is a Firefighter Training Simulation used for crisis situations training and understanding. There are also examples on commercial simulation software used for firefighter training. The tactical command trainer is a tool from VectorCommand Ltd. (2008) which allows users to train emergency management.

3 SIDH – The Game The main goal with SIDH was to develop a cave-based simulator game for training BAE. The project was carried out by expertise in game development and serious

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games, in close cooperation with expertise in firefighter training from SRSA. The game is not intended to replace conventional training, but rather to be used as a complement with focus on search strategies and ability to orient in unknown premises. The game is to resemble real world BAE in as many aspects as possible. This means that the player’s task is to completely search different premises, with higher or lower complexity of the architecture, and rescue any persons inside. It should be possible to fill the premises with smoke, which, similar to real smoke, should be thinner close to the floor than close to the roof. The player should also be exposed to heat and physical and psychological stresses, which are characteristic parts of BAE. Furthermore, in respect of the educational purpose, it is crucial to record the player’s actions during a game session for later analysis. To reduce overhead time in the developing process, it was decided that the game was to be developed as a modification of a COTS game. In this way, the developers can focus on game content and specific features without first having to create an infrastructure from scratch. A feasibility study was committed in order to choose one of three common games - FarCry, Quake2 and Half-Life 2. All candidates were successfully modified to run in the cave environment. However, due to the realistic indoor environments and the ease of use of the level editor, Half-Life 2 was chosen as a platform for SIDH.

3.1 Cave Visualization The cave is constructed from standard consumer electronics components. The purpose is to create a flexible environment for 360 degrees visualizations of for example games and films. The four walls are each 160 cm wide and 210 cm high. The upper 120 cm of the walls consists of screens for rear projection. Each screen is projected by a standard LCD projector, connected to a PC (Figure 1). These computers are interconnected in an Ethernet network together with another computer which acts as a server. All five computers are standard gaming PC:s with regular graphics cards. The internal sound card of the server has been complemented with an external 5.1 sound card which delivers sound to four loudspeakers, one in each of the corners of the cave (Figure 1). Half-Life 2 is a multiplayer game which means that there is native network functionality for distributing information about the current state of the game objects. When playing a multiplayer game, one of the computers acts as a server responsible for controlling and synchronizing the progress of the game. When a server is running other computers in the network are able to connect and thereby become participating instances of the game running on the server. When playing SIDH in the cave, the actual game, i.e. the instance responsible for player input and game logic, is running on the server computer. The task of the

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Fig. 1. Schematic view of the cave.

four client computers is to visualize the game running on the server, why the clients always have to be updated about the player’s position and the state of the world. To achieve this, a native multiplayer feature called spectator mode is used. The original purpose of this feature is to make it possible for connected, but nonparticipating, clients to automatically follow and observe an active player. In that manner, the instances of the game running on the cave computers are observers, following the player on the server and hence showing the same view as the server without actually interacting with the game. The screens of the cave are however not to be clones of the server screen. Instead they should present the world in four different directions, one direction for each screen, with the same origin as the server player. In the implementation, the game view is defined by a camera which acts as the eyes of the player (or the spectator). The position and orientation of this camera decides what is shown on the screen. By setting the orientation of a client’s camera to a certain fixed direction, the client view will always show the world from that angle, regardless of the player orientation. Each view is thus rotated 90 degrees with respect to the adjacent screens. To produce the final 360 degree projection in the cave, the FOV (field-of-view) for the cameras were adjusted to 90 degrees. This is important since two adjacent views will overlap with a greater FOV value, and with a lesser value all parts of the world will not be visible at the same time.

3.2 Interaction Model One of the goals with SIDH has been to make the player’s interaction with the game as natural as possible. The player has to be able to move and look around in

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the virtual world, crouching as well as in a raised position. Moreover, it has to be possible to pick up and drop victims and control the game-flow. A problem about navigating in a cave environment is the lack of obvious directions in terms of forward, backward, left and right. Normally when playing a firstperson game, forward is defined by the center of the display, i.e. the direction in which the player is currently looking. Pressing the forward-key on the keyboard will always move the player in the desired direction since the world is rotating around the player and the keyboard. In the cave, on the other hand, it is not possible to use a single forward-key since the directions are fixed to the real world. Hence, in order to decide what direction is forward for a cave player it is necessary for the software to keep track of the player’s current orientation. In SIDH, this problem is solved by using a GameTrak, which is an USB-device working as a joystick with a string to pull as Z-axis. The GameTrak is placed centered in the top of the cave, top down, with the string attached to the fogfighter nozzle (Figure 2). In this way, the nozzle’s position in 3D-space can be calculated. Since there may be some discrepancy between the direction expected by the player and the calculated direction (due to player deviation from the center of the cave), the calculated forward direction is visualized as a marker on the screens. SIDH also calculates the nozzle’s distance to the floor in order to decide whether the player is crouching (to increase the sight in smoke-filled areas) or not. Since a low position is depending of the player’s height, the crouching threshold is dynamically adapted based on the highest nozzle position recorded during a mission. The information about the distance to the floor is also used to record so called markings. A marking is done by touching the floor with the nozzle, and is an action with different meanings in different phases of the game: • • • •

To start the game in the beginning of a level. To pick up found victims. To drop rescued victims. To confirm a completed search task.

One important aspect of the interaction model is to resemble some of the physical strain associated with BAE. This is done by using BAE gear inside the cave and by physical movement to navigate in the game. For the player to be able to move inside the cave, a device named Stepometer has been developed. The Stepometer is a gauge that allows the player to move forward in the game by walking or running on the spot. The device consists of two sensors which are attached to the player’s feet. Since the interaction is not depending on any fine motor activity at all, it is possible to let the SIDH player play the game using the same equipment as in BAE, i.e. coat, trousers, gloves, boots, helmet and air mask. Due to the look, feel and smell of the equipment this may be used to increase the player’s sense of realism. Since heat has a great influence on both physical and psychological stress during BAE, there was initially a discussion about placing infrared heaters on top of the

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Fig. 2. The string of the GameTrak (top right) is attached to the fogfighter nozzle (bottom right). NB, only one of the GameTrak’s two controls is used.

cave. This would result in a realistic heat distribution which would force the player to crouch in order to decrease heat exposure. However, the computers and the projectors produced enough heat to make the room uncomfortably hot. This temperature and the fact that the equipment preserved the body heat (resulting from the player’s physical effort) led to the decision that adding more heat would be a disadvantage concerning the entertaining aspects of the game. The air mask (Figure 3) is equipped with a radio receiver through which instructions from the virtual instructor is presented. To avoid interfering with the radio frequencies used by SRSA, the original radio system is replaced by two budget walkie-talkies. The other walkie-talkie works as a transmitter, connected to the internal sound card of the server. A slight modification of the software makes it possible to direct the voice of the instructor to this sound card, while all other sound effects are played back in the regular sound system.

3.3 Level Design The levels for SIDH have been created in the Hammer world editor which is included in the Half Life 2 edition. The Hammer world editor is a powerful tool. Apart from facilities for easy creation and texturing of elementary building blocks such as walls, floors, roofs and ceilings the editor also gives access to a number of pre-fabricated models of humans, furniture and other furnishing items. The prefabricated items have facilitated development work by reducing the number of specific models necessary to create for SIDH. Furthermore, the editor supports the manipulation of light, sound, smoke and fire to alter environments.

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Fig. 3. Air mask with radio unit.

The game flow is controlled by timers and triggers. Triggers are invisible objects which can be used to activate other objects or events such as, e.g., a fire to flare or a new level to start. As an example, a trigger may be activated when the player approaches it. All levels in the SIDH game must have a specific set up of triggers and timers to handle the game flow. Important elements to game functionality are recycled in all levels, thus reducing the over-head when creating new tracks. 13 different levels (Table 1) have been developed in close cooperation with the SRSA. There is also a tutorial in which the player gets to learn the game and the interaction mode and two bonus levels. The game covers a variety of flats, warehouses, shops and industry facilities to provide a relevant sample of environments for rescue personnel to train in. Each level provides new challenges with respect to size, complexity and smoke. The difficulty is also increased by shorter time limits and the degree of harm made to the player by smoke and fire. Furthermore, the game provides challenges in terms of unexpected situations, such as victims hidden in closets, and rooms difficult to locate. Other elements of stress are alarms, sirens, screaming victims and explosions. Each level starts with a female virtual instructor introducing the game task. The virtual instructor’s voice is personified by an instructor from the SRSA and the texture of the pre-fabricated models has been modified to resemble a real rescue personnel outfit. Each level ends in a debriefing room (Figure 4) where the player receives oral and visual feedback concerning his/her result. A level is completed when all rooms and areas have been scanned and all victims rescued within time limit and with preserved player stamina. If the result is unsatisfying, the virtual instructor will inform the player of this and the player gets a new chance. The number of trials on each level is maximized to three in order to expose the player to a variety of environments.

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Table 1. The levels of the game and their learning objectives. Level

Description

Objective

0

Tutorial

To handle the interaction model and game goals

1

Two-room apartment

To get a first contact with the game

2

Club building

To realize that time is limited

3

Garage

To realize the advantage of crouching in smoke-filled areas

4

Bonus level

To get a break

5

One-room apartment

To look in closets

6

Youth hostel

To handle large number of rooms

7

Office space

To handle complex corridor architecture, closet

8

Grocery store

To handle areas divided by shelves

9

Three-room apartment

To handle heavy fire, closet and limited time

10

Large apartment

To handle extremely limited sight in complex architecture

11

Basement storage area

To handle fenced areas filled with junk

12

Four-room apartment

To handle doors at unexpected positions

13

Hotel corridor

To handle numerous identical doors

14

Butcher shop

To handle veiled areas

15

Bonus level

To finish the game

Fig. 4. The debriefing room. The board presents achieved score and an overview of the premises. The bright fields in the map represent areas visited by the player.

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When a level is successfully completed the player will get a score based on the proportion of the facilities that has been searched, time spent on the task and whether it was the first, second or third trial. If the area covered by the search exceeds 90% the player will be awarded a star bonus which will also generate a bonus score on the following level.

4 Concluding Remarks The main contribution with the presented work is a training simulator developed with relatively simple means. SIDH is a cost effective immersive firefighter training game, which, according to personnel and students of SRSA, is entertaining as well as effective regarding learning of the intended tasks Backlund et al. (2007). We have demonstrated the feasibility and usefulness of an architecture for a game based immersive training simulator. The novel interaction mode adds to immersion by introducing physical aspects into the game. We have also shown that inherent game functionality can be used and extended to create a variety of levels with distinct learning goals. The source code has been modified to implement required features and the specialized game flow. An example of such a modification is the player’s health level, which is constantly decreasing when acting in smoke filled areas. Furthermore, specific logging functionality concerning the state and the activities of the player has been implemented in order to facilitate after action review. The modifications and amendments made to the original system serves as an illustration of the potential of game-based simulation. We have shown that this class of systems has a sufficient capacity to form basis for a training simulator. The success with SIDH is mainly depending on two factors – the close cooperation between SRSA and HIS and the utilization of common computer game technology. During the initial meetings the purpose of the game was discussed from different points of view. It was stated that even if it would be possible to simulate every aspect of a BAE operation, which would require a great amount of time and money, it would still be a simulation which cannot replace training in the real world. Hence, it was decided that the game should focus on search strategies and the ability to orient in unknown premises. These aspects were regarded as the ones which would gain the most from simulator training, due to the limited possibility of varying physical premises in the real world. Using Hammer world editor to create premises for SIDH, the architecture options are virtually unlimited. Acknowledgments: The authors would like to thank the personnel at the Swedish Rescue Services Agency (SRSA) for their advice on the subject matter. This work has been financed through the EU INTERREG IIIC DISTRICT project.

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References Backlund, P., Engström, H., & Johannesson, M. (2006). Computer gaming and driving education. Presented at the workshop Pedagogical Design of Educational Games affiliated to the 14th International Conference on Computers in Education (ICCE 2006). Beijing, China. Backlund, P., Engström, H., Hammar, C., Johannesson, M., & Lebram, M. (2007). Sidh – a Game Based Firefighter Training Simulation. Presented at the 11th International Conference Information Visualization (IV ’07). Zürich, Switzerland. Center for Parallel Computers. (1998). The PDC Cube. Royal Institute of Technology. http://www.pdc.kth.se/projects/vr-cube/. Accessed 7 February 2008. Corti, K. (2006). Games-based learning; a serious business application. White paper. The Serious Games Institute. http://www.pixelearning.com/serious_games-white_papers.htm. Accessed 8 February 2008. Cruz-Neira, C., Sandin, D., & DeFanti, T. (1993). Virtual Reality: The Design and Implementation of the CAVE. Presented at the SIGGRAPH 93 Computer Graphics Conference. ACM SIGGRAP,135-142. Electronic Visualization Laboratory. (1991). CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment. University of Illinois. http://www.evl.uic.edu/core.php?mod=4&type=1&indi=161. Accessed 7 February 2008. Enochsson, L., Isaksson, B., Tour, R., Kjellin, A., Hedman, L., Wredmark, T., & Tsai-Fellander, L. (2004). Visuospatial skills and computer game experience influence the performance of virtual endoscopy. Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery, 8 (7), 874–880. Julien, T. U. S. & Shaw, C. D. (2003). Firefighter command training virtual environment. In Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity In Computing. Proceedings of the 2003 Conference on Diversity in Computing (pp. 30–33). Atlanta, Georgia, USA: ACM. Lager, A. & Bremberg, S. (2005). Hälsoeffekter av tv- och datorspelande. En systematisk genomgång av vetenskapliga studier. Swedish National Institute of Public Health. Lasky, R. (2004). Firefighter survival training: from reactive to proactive. Fire Engineering, June, 117–119. Lebram, M., Engström, H., & Gustavsson, H. (2006). A driving simulator based on video game technology. Presented at SIGRAD 2006, Skövde, Sweden. LoPiccolo, P. (2004). Serious games. Computer Graphics World, 27(2). Mitchell, A. & Savill-Smith, C. (2003). The use of computer and video games for learning: A review of the literature. Learning and Skills Development Agency. Perdigau, P., Torguet, E. Sanza, C., & Jessel J.-P. (2003). A distributed virtual storytelling system for firefighters training. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Virtual Storytelling (pp. 227–230). November 2003, Toulouse, France. Sawyer, B. (2004). The serious games summit: emergent use of interactive games for solving problems is serious effort. Computers in Entertainment 2(1), 5. Serious Games Initiative. (2007). Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. http://www.seriousgames.org. Accessed 7 February 2008. Squire, K. & Jenkins, H. (2003). Harnessing the power of games in education. Insight, 3(1), 5–33. Swartout, W. & van Lent, M. (2003). Making a game of system design. Communications of the ACM, 46(7), 32–39. Tate, D. L., Sibert, L., & King, T. (1997). Virtual environments for shipboard firefighter training. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 17(6), 23–29. Vector Command Ltd. (2008). http://www.vectorcommand.com. Accessed 7 February 2008. Zyda, M. (2005). From visual simulation to virtual reality to games. Computer, 38(9), 25–32.

Human-Centred Design and Exercise Games Users’ Experiences of a Fitness Adventure Prototype Antti Väätänen and Jaana Leikas VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Tekniikankatu 1, Tampere, P.O. Box 1300, FI33101, VTT, Finland [email protected]

Abstract: Nowadays, there are advantageous fitness gadgets and measurement systems available as well as specific fitness and GPS mobile phones on the market. This development process has enabled the advancement of new kind of game-like fitness concepts. This development means that the design requirements for new exercise gaming concepts become more challenging, and consequently, the challenges for the design thinking increase. This paper presents the design process of the Fitness Adventure prototype, based on Human-centred Design (HCD) with some new conceptual tools such as form of life, making the design of the contents of experiences easier. Based on the user feedback and results of the design process we give practical guidelines for the design of exergames. Before introducing the exergame design principles, a short overview of the history of fitness games is introduced.

1 Introduction to Game Production User experience design is a central challenge in developing serious games. Therefore we have to ask in solving concrete design tasks the reflective question what is the right form of design processes. Here, we are interested in designing a serious game for late middle aged people using human-centred design tradition. Especially, we are going to focus on designing a fitness game and therefore we logically call attention to the specific problems in designing such games. Because of currently prevailing styles of life overweight and the lack of exercise are becoming a common problem among all age groups in the Western countries. As commonly known, even a small amount of daily physical activity, such as half on hour of brisk walking, could help in losing weight and strengthen one’s physical health. Maintaining a good ability to walk is known to be as such probably one of the key issues in the prevention of mobility-related disability (Asikainen et al. 2006; Van Heuvelen 2000). Physical exercise affects also mental health (Ruoppila 2002). 33 M. Kankaanranta and P. Neittaanmäki (eds.), Design and Use of Serious Games, 33–47. © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009

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It results in a feeling of well-being, with or without a relation to the characteristics of physical fitness, and increases social capabilities as well. Different levels of physical exercise can have remarkable effects on the functional physical capacity of the aging people. For example, the functionality of the cardiovascular system (the oxygen consumption) can be improved with the help of regular exercise. Moving from one place to another, e.g., running, cycling, and lifting and carrying loads can exceed oxygen consumption. Continued exercise has also proved to be an important means of preventing osteoporosis (Asikainen et al. 2006; Van Heuvelen 2000). In addition, receiving encouragement and support from a health care expert is known to be important for the aging persons. It has been suggested that physical activity counselling might increase the involvement in physical exercise (Rasinaho et al. 2006). Motivation plays a significant role in the exercise adherence. Rather than being a spontaneous behaviour carried out for fun and challenge, exercise is often accomplished for extrinsic reasons such as improved fitness or appearance (Ryan et al. 1997). However, such extrinsic motives often fail to sustain exercise activity over time. Also the intrinsic motivation (such as enjoyment and competence) remains a critical factor in sustained physical activity. In this respect, the exercise must be enjoyable and possibly even fun if the person is going to continue with it for any length of time. Although maintaining one’s physical condition and wellness at a good level when aging is important, there are not yet inspiring ways for middle-aged adults to keep fit. Solutions of ambient intelligence and mobile technology have now the potential to deliver motivating concepts for exercising and keeping fit. Exergames, in the sense of serious games with wireless sensor technology and mobile devices, can offer one solution to motivate people for keeping up a healthier life style. Nowadays, there are successful examples of new physical ways to play and approach the idea of gaming. The increasing popularity of fitness gadgets, GPS devices and phones with positioning features paves the way for mobile gaming, as well. These mobile and pervasive computing technologies were utilised in VTT’s Exergame project which focused on finding new motivating ways and playful contents for exercising (Lampila and Lähteenmäki 2006; Leikas and Lehto 2006; VTT 2008; Väätänen et al. 2007). In the Exergame, different game concepts were developed for different target groups. Based on the concept creation work, a Fitness Adventure game prototype was developed and evaluated with a group of middleaged Finnish persons. This paper presents design process of the Fitness Adventure prototype; the storyline, interaction methods, design process and user evaluations. Based on the results of this process we introduce user feedback of exergaming and give practical guidelines for the design of exergames. The paper also gives an overview of the history of exergames and introduces examples of specific games that are categorised into indoor and outdoor use.

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2 Indoor and Outdoor Fitness Games Atari’s Project Puffer, which was launched in 1982, was the first credible step in developing exercise games and user interfaces for exertion gaming (Atari Gaming Headquarters – Atari Project Puffer Page). It was a combination of a video game and exercise cycle. Other examples of prototypes with an exercise cycle as a control device are the Peloton bicycling simulator by Bell Laboratories (Carraro et al. 1998) and the Virku – a Virtual Fitness Centre by VTT (Lainio et al. 2001; Mokka et al. 2003) (Figure 1). At the moment, few manufacturers develop exercise cycles, exercise steppers and rowing machines which are meant to be used as control devices in games (3D Innovations 2008; InterAction Laboratores Inc 2008). There are traditional dance games, such as Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution and the free Stepmania game, which offer easy ways for exercising with music (Konami Digital Entertainment 2008; Stepmania). Höysniemi (2006) has studied dance games and discovered that they are can be an enjoyable and motivating way for playing and exercising at the same time. In the long run, they can even lead to a better fitness level of the users. However, these games and controllers are primarily developed for home and indoor use and may thus restrict the movements of the player. Due to a simple user interface of these kinds of games, the game content is often rather limited. Sony’s EyeToy cameras and Nintendo’s Wii-controllers are all popular light control devices for games but not originally meant to be used as exercise equipment (Nintendo 2008; Sony Computer Entertainment Europe 2008). Now, with launching the Wii Fit, a pressure sensitive board and applications related to it, Nintendo has shown serious interest towards the development of workout solutions. Potential indoor and outdoor environments for pervasive games are playgrounds, schools, theme parks and shopping malls. The Lappset group company launched SmartUs interactive playground products in 2006 (Lappset group Ltd 2008). The development of SmartUs utilised partly results of the research of interactive environments carried out by VTT. The first steps of this research at VTT were taken in the Lumetila (Virtual Space – User Interfaces of the Future) project that generated game prototypes utilising pressure sensitive floor tiles (Leikas et al. 2003) (Figure 2). In Lumetila’s Lumepong the player controls a racquet by moving on the 4X4 meter floor area. In another prototype of Lumetila, called Nautilus, a group of players can control an imaginary diving bell with their position and movements on the floor tiles. Immersion into the underwater world was created with the help of a large screen, light effects, and a 3D sound system (Strömberg et al. 2002). In VTT’s ubiPlay project a game creator and a floor tile game system was further developed and studied (Mattila and Väätänen 2006) (Figure 3). The game creator is a tool for creating playful contents for interactive playgrounds.

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Fig. 1. Example of an exercise cycle game: Virku – Virtual Fitness Centre User Interface.

Fig. 2. Example of floor tile system in the Lumetila project. (Graphical design: Tiina Kymäläinen, VTT).

Geocaching is a world wide and famous example of GPS solutions, but it is mainly focused in orienteering and doesn’t include real time interaction with GPS devices (Groundspeak Inc 2008a). Some tools for making GPS adventures and routes are available in the internet, e.g., EasyGPS and Wherigo are tools for creating interactive routes especially for GPS devices (EasyGPS; Groundspeak Inc 2008b). The applications can be used with GPS devices such as Magellan or Garmin by

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Fig. 3. Example of floor tile system in the ubiPlay project. (Photo: Antti Väätänen, VTT).

using GPX (the GPS Exchange Format) which is an XML data format that enables downloading GPS data from the internet (TopoGrafix 2008). Traditional GPS devices have constraints on their multimedia feedback features. However, some of the newest devices have features for e.g. playing mp3 sounds. Only a few research studies have focused on GPS games designed especially for fitness purposes (IPerG – Integrated Project of Pervasive Games). E.g., MOPET and ‘Ere be dragons’, application examples of these studies, run only in a PC (Davis et al. 2006; Buttussi et al. 2006). Nokia has published an open source development platform MUPE (Multi-User Publishing Environment) (Nokia Corporation 2008. Mupe – Main: Mupe (Nokia Corporation 2008a; Suomela et al. 2004). It is a platform for context-aware applications development and it supports multi-user solutions and GPS features. In addition to game applications, different cell phone companies have developed new models with integrated GPS or sport performance measurements features such as step counters (Nokia Corporation 2008b, Nokia Corporation 2008c, Sony Ericsson 2008). Large clothing companies have their intelligent clothing versions which are connectable to e.g. cell phones, mp3 players and heart rate monitoring systems (Adidas Ag and Polar Electro Oy 2008; Apple Inc 2008; Halti Ltd 2008).

3 Fitness Adventure Prototype The Fitness Adventure is a location based game prototype developed in the Exergame project. It is an outdoor game that utilises Series 60 mobile phone platform (S60 Home 2008) and a Bluetooth GPS receiver. The game includes cartoon like dialogues between different characters in the game, and, based on the conversations between the actors, the player should decide to which direction (s)he should

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be heading next in the game area (Figure 4). The game spots (overall 9 places) are different buildings or sightseeing places in the actual city district of Espoo. When the player enters to the spot that (s)he has selected, the GPS device recognises the player’s location and the game runs a scene that is related to the spot. Playing one game requires walking or running approximately 3 to 6 kilometres, depending on personal route selections. The game is not designed to measure physical performance or give feedback of the fitness level of the user. Its main purpose is to offer a new and joyful way to run or walk in different environments, thus motivating people to be more active and carry out outdoor exercise. In addition, it could be used to encourage the users to visit new surroundings and tourist attractions in a physically active way. The aim of frequent usage of the game is to increase the fitness level of the user in a long run. The game itself is a Java application and it reads signals from a Bluetooth GPS receiver with the help of Bluetooth bridge which communicates both with the game software and the GPS device. We used the Nokia N70 cell phone and the RoyalTek RBT2001, SIRF Star III Bluetooth receiver. The same setup was used in the user tests.

Fig. 4. Screenshots of Fitness Adventure. (Graphical design: Petri Ruutikainen, VTT).

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4 Methodology 4.1 The Design Process and Study Procedure The development of new solutions has to be needs-driven and demand-driven. Instead of concentrating only on technology we have to study the culture that people live in and the needs that different user groups have. This information should be included in the concept design. Thus, the design process of the Fitness Adventure game was based on the Human-centred Design (HCD) approach (ISO 13407). It aims at creating useful and easy to use solutions by considering user backgrounds and needs, tasks, and usage environments, and iteratively evaluating the design outcomes together with end users. Adopting this approach it is possible to end up with products that will satisfy the users, and are successfully used. The HCD approach aims at understanding the needs of users early in the design process, providing guidance for designing the product, and assuring that the product will be accepted by the users. The process of Human-centred Design is composed of a number of key activities (ISO 13407): understanding and specifying the user requirements, understanding and specifying the context of use, iteration of design solutions, and evaluating the solutions with the users against requirements. The Fitness Adventure (FA) design ideas and later on the prototypes were discussed and evaluated with potential end users of the FA. Along with end users, the ideas were also discussed with fitness experts, in order to get information of the characteristics and usage motivations of different user segments of fitness services. The design of the FA prototype started with scenario work. This work was supported by a consumer study (see next chapter). Each member of the design team created scenarios of future exergaming solutions with the idea of bringing out vivid ways to combine new technology and exercising. Overall 14 scenarios were created. After that the scenarios were analysed by the project team and refined accordingly. Based on the refined scenarios, three different product concepts were created. They were called the Activator, the Location Adventures and the Fitness Club. The Activator and Fitness Club are Fitness tamagotchi -like concepts, where the player has a small fitness gadget that can be used as a part of the game. In the game, the player is offered to ‘earn’ extra features or extra points by carrying out activities such as jogging regularly in a game. The gadget can also remind the player if (s)he has not been active for a long time. In the Location Adventures – concept the game integrates the real environment and the game environment. The Fitness Adventure prototype was later developed based on the Location Adventure.

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4.2 The Consumer Study A Consumer Study was carried out in order to examine the factors that affect willingness to use playful exercising solutions (Lampila and Lähteenmäki 2006). Also, the relationship between playing computer games and sports habits was studied. The data were collected with an inquiry in the internet and analysed based on the gender and age of the respondents1. Based on the results, active computer game playing doesn’t correlate with low physical activity. For young people, playing a game is normally a time consuming social event. Adults and elderly people are typical casual computer game players – they play shorter periods, less frequently, and usually do not take playing as a social event. On the other hand, middle aged and older people have more step counters and other health-related devices than the young. However, these pedometers and heart rate monitors are often popular gifts, and thus high device frequency does not necessarily correlate with the usage frequency.

4.3 The User Evaluations The created product concepts were evaluated with end users in focus groups in Spring 2006. The first focus group session was carried out at a sports institute in the city of Tampere. The aim of the focus group was to get feedback of the preliminary Exergame concepts as well as to find out how people in different age groups wish to exercise sports. Also, the subject of future sports favourites was discussed. We wanted also to gain user preferences of the potential usage of different activity sensors as well as the mobile device as a fitness device. The focus groups participants consisted of three students of sports education, a project manager and a communications and marketing assistant at the sports institute. The concepts were modified based on the feedback of this focus group. The next two focus group sessions were carried out at another sports institute in the city of Lahti and in a high school in Espoo. Also the aim of these focus groups was to evaluate the modified Exergame concepts. These focus groups participants consisted of 7 students of physical education and their teacher in Lahti, and 2 male and 10 female participants in Espoo (aged 14-15). The concepts were introduced and discussed with the participants who were encouraged to tell their opinions about the concepts and asked to give ideas about how to further develop them. Based on the feedback of these focus groups the concept was further developed: the storyboard was created, the game software together with Bluetooth connection

1

A total of 1489 respondents: adolescents (13 to 18 years old), young adults (19 to 30 years old), workage people (31 to 65 years old), and pensioners (66 to 75 years old).5

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was finalised, and the game content including text, audio and pictures was implemented into the game application. The GPS coordinates were defined at the actual spots on the field. After that we were ready to start the user tests. The user tests were carried out in Autumn 2006. The aim of the tests was to analyse the usefulness and usability of Fitness Adventure application. Usefulness was observed in two dimensions: (i) how the game concept could offer new motivating contents for traditional outdoor activities and (ii) how e.g., occupational health service providers could support the usage of these kinds of solutions. The main usability issues were: (i) the user interface and interaction, (ii) context of use, (iii) reliability, and (iv) the game content. In addition, we asked the users’ opinions about supplying the GPS with complementary methods such as tag readers or visual codes for receiving information of the locations. 10 users (three men and seven women) participated in the evaluation. They were of the age 40-54, and had used the mobile phone at least for making calls and for text messaging. All users were also familiar with the game area to some extent. First, the users were asked to fill in a user background questionnaire of their mobile phone and internet usage, their experiences of mobile and internet games, their exercising habits and their experience of fitness games. Second, the game and user interface of it were introduced to the users. Then, an interview was carried out about the users’ experience and willingness for gaming and exercising. After that, the users started to play the game. The playing session took approximately one hour. The users were ordered to examine different spots of interest while running or walking in the area that was introduced in the game (Figure 5). They were expected to follow the game events in the mobile phone, read and listen to the dialogue in the story, and decide which routes to take. When they entered a right spot,

Fig. 5. Playing the game. (Photo: Jaana Leikas, VTT.).

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the application announced about it with a sound and a vibration alert. If the users felt that they had got lost or if the application didn’t function as expected, they were able to phone one of the researchers nearby and ask for help. After the playing session the users filled in a questionnaire of the playing experience. It included questions of the willingness to play the game again, feelings after the game, impressions of the game as a whole, and desires for alternative interaction modes. After that, a semi structured group interview was carried out about the experiences that the users had of the FA game application. The whole test session took approximately one and a half hours.

5 Results The results indicate that the game succeeded in giving an alternative way for exercising. In addition to the fact that the game was seen as an enjoyable experience it was seen suitable for improving one’s physical condition. In this sense the idea of creating a motivating, new and an enjoyable exercise game was achieved well. This kind of a concept, where location information and an interesting story are combined together in a mobile game for running or walking through culturally interesting routes and places, clearly seems to offer added value for outdoor activities. The male participants felt that added information of the exercise session could motivate them. This information could include facts about how much exercise one had (e.g., distance), did one succeed in picking up the right routes, and what was the pulse during the game. The female participants did not appreciate this kind of statistical information of their fitness. Instead, they were enthusiastic in having social walks with friends when playing the game. The results of the questionnaire show that the FA game was considered as highly motivating and fun (Figure 6). On the other hand, the users felt that the content of the game was not rich enough and the game can thus be played only once or twice. There should be many optional sites along the route if the user is expected to walk or run through the route many times. This kind of game was seen profitable especially when a user wants to get to know a new environment, e.g. when travelling. Thus, different contents for different user groups would be useful. The game could, e.g., offer information about the nature of the area for nature tourists, and e.g., treasure hunt or detective adventures in a same environment for another user group. The game functioned well technically. The GPS system was reliable all the time and locating the user at the spot was found accurate enough in outdoor locations. The system was designed to recognise the players when they were within 20-30 meters distance of the defined spots, and the users were able to find most of the places easily. However, access to real-time location information should be an option in the game in order to give extra support for the user when needed.

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Impressions of the game (N=10) motivating (1) - passivating (5) good for fitness (1) - not good for fitness (5) 1 useful (1) - useless (5)

2 3

safe (1) - risky (5)

4 5

new (1) - typical (5) Fun (1) - boring (5)

Fig. 6. Impressions of the Fitness Adventure game.

The users preferred the GPS recognition method when it was compared theoretically to the tag readers or visual codes, because using the GPS doesn’t require any extra input actions during the physical exercise. Also, the GPS device was small enough to carry along when running or walking. One hypothesis in the Exergame project was that the occupational health care service could have a suitable opportunity to wake up the person’s motivation and determination to start physical exercise with the help of a mobile application like FA. Individual counselling and training to use the application could be given e.g. during physical examination when lifestyle factors for health (such as diet, sleep and stress) are discussed in general. All users (except 2 men), felt that this kind of an application could motivate persons to exercise if it was suggested by the occupational health care personnel. 2 persons felt that they would let the occupational health care follow their exercise frequency, others felt that this would be too much controlling the employees. The application could also be loaded at the occupational health care office for free. Some users felt that if the application was given by the occupational health care it could motivate the persons to exercise sports.

6 Discussion Although the history of outdoor exergames is merely short, these games create a rapidly growing market potential. The step from indoor physical control devices and sensors towards mobile and outdoor fitness games has changed the nature of exergaming. Playful exercise solutions are more pervasive and versatile when considering interaction methods and the content of the applications. They focus on achieving inspiration for taking care of one’s fitness in a long term. The idea is not

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only playing games and using new wireless technology, motion sensors, and positioning, but also a future way to do sports. Thus, the development of successful games calls for good practise examples and useful results of user experiences. As the outcome of different support activities depends highly on the person’s own motivation and willingness to take care of his/her health, people should be provided with tailored tools that motivate them to manage their own wellness. These tools can be developed with the help of mobile technology and provided with entertaining, informative, social and game-like aspects. Mobile phones are already our common everyday devices and thus form a suitable basis for these kinds of proactive guides for personal wellness management. In the Exergame project we designed and implemented a location based fitness game which utilises new GPS and cell phone technology. We feel that the HCD approach and the scenario work were fruitful and suitable for this kind of design. Thus, the model of the design process and the results of Exergame project could be utilized in other kinds of designs of playful fitness solutions, also. Based on the results of user evaluations, there are four principles to consider when developing exergaming solutions from the user point of view. The games should 1) be easy to use and include intuitive interaction methods, 2) support exercising by offering motivating and joyful ways for exercising sports, 3) include playful contents which take advantage from new user interfaces and game environments, and 4) offer statistics about the improvements of one’s physical condition when desired. There are certain practical factors that one could consider when designing and developing exergaming applications. First, when creating the storyline, the game should be connected to the real environment. Second, when designing GPS based games one should check the actual environment on the field and avoid places with high buildings, tunnels or other obstacles that might uncover GPS receiver signal. There could also be other disturbing factors or risks in the environment, such as construction works and heavy traffic routes. Third, the feasibility and functionality of the devices to be used in different conditions (indoor, outdoor, temperature, bad weather, etc.) should be examined. The user group of FA evaluations consisted of middle-aged persons who were rather inexperienced in mobile, video, and computer games. Despite of this the users managed to do well in the game and enjoy the physical exercise that at the same time came unobserved, as “into the bargain”. The users had a strong opinion that the Fitness Adventure story is playable only for once or twice. If the application is expected to be used for regular playing there should be new locations with several different stories included in it. When developing a game, it should be considered how the game would effect on the player’s personal motivational factors and external motivational issues: exercising and doing sports is not always competition: there are other issues, such as social networking, that would motivate the players more. Thus, e.g., positive and negative feedback with some kind of another form than traditional points and ranking is necessary. It is also good to design key features that would motivate

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players. “Nice to try once” –solutions do not lure users in the long run. The Fitness Adventure prototype offers possibilities for creating new stories and outdoor game environments. An interesting view is that in the near future, the games could offer game creation tools for the users, so that the users could themselves create stories for different games. Taking into account the research character of the Exergame project, we were developing and evaluating a prototype, and thus have not much to say of the possible success of FA as a ready made product. In the user studies, we concentrated mainly on the usage qualities of the FA prototype. However, we are aware, that besides usefulness and usability, also other quality attributes that represent the underlying values, habits, assumptions and expectations of middle-aged and aging people have a great impact in the actual purchase decision (Leikas and Saariluoma 2008a). For example, it is commonly known that the everyday exercise should become a habit in order to be efficient. In order to succeed in fulfilling this need people long for professional help in terms of counselling and advice. The health care professionals should respond to this need. It is important also to notice that there were essential differences between female and male subjects in their interests. The male participants were focussed in their sports performance while the female participants emphasized cultural interests. This difference reflects differences in the male and female middle-aged people’s forms of life (Leikas and Saariluoma 2008a, b). This on its behalf illustrates how important it is for user experience designers to investigate the contents of the forms of life of different user segments.

References 3D Innovations. (2008). PCGameBike Home Page. http://www.pcgamerbike.com/. Accessed 19 September 2008. Adidas Ag & Polar Electro Oy. (2008). Adidas-Polar. http://www.adidas-polar.com/. Accessed 19 September 2008. Apple Inc. (2008). Apple – Nike + iPod. http://www.apple.com/ipod/nike/. Accessed 19 September 2008. Asikainen, T.-M., Suni, J. H., Pasanen, M. E., Oja, P., Rinne, M. B., Miilunpalo, S. I., Nygård, C.-H. A., & Vuori, I. M. (2006). Effect of brisk walking in 1 or 2 Daily bouts and moderate resistance training on lower-extremity muscle strength, balance, and walking performance in women who recently went through menopause: A Randomized, controlled trial. Physical Therapy, 86(7), 912–923. Atari Gaming Headquarters – Atari Project Puffer Page http://atarihq.com/othersec/puffer/ index.html. Accessed 19 September 2008. Buttussi, F., Chittaro, L., & Nadalutti, D. (2006). Bringing mobile guides and fitness activities together: a solution based on an embodied virtual trainer. In Proceedings of the 8th conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (pp. 29–36). September 2006, Helsinki.

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Children’s Involvement in the Design of Game-Based Learning Environments Cases Talarius and Virtual Peatland Tuula Nousiainen Agora Center, University of Jyväskylä P.O. Box 35, FI-40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland [email protected]

Abstract: This paper discusses the involvement of children in the design of two game-based learning environments, Talarius and Virtual Peatland. The aim of the study was to explore the experiences of both the children and the developers related to the children’s participation in the development process and on the participation activities employed in the projects. The first project, Talarius, indicated that while the children enjoyed the project as a whole, there were problems with providing them with a genuine feeling of ownership and with the children recognizing their contributions in the final outcome. Hence, the framework of user involvement that was used as the basis of the Talarius project was further expanded by bringing in principles and practices from other disciplines. This extended multidisciplinary framework was applied in the second project, Virtual Peatland. This did not eliminate all the problems with the children being able to track the evolution of the application from the initial ideas to the final outcome, but especially the inclusion of content creation activities was very important to the children as it made their creations directly visible and thereby promoted their feeling of contribution.

1 Introduction Child-centred perspectives have arisen as an emerging approach for addressing the relationship between children and technology in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI). Traditionally, much of the research regarding children and technology has focused on the impacts of technology on children and their learning, but in the recent years there has been growing interest in the roles of children in the design of software aimed for them, and a child-centred way of looking at technology design has been brought into discussion in an increasing amount (Bruckman and Bandlow 2003; Druin 2002). 49 M. Kankaanranta and P. Neittaanmäki (eds.), Design and Use of Serious Games, 49–66. © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009

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Children’s involvement in technology design is heavily based on the principles of user-centred design which is seen by many researchers as a successful approach in software design. The user-centred design cycle (ISO 13407, 1999) implies that users can have an active role in setting the goals, refining them iteratively, and evaluating the outcomes. However, in practice user-centred design often puts heavy emphasis on user testing in the later stages of the development, thereby placing the users in a position in which they are merely reactors to suggested solutions, not initiators of ideas (e.g., Scaife et al. 1997; Nesset and Large 2004). This leads to a question whether the input of users, adults and children alike, could be better valued by involving them in more varied ways (e.g., Nesset and Large 2004). This is emphasized especially in participatory design, a design philosophy based on the ideals of workplace democracy and empowerment. Moreover, it is worth looking outside the scope of software development techniques, especially when the participants are children. Approaches such as the sociological view of active citizenship related to the participation of children in the design of their school and living environments (e.g., Francis and Lorenzo 2002; Gallagher 2004; Johnson 2000; Kiili 2006), participative gaming culture and usercreated content (e.g., OECD 2007) and child-centred pedagogy (e.g. Chung and Walsh 2002; Clark 2005; Hujala 2002) have potential in providing new ways of looking at children’s involvement in technology design. This paper deals with the development projects of two game-based learning environments and the analysis of children’s involvement in them. In both projects, the children participated throughout the process, but the emphasis of the activities and the intensity of the collaboration differed between the projects. In the first project, the development process of a computer board-game design environment Talarius (Axén et al. 2004), the children provided ideas at the beginning of the project, but the main emphasis was on the testing of prototypes. Children’s experiences from this project led us to try a somewhat different approach in the other project, Virtuaalisuo (Virtual Peatland). In this project, in addition to shifting the focus onto the early stages of design, we also included content creation as one part of the approach, aiming to give the children more hands-on activities. In this paper, I will describe these approaches, examine their effects on how the children saw their roles in the projects, and discuss the general successfulness of the projects in terms of user involvement. Furthermore, I will take a look at learning from the participation in a technology development project. In Section 2, I briefly describe the process of studying the two development projects that were examined in this study. Section 3 presents the framework of user involvement which was used as the basis of the children’s involvement in the first project, Talarius. The Talarius project and the results obtained from studying the project are presented in Section 4. In Section 5, an extended, multidisciplinary version of the earlier framework is presented, and Section 6 discusses the Virtual Peatland project, in which this framework was applied. The paper concludes with a summary and discussion in Section 7.

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2 Research Process The Talarius and Virtual Peatland projects were studied using the principles of case study research (Yin 1994) and development research (Richey et al. 2004; van den Akker 1999). Development research is employed in studies of educational interventions, addressing either the intervention itself, the process of developing it, or both (Richey et al. 2004; van den Akker 1999). The emphasis in this study was mainly on examining the development process. Experiences related to the development process were gathered both from the perspective of the children and that of the developers. The data consisted of development documents, outcomes of the design processes, interviews and questionnaires to the developers and the child participants, and observation of the design process documented in research journals. The data was analyzed using a framework consisting of several research questions as a basis of analysis. From the children’s point of view, the research questions were principally related to whether they felt that their ideas had had an effect on the final outcome, how they perceived their own expertise in the project, and how they experienced the participation activities in general. From the developers’ perspective, it was examined how they felt the children’s participation and ideas aided their work and affected their development decisions. Additionally, design session outcomes were compared to the final products in order to examine how the ideas provided by the children manifested in the final applications.

3 Children’s Involvement in the Design of Technology Principles and methods for bringing users into the design process of technological solutions have mainly been derived from the HCI perspective on user involvement. These approaches have, however, mostly been used in the development of productivity tools with adults. When it comes to designing educational or entertainment applications for children, a recently emerged perspective is child-computer interaction (CCI) which applies methods from user-centred and participatory approaches to this specific context (e.g., Read 2005). Moreover, the design of educational software has broadened the mere HCI perspective towards principles of pedagogical design: an approach referred to as learner-centred design (LCD) has been introduced as a way of bringing together the HCI point of view on the one hand and educational and developmental principles on the other (Good and Robertson 2006; Rode et al. 2003; Soloway et al. 1994; Soloway et al. 1996). Figure 1 illustrates the components of the traditional HCI view as well as the broadened child-focused view. Within the CCI/LCD viewpoint, various techniques have been developed by researchers for involving children in the development of applications aimed for

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Fig. 1. User involvement: Traditional HCI view and the expanded CCI/LCD view.

them: the focus has been especially on techniques supporting their involvement in the earliest phases of the design process. Several studies have employed requirements gathering techniques that have been specifically tailored to children, in order to provide an alternative for traditional interviewing. Such techniques include, for example, photo diaries (Oosterholt et al. 1996), the KidReporter technique in which children create ‘newspaper articles’ related to the themes of the application to be developed (Bekker et al. 2003), and the ‘Mission from Mars’ method entailing an innovative interview technique and enhanced with photo collage creation (Dindler et al. 2005; Verhaegh et al. 2006). Also, various creative techniques based on drawings (Bilal 2003; Scaife and Rogers 1999), storyboarding (Hall et al. 2004; Jones et al. 2003), and collaborative low-tech prototype creation (Druin 2002, 2005; Druin et al. 1999) have been used on order to gather more specific ideas related to the functionality and appearance of the application. The next section discusses the first case to be presented in the paper, namely the development of a game creation tool called Talarius. Children were involved at different phases of the development process, with the aim of employing principles and methods from the aforementioned framework.

4 Case I: The Development Project of Talarius The aim of the Talarius project was to develop a software tool with which children can both create and play educational games. The games that can be made and played with Talarius are typical board games where the players throw the dice and proceed accordingly along the path on the board, having to answer questions and complete different tasks on the way. The idea came from a teacher whose class had made

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concrete board games in class in the previous school year. The teacher came up with an idea of making such games in a digital form, and this idea further extended into one of game-making software. Working in pairs or small groups, the children gather material relevant to the topic of their game (factual texts, images, sounds, videos). Based on this material, they create questions, design a game board, and play games created by their classmates. This paper deals with the development project of the pilot version of Talarius, which took place in the academic year 2003–2004.

4.1 The Process of Involvement The same class (23 children, ages 11-12) that made the original board games was the principal participant group in the project. The process of their involvement in the project was as follows. At the beginning of the project, the children were interviewed about their previously created board games. Later they made user interface drawings depicting either the game-making mode (see an example in Figure 2) or the game-playing mode of the application (Figure 3), and while they were drawing, they were informally interviewed regarding their wishes related to the functionality of the software. The use of low-tech materials in creating initial designs has been a commonly used method in user involvement both with adults and children, and applying a variant of such activities was seen as a feasible choice also in this project. The main benefit is that no technological skills are required, and therefore everyone has a similar possibility to participate (Bødker et al. 1993). Moreover, children are used to creating things using art supplies and materials, and this way they can also express themselves without needing to formulate their ideas verbally (e.g. Druin 1999, 2002; Druin et al. 1999). A significant drawback of using drawings as a design tool is, however, that children often pay a great deal of attention to small details in their drawings, overlooking the “big picture” and the functionality of the application (e.g. Scaife and Rogers 1999). Despite these potential problems, it was decided that user interface drawings be used in the project in order to allow the children to freely express their ideas. Based on the drawings and the interviews, the developers created several different user interface alternatives in the form of computer mock-ups representing different modes of the software, and the children evaluated and critiqued them. Later on in the project the children evaluated two different prototypes, the latter of which was evaluated by their parallel class as well. Computer mock-ups and prototypes are a core part of user-centred design (ISO 13407, 1999) in that they allow the users to give feedback on the outcomes of each development cycle. Moreover, they can bring the users into a more contributing role in the process, as it is possible to incorporate their suggestions quickly into the application in the next cycle (Rudd et al. 1996).

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Fig. 2. A user interface drawing representing the game creation mode.

Fig. 3. A user interface drawing representing the game playing mode.

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The partner class also created contents (a series of questions) to be used as pilot content in the latter of the prototype testing sessions. In the vein of learner-centred design (LCD), the aim was to make the evaluation sessions to support rather than disrupt their normal school work (cf. Rode et al. 2003) – in other words, to ensure that the questions were suitable to the grade level and relevant in terms of the topics they were currently studying in class. At the end of the active development phase, there was an informal “launch session” in which the children got to see and use the finished pilot version. Finally there was one more session, in which the children gave feedback for future development and evaluated the sounds of the application. After the pilot version of the application was finished, the partner class continued to participate in the form of one field trial period in the school.

4.2 Results To the children, participation in a technology development project was an interesting experience. They reported having been motivated by being able to be involved in a real project and to have a role in the development of a real software application. As regards the particular participation activities used in the project, concrete activities – drawing and prototype testing – were preferred and seen as interesting. This notion was supported both by direct comments from the children in the interviews and questionnaires and by cues such as one boy specifically asking the developers in a later session whether the children’s drawings had been helpful to them. However, there were some significant challenges in the approach, most importantly related to the children’s feeling of ownership. Even though most of the children stated that they had been listened to, had a chance to participate actively, and been able to express their opinions, they had difficulties recognizing their contribution in the final product. Only a few of them felt that they had really had a say in the development of the application. Even though the children reported noticing, in general, that changes were made to the application after each time they gave feedback, individual students did not feel that their ideas “got through”. On a related note, they mainly appeared to consider their role in the project to be that of feedback providers. My own ideas haven’t really shown, [but] something has been done [to the application] anyway. (A child in the final questionnaire) Well, you know, if you want for example some [specific] intro music and some [others] want something else and there are more of them, so then they win, in a way, if there are more of those who said that. (A child in the final questionnaire)

For the developers, on the other hand, the children’s contribution was important in many aspects of the development work. They reported that the children’s ideas and feedback guided the development of the appearance, the functionality, and the

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usability of the application. Interestingly, an important issue mentioned by them was also the positive effect the close collaboration had on the developers’ work motivation. According to them, as they got to know the children they were working with, they wanted to do their best to make the outcome meet their expectations in order not to let them down. Additionally, the direct and immediate feedback they obtained from the children also serves as an extra motivator. Moreover, as the developers had little previous experience of designing applications for (or with) children, during the project they gained a great amount of new knowledge. They learned to understand what user involvement meant, gained knowledge about children as technology users, and obtained experience on technological skills. However, as the main challenge they mentioned time constraints. Intense user involvement required a great deal of time resources, and especially the scheduling of the activities to be carried out in the school presented a number of problems in the course of the project. In both phases, [our] work motivation has been excellent […]. The good motivation is possibly partially explained by the fact that [we] considered it an important task to make this application for the pupils of the partner class, and we did not want to disappoint them. All the members of the group have been very committed to the project work in both phases. (Developers’ phase report: Take-into-use and closing phases) According to the developer group, fitting schedules together, for example when planning dates for the user testing sessions, was one of the problems of the project. For instance, the evaluation of existing applications failed to be carried out because of time-related issues […]. (Research journal)

The process of the Talarius project roughly followed the UCD cycle (ISO 13407, 1999) and, moreover, attempts were made to direct the approach towards learnercentred design through taking the educational point of view into account. The process consisted of several iterations, each of which ended with an evaluation phase. The users were involved already when requirements were gathered, in the form of the UI drawings and the interviews, but all in all the emphasis was rather heavily on evaluation. As mentioned above, the children mainly saw themselves as providers of feedback, and their role as initiators of ideas was not recognized by them. This issue reflects the notion that the users’ role in UCD is often “too little, too late” (Scaife et al. 1997) and that the UCD process puts the users in a reacting role rather than an initiating one (Scaife et al. 1997; Nesset and Large 2004). In summary, although this structure was successful from the developers’ point of view, the process leading from ideas to the final outcome was not transparent enough for the children to be able to see their contributions. When the developers used and merged individual ideas they obtained, for example, from the children’s drawings, this manifested to the children as if their suggestions and ideas went into a “black box”, and when they came out of the “box” in the form of design solutions, they no longer recognized them as their own ideas. Although they did acknowledge that the prototype developed gradually, they could not see links between this development and their ideas, which caused them to lose their sense of ownership over the ideas and the outcomes. Such problems have been discovered in

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projects carried out with younger, preschool-aged children (Guha et al. 2004; 2005), and the Talarius project seems to suggest that the same challenges exist also when working with older children. Guha et al. (2004; 2005) have suggested a way for addressing this problem – a technique called Mixing Ideas in which individual ideas are merged into collective ones. This technique, or a variant of it, is likely to be fruitful also with older children. It can also respond to another need, namely reducing the developers’ work load when it comes to analyzing design session outcomes. Another potential reason for the children not seeing their input in the outcome was that their contributions were not concrete enough. When they were evaluating the application, they were excited to see their own set of questions as pilot material in it, and some of the children even saw the question set as their principal contribution in the project. As mentioned above, the main goal of having children design a sample question set was to make the evaluation activities fit their school work in the best possible way, but the content creation was more important to the children than expected – it would seem that in order to feel ownership, children need to see their input very concretely. Hence it might be useful to take certain concrete content creation activities as a part of the participation process, if this is feasible considering the nature of the software being developed. In conclusion, it would look that there is a need to further expand the traditional UCD approach and the more pedagogically oriented LCD approach, and to look for additional ways of working with children in the design of technology in order to support their sense of contribution and ownership of the outcome. This matter will be discussed in the next section.

5 Broadening the Approach of Children’s Involvement In the previous section, the need to expand the approach of children’s involvement in technology design was recognized. The framework presented in Figure 1 is now used as a multidisciplinary basis onto which the extended framework will be built. There are approaches in e.g. educational sciences and sociology that particularly aim to enhance children’s empowerment and active participation, and these could lend something to technology design as well. Moreover, in the field of games, usergenerated content is a very prominent phenomenon today – and closely related to users’ desire to see their own concrete creations in the final outcome. Figure 4 represents this extended view to user involvement. In sociology and childhood studies, children’s active participation in the making of decisions concerning them has been studied mainly in the context of designing and living environments together with children (e.g. Francis and Lorenzo 2002; Gallagher 2004; Johnson 2000; Kiili 2006). In child-centered pedagogy, the aim is to emphasize such educational activities that originate from the child’s own world

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Fig. 4. Broadened view to user involvement.

of experience, taking their own culture and interests into account and allowing them to be actors in their environments instead of merely passively receiving instruction (Hujala 2002; Kinos 2001, 2002). Hence, involving children in the design of technological applications that are to be used as educational tools can be seen as one way of giving them a voice in issues that concern them and their learning. “Listening to children” (Clark 2005) is an active, two-way process that utilizes not only verbal interaction but other forms of expression as well. Finding appropriate methods to enable active participation is thus a key issue in establishing collaboration with children. Finally, game content creation has become all the more popular and widespread recently: members of different game-based virtual environments are provided with tools for creating various new game objects (OECD 2007, 16). However, currently the attention paid by developers to content creation only addresses games that are already released, in an attempt to explore and influence player behaviour (Sotamaa et al. 2005). As the Talarius project illustrated, however, there is also a link between user involvement in technology design and this type of voluntary active participation of the players. In other words, content creation can be a way of involving users in the development of technology, especially game-based learning environments.

6 Case II: The Development Project of Virtual Peatland The second case project discussed in this paper, Virtual Peatland, was based on the extended view presented above. In this project, the aim was to create a webbased learning environment about peatlands that includes text-based information

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sections as well as interactive and game-like parts, aiming to educate especially young learners about peatland ecosystems, the use of peatlands, and other related themes. The project was carried out during the years 2005 and 2006. An elementary school class (approximately 25 children at a time, ages 11-12) participated in the process through various workshop sessions, each of which dealt with a specific aspect related to the structure of the learning environment or presentation forms to be used in it. The extended perspective above was used as a background for the process, with special emphasis on content creation activities.

6.1 The Process of Involvement The workshops started with an initial idea creation in the spring of 2005. For one term (autumn 2005) the activities were almost weekly: there were researcher-led design sessions approximately every other week, and in the alternating weeks the class worked on the tasks independently, continuing the activities that had been kicked off in the previous collaborative session or making preliminary preparations for the next session. At the later phases of the project, the collaborative sessions were less frequent and were carried out when each prototype was ready to be evaluated. In addition to the participation of the partner class, field trials were conducted with several other groups later, when the learning environment was finished. First, the children’s initial ideas were gathered into an idea map. As pointed out in the previous section, there was a need to introduce a technique that proceeds from individual to collective step by step. Guha et al. (2004; 2005) have addressed this need by developing a technique for merging drawings, but in the context of this project, idea-map creation was seen as a more feasible variant of this idea. This was due to the notion that at this point of the project, it was most important to collect ideas especially related to the content of the learning environment, and not yet so much on its appearance. The steps of the idea map creation process consisted of 1) creating individual lists of ideas, 2) group discussions and potential changes to the lists, 3) making one collective list with the whole class, and 4) compiling the idea map. These ideas were reviewed with the children later, and other, more concrete idea maps in the form of collages were created in small groups. In the collage creation, the aim was to find out which information presentation forms (e.g. crossword, quiz, info text, webcam) and peatland species (animals, plants, mushrooms) were especially interesting in the children’s opinion. Using paper snippets each of which represented either one species or one presentation form, the children made collages that expressed both the topics they would like to learn about and the ways in which they would like to learn about these topics. A collage technique was chosen in order to avoid some potential problems with drawings, such as putting too much effort and emphasis on secondary details at the expense of the main focus of the task (Scaife

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and Rogers 1999) and the issue with some children possibly being apprehensive about their drawing skills (Hart 1997, 162). Next, the children evaluated and critiqued a few existing websites in order to assess what works and what does not work on web-based learning environments, to discover new ideas for Virtual Peatland, and to clarify the concept of a web-based learning environment to the children. Gathering ideas by using existing technologies is a rather commonly used technique in user-centred design, aiming to uncover potential problems, user preferences, and ways of interacting with particular types of technology (e.g. Druin et al. 1999; Jones et al. 2003). These classroom sessions were followed by a slightly different activity, namely a peatland excursion where they took photographs of peatland nature and filmed video presentations of peatland plants to be included on the Virtual Peatland site. The topics of their video presentations were chosen by them based on the most frequently mentioned species in the collages. The following week, the children examined and discussed the pictures and video clips in class, and chose the best ones by voting. The best-voted photos and all video clips were included on the website; the video clips in a section called “Children’s Peatland”, and the photos as virtual postcards. The creation videos and pictures was one form of children’s content creation in the project, and in addition to these, they also created content in the form of quizzes and puzzles related to peatland nature. Similarly as the topics of the video clips, the topics and types of the quizzes were chosen based on items mentioned in the collages. The quizzes were implemented in the “Children’s Peatland” section as well. Additionally, the children worked on general game-related ideas for a few sessions. A brainstorming about game ideas was held, and drawings were made related to the game idea and game characters. Finally, the children evaluated the learning environment at different phases.

6.2 Results One principal difference between this project and the Talarius one was the inclusion of content creation activities which in this case consisted of making quizzes, taking photographs, and shooting video clips. Similar types of tasks – such as the photo diary and “newspaper article” techniques (Bekker et al. 2003; Oosterholt et al. 1996) – have been carried out in some technology development projects, but in these cases the aim has been to collect requirements with the aid of them, not content creation per se. Instead, content creation has only taken place when users produce something by using an application that enables the creation and sharing of contents of some type. In order to address the problems children have had with recognizing their input and feeling ownership over the outcomes, the children

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were now given a possibility to make something concrete to be included in the application that was being developed. The results of the analysis of the interview and questionnaire data indicated that the content creation was very important to the children. Many children reported the content creation tasks, such as the quizzes and the video clips, to have been the most enjoyable, motivating and memorable activities in the project. Those quizzes were nice in that you could kind of really design them yourself. (A child in the final interview) [We could] again, just for fun, [go and] shoot those clips. (A child in the final interview)

The researchers who observed the project noted the children’s motivation as well. The children were particularly enthusiastic during the sessions when they were working on the contents they were producing. Moreover, as regards the creation of the quizzes, the class had taken the initiative and started preparing them already before the researcher-led session involving quiz-creation. The students, in general, appeared to work enthusiastically. They were motivated to find different plants and they observed the nature with interest. […] Watching the photos and the videos was very interesting to the children; it appeared that they were excited about seeing their own creations. (Field journal: the peatland excursion and reviewing its outcomes) Making quizzes was very interesting to the students, as they had independently been working on quizzes related to different topics. […] The students are especially interested in designing, such as the design of the quizzes. (Field journal: making the quizzes)

In addition to the content creation aspect, another difference in comparison with the Talarius project was the structure of the process. The workshops, each of which was aimed to build on the outcomes of previous ones, were intended to make the process more smooth and the evolution of the ideas more transparent to the children. On the most general level, the idea maps yielded ideas about what Virtual Peatland could include. These ideas were then taken onto a more detailed level by making collages and by evaluating existing websites. Next, in the content creation activities these ideas were made concrete in the form of quizzes, pictures, and video presentations. Despite these efforts, however, this project did not manage to fully avoid the aforementioned “black box” phenomenon, especially in terms of the activities that were related to the development of the game application to be included in Virtual Peatland. While the evolution of ideas came through in the process described above (from general ideas to more concrete ones and further to hands-on creations), the effects of their game-related ideas remained unclear to the children. There were several reasons for this, mainly boiling down to inadequacies in terms of coordination within the development group. One problem was the lack of sufficient game design and subject area expertise at the time when the participation activities were being planned, which led to the design session outcomes not fitting the needs of these fields as well as they could have, and to the game-related

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materials (e.g. the game drawing) made by the children being left aside for a large part. Moreover, the interaction between the children and the developers during the game development phase suffered from this stage of the project taking place in the summer when the school class was not available to give continuous feedback. One of the issues that were paid special attention in the Virtual Peatland project was what the children learned from participating in the project. Druin (1999) has presented areas of design-centered learning that have emerged in her projects. These areas include learning about the design process, respect for the design partners, group communication and collaboration, technology-related skills and knowledge, and content issues. In the Virtual Peatland project, the categories discovered were much alike these: 1) content-related issues, 2) design skills, 3) social skills, and 4) general learning skills. Firstly, content-related learning was in a big role because the application itself is, and thereby also the design activities were, strongly focused on one theme, i.e. peatlands. The children stated to have learned general factual knowledge about peatland nature especially due to searching information to serve as background material for their quizzes and video presentations. Moreover, some children mentioned learning “meta-knowledge” about peatlands; for example that peatlands are a versatile theme that is related to several school subjects, not only e.g. biology. I know where cranes winter, and that cottongrass belongs to the sedge family. And cottongrass grows in tufts. (A questionnaire response) Peatlands can be studied in many ways. Peatlands can be studied in many school subjects. (A questionnaire response)

The second category consists of design skills. They can be can be classified into design skills of a more general nature and skills related to more specific aspects of design. The former category includes, for example, learning more methodical and effective ways of working, while the latter deals with e.g. learning new ways of using techniques like collages and idea maps. I learned how to work together, how to make a website and how to work gradually. (A questionnaire response) [I have learned] how to develop characters and quizzes. (A questionnaire response)

Thirdly, social skills were important as group work was an integral part of most of the design sessions. The enhancement of the children’s social and communication skills in the course of the project is related to their readiness to voice their own opinions, to listen to others’ views, and to build on each others’ ideas. I learned to listen well and I came up with quite a lot of ideas. (A questionnaire response) I learned group work. Something about peatlands, and not to be nervous during presentations. (A questionnaire response) [I learned] that it’s fun to do things in groups, and that you learn and get more [out] of everything. (A questionnaire response)

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The fourth category of learning deals with the development of the children’s general learning skills, such as searching information, comparing sources, and evaluating the reliability of the information found. These skills were needed epecially when the children were compiling their quizzes and preparing their video presentations. [I learned] that there are a lot of things with the aid of which you can find information about something, and that you can find a lot of information also on the Internet through search engines. (A questionnaire response) I can maybe make better texts now and I have learned to search for information too. (A questionnaire response)

To summarize the experiences obtained from the Virtual Peatland project, certain aspects of the project succeeded better than in the Talarius project – especially the importance of the content creation activities with regards to the children’s experience of ownership was clear. However, not all problems were avoided. Some of the challenges of the Talarius project manifested now as well – especially the “black box” phenomenon still transpired also in this project.

7 Conclusions and Discussion As a general conclusion from the two projects discussed in this paper, it can be said that the participation in a development process of a game-based learning environment was very motivating and enjoyable to the children as they obtained new kinds of experiences, whereas the principal problem was the feeling of ownership and contribution. Several lessons were learned based on the experiences obtained from the projects, and I will conclude by presenting some key issues that need to be considered in such projects in the future. Most of these are related to the participation activities, and making them better respond to the needs of the children and the developers alike. The project needs to include a variety of participation activities of different kinds in order to avoid the tasks to become boring to the children. Furthermore, there needs to be a balance between different activities in terms of several different dimensions such as the generality or specificity of the outcomes (e.g. initial idea creation vs. evaluation focused on specific issues), the tangibility or non-tangibility of the activities (hands-on techniques vs. interviews or brainstorming), and the creative or reactive nature of the tasks (i.e. making something from scratch vs. giving feedback on something that exists already). The inclusion of concrete content creation activities, the outcomes of which are directly visible Ensuring that the children see the links between their ideas and their implementation is another main issue. This presented problems in both of the projects. The “Mixing Ideas” technique developed by Guha et al. (2004; 2005) is a way of merging individual drawings gradually into a collective one. In the same vein, there is a need for a way of merging ideas from one session to another also when each session

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consists of a different type of activity, which can be even less straightforward than merging several items of one kind into one. A related point is the importance of talking with the children themselves about the interpretations and analyses made by the developers based on their creations – which should be obvious but is often disregarded due to tight schedules and other practical issues. One way of help the developers to find the most important ideas from children’s creations, for example, is to annotate the drawings (or other outcomes) according to the creator’s instructions (Hart 1997, 162–163). As stated above, a main reason for the children’s ideas not being adequately taken into account in the development of the Virtual Peatland game were problems with coordination within the developer group, mainly related to not having the expertise of all necessary perspectives available from the very beginning and failing to develop a common understanding of the way the project would be carried out. Despite respecting others’ views, the members failed to genuinely see outside their own areas of expertise. Therefore it is necessary to state the common principles explicitly and in as much detail as possible already when the process is being planned in order to ensure that everyone is committed to them. In the future, we will further explore and extend the multidisciplinary framework for involving children in the design of learning environments. Building on the experiences obtained from the projects discussed in this paper, we will aim to enhance the ways of children’s participation to better respond to the needs that were still inadequately addressed in these projects. Acknowledgments: Funding for the projects discussed in this paper has been provided by the National Technology Agency of Finland, the State Provincial Office of Western Finland, and the European Social Fund. The author would also like to thank all the children and their teachers as well as the development teams for collaboration.

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Designing Serious Games for Computer Assisted Language Learning – a Framework for Development and Analysis Bente Meyer1 and Birgitte Holm Sørensen2 Department of Curriculum Studies, School of Education, Aarhus University 164 Tuborgvej, 2400 Copenhagen NV, Denmark 1) [email protected], 2) [email protected]

Abstract: In the paper we shall argue for the potential of serious games for teaching and learning languages online. The paper builds on data from a research project, Serious Games on a Global Market Place (2007–2010), in which an online gamebased platform for teaching and learning English (www.Mingoville.com) has been studied in the context of teaching and learning English in Danish primary schools. The initial research process – which was based on an analysis of the platform as well as interviews with platform developers – suggested that one of the challenges of developing a design for serious games in language education consists of renegotiating the serious games genre to balance drill-based exercises with contextualised simulations that involve fruitful thinking, real language interaction and student engagement. One hypothesis of the project is, following the initial research and drawing on previous research in the field, that the process of designing serious games for CALL may significantly benefit from involving children’s own experiences with using languages (primarily English) online for gaming and interacting. This to some extent involves transcending the dichotomy of ‘serious’ and ‘pleasurable’ learning found in the discourse on learning with games inside and outside schools.

1 Introduction In this paper we shall explore the complexity of a game-based design for learning focusing on language learning as a specific field of competence. Our focus will be on the analysis and development of an educational design for a platform used for teaching English as a foreign language in primary schools in Denmark, www.mingoville.com. The context of this analysis is a project in Serious Games on a Global Market Place (2007–10)1 in which academics work with companies 1

The project is funded by The Danish Council for Strategic Research under The Programme on Creativity, Innovation, New Production Forms and the Experience Economy 69

M. Kankaanranta and P. Neittaanmäki (eds.), Design and Use of Serious Games, 69–82. © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009

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to explore, build and implement game prototypes, using the products and experience of commercial game designers to develop knowledge about serious game challenges, educational design, and assessment with the aim of innovation. The aim of the paper will be to explore the challenges of designing and conceptualising game-based material for language learning in the context of this project. One aspect of these challenges will consist in studying the ways in which gaming is associated with ‘serious’ as well as ‘pleasurable’ learning, and with formal as well as informal learning. The paper will suggest ways of incorporating these perspectives into the educational design of game-based material for CALL.

2 Designing Serious Games for Language Learning – a Framework for Analysis Designing game-based material for learning may be understood as a process that involves three levels: a practice level, an organisation level and a theoretical reflection level (Dale 1989, 2000). Design as a concept can be defined as the plan or the model of what should be produced. According to Cobb et al. (2003) design experiments in learning involve both a pragmatic approach, understood as the “engineering” of specific forms of learning, and a theoretical approach, i.e. a study of the forms of learning used within the context in question. In the Serious Games project it is our aim to work respectively with engineering game-based language learning and with what Katrin Becker describes as “a reverse engineering process” (2007, 478), i.e. a process of uncovering instructional design principles in existing educational games. This double strategy of analysing existing games and generating theoretical concepts and practical methods for innovative product development, has provided a framework for the ways in which our research may potentially predict the benefits and learning outcomes of serious games locally as well as globally. In the project we use both platform analysis, classroom observations and interviews to study design principles and best practice for serious games design. In the first phase of our research, described below, we have been focusing on uncovering the learning content and theory, as well as the concept of gaming (including the role of players/learners and teachers) embedded in the Mingoville platform (Figure 1). The platform analysis has been supported by interviews with platform designers. Our theoretical framework is inspired by a wide range of research fields such as educational design theory, game and play theory, informal learning, anthropological studies in children’s cultures and CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning). If we look at the educational use of games in general we see a number of game types that all affect the understanding and design of serious games. These educational uses of games can, we propose, be divided into three main categories.

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Fig. 1. The Mingoville universe.

1) Edutainment and learning games. Edutainment can be described as the earliest example of a game-based learning type and can be understood broadly as a concept where entertainment is used to facilitate learning. Games of the edutainment type are generally designs to be used without teacher intervention. In addition to this edutainment may be associated with developmental and learning theories that do not correspond to contemporary ideas of learning and schooling (EgenfeldtNielsen 2005). 2) Research based educational games are made for educational use e.g. in schools and involve teacher intervention. In this category we place serious games. Serious games may be understood as the second generation of learning games in which educational design has been adjusted to the learning theories of modern schooling. In this context Katrin Becker claims that “games have the potential to offer an inquiry-based, constructivist approach that allows learners to engage with the material in an authentic, yet safe environment” (Becker 2007, 480). 3) Games for entertainment are not designed for educational use but are sometimes used in the educational system to facilitate learning in different subjects e.g. the games Civilization and SimCity which have been used to facilitate respectively history and social studies (Egenfeldt-Nielsen et al. 2008). In this paper we focus primarily on the relationship between the first two types of games, i.e. edutainment and serious games. In the case of Mingoville.com, the platform studied in the Serious Games on a Global Market Place project, the platform can generally be understood as gamebased material of the edutainment type in the sense that it combines entertainment

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(‘fun’) and learning, as well as conceptualises play as an activity that teaches children something in order to convince parents and teachers that learning can be fun (Egenfeldt-Nielsen 2005; Sutton-Smith and Kelly-Byrne 1984; Johannesen 2006). In Mingoville children of 9-11 years meet the Pinkeltons, who are citizens of the simulated world Mingoville – a city inhabited by flamingos. The platform contains 10 Missions that take the learners through a variety of themes such as The Family, Colours and Clothes, Numbers and Letters. These are basic areas for vocabulary learning defined in the national curriculum for English. The Mingoville platform can be described not as a full game in itself, but rather as a web-based learning environment that capitalises on the mini-games and other entertainment activities that children engage in their spare time outside school. In addition to this the platform refers to school activities such as reading, listening and spelling.

3 Understanding Serious Games In the Serious Games on a Global Market Place project we understand serious games as digital games and equipment with an agenda of educational design and beyond entertainment (Meyer and Sørensen 2007). This approach is consistent with the argument, made by game theorist James Paul Gee that “Good commercial video games are by no means trivial phenomena. They are deep technologies for recruiting learning as a form of profound pleasure” (Gee 2003, 211). Gee’s contention addresses the fact, often discussed in educational game theory, that gaming is understood to be inimical to school culture as educational cultures rest on the “dominant cultural (op)positioning of play and education” (de Castell and Jenson 2003, 654). Consequently, play and gaming are understood to represent childish activities that are potentially disruptive and antithetical to schooling where ‘real’ and ‘serious’ learning is supposed to be the aim of the activities. Gaming is, as claimed by for instance de Castell and Jenson, a fundamentally unpopular culture in schools, a fact that influences teachers’ views on gaming as well as their practice (de Castell and Jenson 2003). One of the most significant aspects of studying serious games is then to ask the question of how games and play can be integrated into a culture of schooling that has traditionally been inimical or at best ambivalent about gaming as an educational activity. As suggested by Rieber (1996, 43) work is respectable, play is not which is why play and gaming are often confined to spaces outside the classroom. Baltra (1990, 446) similarly argues that “the game is over at school” as educational cultures often choose to stifle pupils’ engagement in gaming once they are past preschool learning. This emphasis on school cultures and their conceptual links with rational thinking and a ‘weberian’ work ethic (Fromme 2003) highlights the cultural aspects of serious game analysis and design, as serious games may aim to target the goals and ‘recognisable’ educational content of formal schooling – but are defined

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by the leisure cultures that exist out of school. The apparently oppositional cultures of formal education and the ‘frivolous’ consumer cultures of gaming must consequently affect the design of serious games, specifically if the games in question have a commercial as well as an educational purpose. Games may have been reconceptualised as ‘serious’ by recent game theory (cf. Gee 2003), but they are also generally (still) associated with the ‘fun’ and pleasurable learning that allegedly engages learners (specifically children and young people) in meaningful practices where they may have a sense of their own value in and control over learning and interaction. As suggested by Kirriemur and McFarlane (2006) games can support children’s experimentation, exploration, imagination and role-play, and research repeatedly underlines that in gaming children “take on the role of teachers, providing advice, support, hints, tips and models of learning to other children”. Motivation must in continuation of this be seen as a central issue in understanding gaming as a ‘serious’ business, i.e. as being intrinsically motivating and pleasurable as well as enhancing performance. However, the use of games for motivational purposes alone may entice designers to conceptualise gaming as a form for facilitating and containing traditional learning rather than as an integrated model for meaningful performance and learning by doing. The consequences of this view is, according to de Castell and Jenson (2005, 18), that “learning is structurally posited as unpleasant and the challenge is to determine what forms of “sugar” are both most effective for learning and most rewarding for learners”. This ‘sugar-coating’ of learning with ‘fun’ may to some extent marginalise children’s engagement in gaming as part of a playful consumer culture. This perspective on motivation brings us back to the idea of edutainment, the idea that gaming is ‘fun’ and that the fun of gaming can facilitate learning in the sense that it affords positive feedback, pleasure and reward for persevering and studying. The implications of these aspects for analysing and developing the Mingoville platform will be discussed below.

4 Conceptualising the Design of Serious Games Through CALL Game theory conceptualises gaming in a number of ways that may be significant for language learning. As suggested above theories of serious games are contextualised by both formal and informal practices of learning and interacting. The informal practices of learning through gaming are highlighted by among others Gee who claims that “Learning in school could involve strong doctrine, values and identity, smart tools, distributed knowledge, well designed experience, guidance on how to build useful mental models or simulations and on how to evaluate their outcomes, performance before competence, competence that goes beyond verbal definitions and test taking (Shaffer, 2004). But, in reality, this is all very rare indeed in school, though common in good video games”. (Gee 2005, 222)

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Others, such as Kurt Squire, argue that understanding how learning occurs through game play can be used to support learning in formal learning environments (Squire 2002). Most theorists agree, however, that engaging in game activity may potentially support pleasurable learning, learning by doing, and learning through collaboration (Kirriemur and McFarlane 2006). This indicates that there is a clash between cultures of schooling and informal learning environments that serious gaming may transcend, but which must also define how games can be received, used and assessed in formal learning contexts, and, consequently, how they can be designed for learning. In the analysis of Mingoville.com language learning has been understood to be a significant aspect of children’s engagement in games as a socially valued way of performing as language learning is involved in children’s use of games as a social practice primarily out of school (Meyer 2006; Sørensen 2002). When children play games in online environments they often emphasize interactivity, collaboration and individual action as significant practices. Interactivity is here understood in a broad perspective as communication patterns in conversation, consultation, transmission and registration (Jensen 2000). These understandings to some extent coincide with communicative approaches to language learning, i.e. the prioritisation of negotiation and communicative ability over for instance focus on form (Warschauer and Kern 2000; Warschauer and Healey 1998). In out of school contexts, children thus generally understand and use languages as a means for communication, information gathering and gaming, whereas in schools the understanding and use of languages is often understood to be a goal of the activities, i.e. an aspect of an intended learning process in which language may be understood as an internal system to be learned (Sørensen and Audon 2004; Meyer 2006; Warschauer 2004). As argued by Warschauer (2004, 23), interactivity and the fulfilment of a meaningful purpose for a real audience is a significant issue in using internet activities for language learning as “the purpose of studying English…becomes not just to acquire it as an internal system but to be able to use English to have a real impact on the world”. Though games and simulations have generally been part of language learning for decades (Crookall 2007; Li and Topolewski 2002) relatively little research has been made in the use of computer games to support language learning and instruction. In addition to this, game based learning through CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) has generally focused on university students ESL (English as a Second Language) learning rather than children’s learning (Crookall 2002). According to Ang and Zaphiris (2006) the lack of research in game based language learning is mainly due to the diversity and complexity of game material accessible which makes it difficult to assess the role of games in language education (Ang and Zaphiris 2006). Crookall and Oxford (1990, 7), on the contrary, argue, based on their interest in and experience with simulation and gaming in language learning that “simulation/gaming techniques are proving to be an extremely powerful means of helping people to acquire certain foreign or second language skills”, these skills being mainly communicative skills, understood broadly. Crookall

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and Oxford are not specifically concerned with computer assisted gaming and simulation, however, in later work (for instance Crookall 2002) Crookall and others do acknowledge the significance of simulation and gaming activities for CALL. The relevance of these activities for language learning are primarily to create a language learning environment in which learning is focused on meaning rather than form, authentic communication is introduced into the classroom, low anxiety environments are created that motivate and engage learners, and situations are supported that make learners use language as a real communication tool (Baltra 1990; Li and Topolewsky 2002; Garcia-Carbonell et al. 2001). Game-based learning can thus contribute to communicative goals in language learning as in games and simulations students are “working with language not as an end in itself but as a medium to achieve a communicative goal” (Baltra 1990, 450).

4.1 Developing Enjoyable Games for Second Language Learning In our analysis of the Mingoville platform we have been inspired by research on the motivational aspects of gaming, as they have been discussed by Ang and Zaphiris (2006) on the subject of serious games for CALL, and by Malone (1981) and Malone and Lepper (1987) in their taxonomies of intrinsic motivations for learning. The motivational perspective on gaming for language learning have provided us with a theoretical framework for describing the concepts of the ‘fun’ and ‘the serious’ as they appear and take on meaning in the design principles of for instance the Mingoville platform. In addition to this we have drawn on earlier research done at the School of Education on children’s use of English when gaming in their spare time outside school. This research has shown that when games are used in the design of learning materials for CALL, children draw on their experiences with using English in gaming outside school. This may be significant for motivating children to learn languages as well as for language competence and performance. In their article on developing enjoyable second language learning software tools Ang and Zaphiris (2006) distinguish between an extrinsic and intrinsic design of learning games. These concepts build on the theory of motivation suggested by Malone (1981). The significance of Malone’s taxonomy for CALL is, according to Ang and Zaphiris (2006, 10) “that game design could be applied in language learning with two methods: the learning of the material as well as the learning of the game itself ”. In Ang and Zaphiris definition extrinsic games are games where language learning content is generally superimposed on the game itself, creating a split between the language learning content and the game setting. Extrinsic games are largely effective, Ang and Zaphiris claim, for motivating learners to engage with ‘boring’ and repetitive work such as drills and rote learning. The main function of the game setting in extrinsic game design is therefore motivational. The main feature of

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intrinsic games is, on the contrary, that learning contexts and game narrative are seamlessly integrated, to create a complete learning situation. The focus of intrinsic games for language learning is therefore mainly learning the language while engaging actively with characters and narrative of the game. Narrative thus becomes an affordance for the exploration of for instance target language conversation or the cultural aspects of the target language. Following the analyses made by Malone and Ang and Zaphiris we can suggest that narratives and intrinsic motivation are crucial factors in the design of serious games for language learning. According to this argument, designers should first of all investigate what fantasy theme the target user is interested in. If the user does not like the fantasy theme the designer has chosen, it is likely that the design will be a failure. Secondly, the learning content should be part of the game design, and not presented as detached items of words or characters, i.e. the game design must be intrinsically motivating, not extrinsically motivating. Thirdly, the narrative should be able to stimulate the player to know what happens next, i.e. motivate through curiosity. Curiosity is, as suggested by Malone (1981) incited through among other things the twist of narrative plots. Finally, the learner’s control over the game and the learning tasks is crucial for the flow and acquisition of the learning content. In short, narrative is central to the integration and meaningful engagement with the educational content of the game.

4.2 Narrative and Intrinsic Motivation in Mingoville In Mingoville, a narrative framework is referred to in the use of themed platform missions that learners must engage with and complete in order to learn content such as English vocabulary and spelling. The missions of the platform generally consist of individual tasks, among them games, that children must solve or play to complete the individual missions. However, there is no consistent narrative structure in the platform that learners can engage in as the tasks are not explicitly integrated into a story. The mission is thus not a narrative quest, but a recognizable form – often used in games – that contains the thematic contents, drills and tasks of the platform. In addition to the missions a narrative framework is referred to in the use of avatars (flamingos/Mingos) that are central actors in the platform’s tasks and missions. The Mingoville universe and its characters provide the platform with fantasy themes that target the age group involved, i.e. primarily children aged 9-11. However, the fantasy theme is not explicitly integrated into a narrative structure, but provides the child with a recognisable environment in which the learning can take place. Finally, curiosity is not directly targeted through narrative, as there is no consistent narrative or twist of plot. Curiosity is incited through a number of mysteries or puzzles hinted at in the individual missions, for instance “Why isn’t Jeff ’s ice machine working?”, however, these are not central to the design of the missions.

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In the following we shall develop our analysis on the basis of Ang and Zaphiris’ principles for the design of enjoyable games for second language learning.

4.3 Extrinsic and Intrinsic Game Design Mingoville.com is as an online platform based on the idea that children learn and are motivated by problem solving and game activities rather than traditional skillsbased and textbook based material focusing on reading, writing, spelling and listening. Mingoville therefore – as well as presenting itself as a ‘serious game’ – generally seeks to exploit the ‘fun-factor’ of gaming and is structured around themes and activities that cater to children’s desire to explore, interact and play games. In this sense the platform refers to the motivational aspects of gaming and digital media in general, as it intends to tap into the informal learning activities of children – activities that involve language production and communication in online environments. However, the platform also aims at communicating to parents, teachers and other potential users and investors that gaming is not only ‘fun’ but also ‘serious’ and that the ‘seriousness’ of games can support curriculum aims and goals. In this sense the platform builds on an educational design in which interfaces and tasks to some extent refer to children’s out of school gaming cultures but where the navigation, content and rhythm of learning to a large extent implicates school genres that focus on learning as a goal rather than as a means of engaging in the game. In this sense the design of the platform only to some extent succeeds in integrating the activities of learning and fun, i.e. the ‘serious’ and the ‘frivolous’. The fun and motivational aspects of gaming are generally highlighted by the designers of the platform, who are mainly software developers and game designers. Teachers and researchers have been involved in conceptualising and assessing the Mingoville game design but they have not been central to the process of platform design. On the issue of the out of school activities of children and the ways in which these have inspired the design of the platform, one designer claims that “we realised that they (i.e. the children) master modern technology, for instance mobiles and computers, quite well…a lot of the boys not only had quite a large vocabulary in English, but also a good pronunciation that derived from different kinds of computer games such as Counter Strike. Both sexes were very interested in song contexts and music videos …” (Johannesen 2006, 27, our translation). Another pointed out that “if we can manipulate or entice children into feeling that this is fun and exciting, it looks good, it is made for me, and it is about all these things that I am usually not allowed to do in school, well, then we have done well with the design” (our translation). The designers of the platform have thus been explicitly focused on gaming as an element in children’s out of school activities that involved the use of English as a foreign language. This focus involved the exploration and exploitation of the fantasy themes of children’s engagement in for instance Counter Strike (conceptualised as largely a boys’ activity) and singing

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and engaging in music videos (conceptualised as a cross-gender activity) for the educational design of the platform. The fun of gaming in this sense works not as an integrated principle in the platform, but rather as “a FORM (actually more accurately as a disguise) to make learning more palatable” (de Castell and Jenson 2005, 18). This we argue, defines the platform as an extrinsic game design.

4.4 Learner Control and the Flow of Narrative The missions themselves contain a number of activities that aim at for instance vocabulary training, spelling, and word recognition. These are largely tasks where learners have no real control of the content, but must listen, fill in or spell preprepared words. One of the few exceptions to this rule is a karaoke game where children can listen to a song performed by one of the characters and record their own version(s) of the song which can then be sent to parents and friends or uploaded on the website (Figure 2).

Fig. 2. The karaoke game.

Navigation is another issue involved in analysing learner control in the platform. The integration of the fantasy themes and leisure activities of children into the platform design are part of an narrative setting or form that uses avatars (flamingos) to embody meaning and action and to conceptualise the users’ (expected) process of moving from one level of competence to the next. Navigation, in this connection, moves largely through a linear rhythm, prompting the user to progress from one window to the following through a “next” button. Navigation thus mimes the turning of a page rather than engaging the user in the general flow of narrative. This coincides with a common feature of the platform which is the remediation

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of the book genre (Bolter and Grusin 1996) for instance through the use of book icons and pagination in “My book” and “Dictionary” and in the platform’s use of moving figures on a still background (Figure 3). Remediation is thus the feature that connects the platform with traditional media used in language education (primarily printed media), media that may serve to legitimize game-based material as part of language learning. The mixture of media and genre references (books, games, narratives, drills, song contests) therefore aim at situating the design in both formal and informal learning environments, i.e. at introducing the dynamics of game-based ‘fun’ learning into a formal learning environment that seems to base its understanding of learning largely on printed media and on curriculum-based tasks and drills. In terms of narrative and the flow of learning the focus on the fun of learning mentioned above implies that whereas narrative works as an explicit (though undeveloped) framework for interacting on the platform, there is no consistent connection between the narrative intent of the design (i.e. the Missions and the actions of the avatars) and the tasks and exercises that learners are expected to work on. Thus, the individual tasks are connected with the Missions largely in the sense that characters (avatars) and settings are recognizable as recurrent frameworks for the individual tasks. The narrative is therefore not, as recommended by Ang and Zaphiris, a flow in which the player may engage or even lose him- or herself, but rather a loose framework for a number of largely skill-based drills and exercises that entice learners into training curriculumbased skills. In this sense, the use of gaming in Mingoville can be characterised as consisting of “a structured series of puzzles or tasks embedded in a game or narrative structure with which they have only the most slender connection” (Ang and Zaphiris 2006, 10).

Fig. 3. Remediation of book genres.

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The aim of the platform thus seems to be to motivate learners to engage in language learning partly through reference to children’s gaming cultures in informal settings, partly by situating language learning through gaming in a school context that is recognizable to parents, teachers, as well as children. In this context language learning becomes largely goal-orientated and gaming through narrative a motivational aspect, an incentive, to engaging in traditional educational tasks. However, it may be worth noting, as stated by Malone and Lepper (1987, 227) in relation to different contexts of instruction “that children chose the activity for roughly 50% more time when the material was presented as a game rather than a drill”. This indicates that user expectations and the role of the digital media are at least as significant for children’s motivation as the content and quality of the tasks. In the second phase of our research we shall study how learners actually interact and learn with Mingoville in the classroom, i.e. how gaming and the conceptual framework of the platform works in practice.

4.5 Designing and Developing Intrinsic Games for Language Learning – Implications for Further Work This paper has attempted to account for and discuss some of the challenges involved in designing and conceptualising serious games for language learning in a context where commercial and academic perspectives on serious gaming intersect. The theoretical point of departure for these reflections has been on the one hand a broad definition of educational design in relation to serious games research that includes goals and content as well as practice levels, organisation levels and levels of theoretical reflection. On the other hand the paper has thematised educational design in relation to formal and informal contexts of learning that involve children’s perceptions of and activities in online gaming. From a serious games perspective the game related practices of children in out of school contexts are pivotal points of interest for a consideration of how games may be transformed from an extrinsic design that involves drill- and task-based educational material to contextualised simulations, i.e. an intrinsic design, that involves fruitful thinking, real language interaction and learner engagement. The above described game-based concept for teaching English in primary school – Mingoville.com – has served as an example of how game-based prototypes for educational use can be assessed and developed with the aim of innovation. The quality of the platform is that it provides a multimedia environment in which gaming is central and which aims to tap into children’s experiences with using English for gaming out of school. Compared to existing educational material for language learning Mingoville is definitely innovative. However,– in spite of its awareness of and reference to children’s engagement in online game activities out of school – Mingoville.com is to large extent based on game models that cater to school based and school initiated learning. These

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models generally dichotomise the ‘fun’ and ‘the serious’ as formal and informal processes of learning are conceptualised as being generally incompatible. In this sense Mingoville.com exists on a dialectical edge between existing ideas of gamebased material for language learning and broader concepts of the ways in which games are associated with and used for learning outside school. The challenge of developing this design will therefore consist of renegotiating the educational games genre for CALL through specifically the production and performance aspects of game material, i.e. the use of interactivity, collaboration and exploration based simulations that allow children to perform within their own categories of achievement. This renegotiation of form and content will involve a consideration of and reference to curriculum restraints, school cultures as well as market factors that define the local and global significance of game-based material for CALL.

References Ang, C. S. & Zaphiris, P. (2006). Developing Enjoyable Second Language Learning Software Tools: A Computer Game Paradigm. In P. Zaphiris (Ed.), User-Centered Computer Aided Language Learning. Information Science Publishing. Baltra, A. (1990). Language Learning Through Computer Adventure Games. Simulation & Gaming, 21 (4), 445–452. Becker, K. (2007). Digital game-based learning once removed: teaching teachers. British Journal of Educational Technology, 38(3), 478–488. Bolter, J. D. & Grusin, R. (1996). Remediation. Configurations, 4(3), 311–58. Cobb, P., Confrey, J., diSessa, A., Lehrer, R., Schable, L. (2003). Design Experiments in Educational Research. Educational Researcher, 32(1), 9–13. Crookall, D. & Oxford, R. L. (1990). Simulation, Gaming, and Language Learning. Newbury House Publishers. Crookall, D. (2002). Editorial: Simulation and computer-assisted language learning. Simulation and Gaming, 33(2), 137–138. Crookall, D. (2007). Editorial: Second language acquisition and simulation. Simulation & Gaming 38(1), 6–8. Dale, E. L. (2000). Professionalisering og læring i organisationer. In P. Andersen & P. Frederiksen (Ed.), Innovation, kompetence, læring. Frederiksberg: Dafolo. de Castell, S. & Jenson, J. (2003). OP-ED. Serious Play. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 35(6), 649–665. de Castell, S. & Jenson, J. (2005). Video games and Digital Game Play – The New Field of Educational Game Studies. Orbit, 35(2). Egenfeldt-Nielsen, S. (2005). Beyond Edutainment: Exploring the Educational Potential of Computer Games. IT-University Copenhagen. Egenfeldt-Nielsen, S., Smith, J. H., & Tosca, S. P. (2008). Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction. Routledge. Garcia-Carbonell, A., Rising, B., Montero, B., Watts, F. (2001). Simulation/gaming and the acquisition of communicative competence in another language. Simulation and Gaming, 32(4). Fromme, J. (2003). Computer games as a part of children’s culture. Games studies, 3(1). Gee, J. P. (2003). What Video Games have to Teach us about Learning and Literacy. New York: Palgrave/Macmillan.

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Gee, J. P. (2005). Pleasure, Learning, Video Games, and Life: the projective stance. E-Learning, 2(3), 211–223. Jensen, J. F. (2000). Interactivity – Tracking a new Concept. In P. A. Meyer (Ed.), Communication, Computer Media and the Internet: a Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Johannesen, J. (2006). Mingoville.dk – et eksempel på sproglige muligheder inden for it. Sprogforum .Tidsskrift for sprog- og kulturpædagogik, 38. Kirriemur, J. & McFarlane, A. (2006). Literature Review in Games and Learning. Futurelab. Li, R.-C. & Topolewski, D. (2002). ZIP & TERRY: a new attempt at designing language learning simulation. Simulation and gaming 33(2). Malone, T. W. (1981). Toward a Theory of Intrinsically Motivating Instruction. Cognitive Science, 5(4), 333–369. Malone, T. W. & Lepper, M. R. (1987). Making Learning Fun: A Taxonomy of Intrinsic Motivations for Learning. In R. E. Snow & M. J. Farr (Eds.), Aptitute, Learning and Instruction: III. Conative and affective process analyses (pp. 223–253). Hilsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Meyer, B. (2006). Languages with ICTs – ICTs with Languages. In M. Buhl, B. Holm Sørensen, B. Meyer (Eds.), Medier og It – Læringspotentialer. Danish University of Education Press. Meyer, B. & Sørensen, B. H. (2007). Serious Games in language learning and teaching – a theoretical perspective. In Proceedings of the Third International Conference of the Digital Games Research Association. Tokyo, Japan. Rieber, L. P. (1996). Seriously Considering Play: Designing Interactive Learning Environments Based on the Blending of Microworlds, Simulations, and Games. Educational Technology Research & Development, 44(2). Shaffer, D. W. (2004). Pedagogical praxis: The professions as models for post-industrial education. Teachers College Record. Squire, K. (2004). Replaying history. Unpublished doctoral dissertation in the field of instructional technology. Indiana University. Squire, K. (2002). Cultural framing of computer/video games. Game Studies 2. Sutton-Smith, B. & Kelly-Byrne, D. (1984). The Idealization of Play. In P. K. Smith (Ed.), Play in Animals and Humans. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Inc. Sørensen, B. H. (2002). Børnenes nye læringsfærdigheder – didaktiske perspektiver. In B. H. Sørensen, C. Jessen, & B. R. Olesen (Ed.), Børn på nettet. Kommunikation og læring. København: Gads Forlag. Sørensen, B. H. & Audon, L. (2004). Nye Læringsformer og rum – digitale medier i vidensamfundets skole. Forskningsrapport. In B. H. Sørensen, C. Jessen & B. R. Olesen (Eds.), Børn på nettet. Kommunikation og læring. København: Gads Forlag. Warschauer, M. (2004). Technological change and the future of CALL. In Fotos & Browne (Eds.), New Perspectives on CALL for Second Language Classrooms. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Warschauer, M. & Healey, D. (1998). Computers and Language learning: an overview. Language Teaching, 31, 57–71. Warschauer, M. & Kern, R. (2000). Introduction. In Warschauer & Kern (Eds.), Network-based Language Teaching: Concepts and Practice. Cambridge UP.

Competence Complexity and Obvious Learning Experience from Developing a Language Learning Game Ellen Brox, Audun Heggelund and Gunn Evertsen Northern Research Institute P.O. Box 6434, Tromso Science Park, N-9294 Tromso, Norway [email protected]

Abstract: A computer role-playing game for language learning was created in a European project. The process was challenging with a multidisciplinary team from three countries who did not know each other well before the project started. Game designers, linguists, pedagogues and teachers have different approaches to how such an educational tool should function. The requirements for the game were scarce before the project started, so it was up to the team to agree on the game design and contents. We early realised that we had to work much more closely together than what is common in educational projects, so we used virtual meeting rooms extensively in addition to many physical meetings. One important conclusion regarding the process is that small prototypes should have been made very early to enhance the understanding and cooperation between the writers and designers and those responsible for the pedagogical contents. Designers and pedagogical personnel should also have had a much closer cooperation in the early phases to better integrate the learning material into the game story. This paper discusses how we worked together to get consensus about the game. We will also touch upon some of the technical difficulties we had trying to satisfy all our requirements with the chosen open source platforms. We also say a few words about the first reactions of the target group. The focus is however on the process of making educational games and what can be learnt from this experience.

1 Introduction A Nordic multi-disciplinary team just finalised a Socrates/Minerva project where a computer role-playing game for language learning was developed. The project was based on the need for better learning material for the Finnish language in

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Norwegian and Swedish schools. It was planned in 2004, and at that time most of the educational role-playing games the participants had seen were simple games for social situations. Most of us had more or less experience with different types of entertainment games though. Making a computer game requires a real multi-disciplinary team consisting of game designers, writers, programmers, etc. In an educational game one also needs pedagogical competence and knowledge about the discipline covered by the educational game. In addition the end users should be heard. In our case we had pedagogues and language experts as well as teachers from both Norway and Sweden. With such a diverse team not only across disciplines but also across borders there are bound to be diverting opinions. Traditional language learning is a linear process where one grammatical theme comes before another. Games are often nonlinear, enabling the player to move around more or less freely and thus maybe encountering the language in the “wrong” order. This was a real challenge in our project in addition to the long distances between the participants. Our game is static, and can design-wise not compete with pure entertainment games. We were uncertain about how this would be received by the target group of children aged 12-15. Obvious learning versus a game where the learning is hidden was also an issue in the development team. Our pedagogues also meant that everybody likes to learn, so it should be acceptable to find for instance language exercises in the game scenes as long as they contribute to the game. The game is incorporated with a learning management system (LMS) giving both pupils and teachers the possibility to follow and evaluate the learning progress.

1.1 Background The lack of up-to-date educational material for pupils learning Finnish in Northern Norway and Sweden was the main reason behind our wish to make a computer role-playing game for language learning. We started to discuss the idea in the early spring of 2004, and at that time this was viewed as an innovative idea. Finnish is taught as a second or foreign language in several schools both in Northern Norway and Sweden. The native languages and culture of Norway and Sweden are fairly similar, meaning that pupils also more or less would have the same basis for learning the Finnish language. We therefore wanted a cross-border project, and the EU life-long learning Socrates/Minerva program was a suitable target for an application. This program would also enable us to have a focus on the teachers who were to use the game in their education of children. We managed to set up a team from Sweden, Finland and Norway that both had the required competence and were interested in considering new digitals tools for the classroom.

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1.2 Competence Requirements and Cooperation The main goal of a game development team is to make an entertaining good-looking immersive game. Making an entertainment game requires close cooperation between the different skills of its creators as game design and development is a multidisciplinary task. Bateman (2007) mentions writer, producer, designer, programmer and artist. Educational games add an extra dimension requiring competence about the subject to be learnt as well as about the schools, the curriculum, didactics and the target group itself. Musicians, psychiatrist, etc. may also be useful in game development. Entertainment games may have a good story, and the players will learn something while playing, for instance strategy and co-operation or even something from the game contents. And of course many kids around the world learn a lot of English through game-play. It is thus possible to utilise many entertainment games for learning as well, however it is more challenging for teachers both to find good ways to use them and to assess what is being learnt since learning is not the main aim of commercial entertainment games. McFarlane et al. (2002) state that “The greatest obstacle to integrating games use into the curriculum is the mismatch between the skills and knowledge developed in games, and those recognised explicitly within the school system”. When it comes to educational games, the development team has to be extended to ensure that the games will be useful in school. In this respect teachers are very important. One of the recommendations found in “The games and learning” handbook from the Futurelab (Sandford 2005) is that “games designers should work closely with teachers from the beginning of the development process, to ensure that the end product is appropriate from a pedagogical and practical viewpoint”. These additional experts join the team with different main objectives for the game, and they don’t always agree with the previously mentioned goals. Of course the game should still be entertaining and immersive, but it also has to contain the information that is to be taught, and the tasks shall not be about killing monsters but about understanding a foreign language or solving a physical problem. Assessment of what is being learnt is also a challenge in any game, also educational ones.

2 The Game 2.1 Game Description A short description of the game itself is useful before discussing some of the challenges during the development process. Our game (Brox 2006) is story-based, and

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we used results from an early survey when making the script. “Exiting” was the word we saw most often in the replies from pupils, so we tried to make a story that was exiting. It starts with an animation where the player sits on a train reading a letter from his/her grandfather in the small town of Melumäki somewhere in Finland. The grandfather has asked the player to come because strange things are happening. He also says that this may be the last time that they can go fishing together in the forest near grandfather’s house. When the player arrives grandfather is gone, and he/she realises that words are disappearing from the speech of the townspeople. The player must find out where grandfather is, and why are the words disappearing? Is there anything that can be done to change this? The game prototype is small (Figure 1). It only consists of 10 scenes, and four of them are open from the beginning. There are non-playing characters in several scenes, and the player will get useful information and maybe even items (such as keys) if they choose the right dialogues. Items and exercises can also be found in the scenes. More scenes are opened either through getting the right information, being in possession of the right item or even through gaining enough points. The game has a chat functions, and it is possible to chat with other player at any time. In some scenes it is also possible to see other players (for instance in a market place). According to Gee (2005) players can increase their competence by seeking advice from other players, and the chat is one way they can to this.

Fig. 1. A scene with the playing character (front right) and a non-playing character (back left). The latest chat is seen at the bottom of the game window as is the backpack that contains items gained.

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The game exercises are in three levels, and the level is chosen before starting the game. Solving exercises is the task that gives the most points. The game user interface is in Finnish with information and dictionary translations in Swedish, Norwegian and English. It is static except for start and end animations, but the non-player characters’ dialogues are spoken as well as written. Throughout the game one finds language exercises that open in a separate window. They don’t have to be solved to be able to continue the game but some exercises should be solved to get enough points to reach the last part of the game. The contents of the exercises are connected to the scene contents, meaning that the exercises about nouns are found in the scene where a non-player character is losing nouns. The game is web-based so that no program has to be downloaded and installed.

2.2 Assessment of Learning and LMS Assessment of what is being learnt is important in the classroom. Digital tools, whether they are games or other tools will not be used if they are not of value in the learning situation. If all the players learn is how to click on the right dialogues to get to the end we have failed. For this reason we incorporated the game in an LMS (learning management system, Brox 2007). This is software for delivering, tracking and managing training. The students will typically be organised into classes with online learning content and forums for students and teachers. More and more schools use such learning environments to organise the work and to keep the study material and student progress and results in folders. We wanted both teachers and pupils to be able to assess the learning progress. The players first have to log into the LMS as themselves. No matter which nickname they choose to use in the game, all game results are stored in the players’ folders. Ideally the game should be integrated into the actual LMS that each school is using. However, the integration between the game and the LMS is so extensive that this was not achievable within the project’s budget. For this reason in the current version we have a specific game LMS where the players log into a designated class. We chose the open source LMS Moodle (www.moodle.com), both because we needed the code to be able to integrate the game platform into the LMS (login information, log from the game, exercises) and because the tool Hot Potatoes (http://hotpot.uvic.ca/) used for most exercises in the game already was integrated into Moodle (Figure 2). To enter the game in the LMS you have to choose a virtual classroom that contains the game. The organisation of the game classrooms is also a challenge; should there be one class for all players, one class for each school or one for each real class? Players can see one another in some scenes, and they can chat with all other players currently in the same game. Teachers can also see results of all players in

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Fig. 2. The game window in Moodle. This player has three games running. All results will however bee stored in the player’s (Ellen Brox) folder. The classroom is called “SanatOn” which is also the name of the game.

their classroom. On one hand we want the pupils to meet pupils from other schools and maybe countries, on the other hand only the real teachers should be able to monitor the players’ results. Also the teachers might want to use the LMS for other language material as well, and not only this game. In the prototype there are separate classrooms for all the real schools that participated and one big test classroom for all other players. A combination of belonging to your own class and being able to play with pupils from other classes would have been nice. Then the teacher would only be able to see the results of their own pupils but the pupils would have the pleasure of meeting others in the game. Moodle does not have this feature but with more project resources this extension could have been added to the open source Moodle.

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3 The Game Making Process 3.1 Our Team Socrates Minerva that was financing our project requires partners from at least three European countries. The idea about making a game came from Norway and was founded on the lack of up-to-date digital learning material for Finnish. Thus the initiative was Norwegian, and the technical developers as well as the responsible for the design and script were from Norway. The Finnish language experts were from Sweden, with didactical competence as well as knowledge about the curriculum. From Finland we had participants with artistic and game design competence. Finnish partners also developed a web-based course on ICT in language learning where the game played an important role. Teachers from Norway and Sweden participated. All together the core team of the project consisted of 11 people who worked closely together, and in addition teaches, students, pupils and other employers in the partner institutions assisted in the project. Thus in total we estimate that approximately 100 persons have either developed, tested or played the game in the project period. The teachers were a very important resource. They participated in the initial study as well as in the course where one assignment was to propose how one could use the game and it’s contents in language education. Of course they also participated in testing of the game and the learning material both with and without pupils. The main partners were the University of Umeå, Sweden, Palmenia Centre of Continuing Education at the University of Helsinki, Finland, Kotka and Kouvola departments, Northern Research Institute in Tromsø, Norway, the University of Applied Sciences in Kemi/Tornio, Finland and the County Governor of Troms, Norway.

3.2 How We Worked Game development requires teamwork, and we managed to work as a team across both disciplines and borders. Game design comprises everything that must be decided when converting a manuscript into a game story (Carr 2006). “The act of story creation is the most important creative task game writers face, as the story simultaneously makes up the bulk of the narrative and arranges all the game elements. … As such the game story needs to be crafted in careful collaboration with the rest of the team and the game designers in particular” (Bateman 2007). In our case, we also needed the consent of pedagogues, teachers and language experts.

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The whole team was involved in discussing the manuscript, and important parts of the game were decided by consensus. More or less creative ideas came from everyone while the development team provided a cooling effect when the ideas would demand development efforts beyond the project’s means. Since this was a learning game, the pedagogical contents and planned levels within the game should also have been designed from the start. Unfortunately, we spent so much time achieving consensus on the main story line in the manuscript that there was little time left for making a thorough design before implementing the game. A more stepwise approach with an early prototype just showing a few scenes and game elements would probably have been a better approach. We would then have been able to demonstrate the capabilities of the different elements (Kirjavainen 2005). This would have helped the pedagogical team to see where best to add learning contents. Probably it would also have helped the writers of the main story to relate it to the actual game elements. Teamwork requires regular contact and we had numerous both physical and virtual meetings. Since most of us did not know each other before the project started, we needed to meet physically several times to get acquainted. Altogether we had 30 meetings including workshops and a seminar during the 2 years the project lasted. 16 of those were via Internet. In addition there were several work group meetings and extensive e-mail contact. We also had a common archive reachable by Internet so that the last version of material always was available for everyone, and it was easy to share material. We started the project with a tutorial about games to get a common idea about what we were going to make, and we also had seminars and workshops where we both discussed language learning and educational games. Initially we had planned several rounds with pilot group testing. We were however delayed because it took a very long time until we had decided upon an end to the game that everyone found satisfactory. For this reason it was mainly the project members who testes the game until very near the end of the project. Preliminary versions were however tried in the course, and we also had a workshop with teachers to get their reactions on the language contents and the exercises. ICT students in Finland also tested the game for errors before it was finished. In the following we will discuss some of the issues that had to be agreed upon to be able to finalise the project.

3.3 Game Versus Educational Tool As mentioned earlier, an educational game often has a different overall goal than a pure entertainment game, and there might be a conflict between the entertainment value and the learning outcome. We also realised that the experience and expectations of the two groups – the game designers and technical developers versus the educational team – were different. It seems that the “gamers” envisaged an

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entertaining and exiting role-playing game with embedded learning whereas the educational team envisaged an educational game-based tool with exercises. Earlier in this paper we touched upon the fact that one often learns from entertainment games. Many games are for instance in a correct historical setting, thus giving the player knowledge about this epoch. It is a fact that playing MMORPGs gives strategic skills as well as skills in planning, cooperation and sometimes even leadership. The main language of most big games is English, and players with other mother tongues will soon learn some English. However, it is not always easy to assess the learning outcome, and how do we know that all the contents in a commercial historical game is correct, even though some of it is? And even if players learn English by communicating in online role-playing games it is not necessarily correct English. The conversations might be between non-native speakers learning each other’s mistakes instead of proper English. We also often find that a certain game slang is used that is not considered correct English in the real world – and certainly not in the classroom. The technical personnel in the project had studied the The Futurelab Handbook (Sandford 2005), and learnt that current game developments try to blend hard educational work into the act of playing a game. They describe “the pitfall of earlier learning games, such as those which only offer a period of play once a multiple choice question, a mathematical equation, or a spelling test have been completed” and “Learning should be integrated with game-play, rather than dividing the game content between ‘learning’ and ‘fun’. It should not be assumed that compromises can be made with fun purely because the game is designed to be educational”. On the other side, one also has to consider where the game-play is taking place. The handbook from Learning lab also states that a computer game does not necessarily have to be the latest, cutting edge edition since it is not competing against other games but against a whiteboard. “In a formal environment a game looks very different from in the living room.” (Sandford 2005). In our project we chose to make a game with many exercises, but none of them are mandatory and it is easy to leave an exercise at any time. However a certain amount of points are required to play the game through to the end, and points are best earned by solving exercises. The dialogues are an important part of the game, and selecting the best (most polite and at the same time showing that the question is understood) both gives the most clues and points.

3.4 Language Learning in a Non-linear Game One of the main areas of dispute in the project was the order of exercises and language material. In school language is taught in a certain order with present before past, and simple grammatical forms before more complex ones. The game designers on the other hand insisted on a non-linear game with hidden exercises and items.

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Searching for game elements, including exercises is one of the aspects that make the game fun, the game designers claim. The partner in charge of the language material did not like the idea of a nonlinear game where dialogues and exercises could be stumbled upon in almost any order. Since we chose to make a non-linear game you can pass through the first couple of scenes before you start a dialogue with a character or find and open an exercise. Gros (2003) says that the digital generation is familiar with non-linear means of learning, and that children and adolescents are introduced to a form of organising information that is totally different from that used in writing. Also Prensky (2001) states that the students of today are no longer the people the educational system was designed to teach. “They prefer random access and they prefer games to ‘serious’ work”. The current version of the game is quite small, and it does not take long to play. This means that the players normally will play through at least most of the game in one round. Thus they should also have encountered most of the grammatical problems found in the exercises before they start to play the game. Based on this fact the order should no longer be of such significance. Also it is not necessary to solve any particular exercise to get through the game. The exercises are also found in the encapsulating learning management system together with a document stating the best order to use them in the classroom education outside of the game.

3.5 Suitability for Schools In entertainment videogames and role-playing games characters are often stereotypes, as stated by The Futurelab handbook (Sandford 2005): “Gender, nationality and racial difference are often misrepresented in games, where, for example, often females are ‘sexy’, often heroes are white, male Western, and other racial groups represented by negative stereotypes.” In games made for school education one has to tread carefully. Not only should we avoid the stereotypes mentioned, but also more subtle pitfalls must be eluded. We had long discussions about the reason behind the disappearing words. Many ideas ranging from the basis of the story line to the description of the characters were rejected during the writing process. We, the makers of the game, knew that gnomes stood behind the word disappearance and that it was some human activity in Melumäki they did not like. This could however not be something that made Finland appear like a bad country where such things could happen. We also wanted to place the game in a real Finnish town, but this was also rejected because we would not want this town to be viewed as worse than other Finnish towns. We had to be careful about how we described the non-playing characters as well. Some phrases were re-written many times to ensure they could not be interpreted

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as ridiculing certain habits or traits. “She liked to follow the latest fashion and wore Burburry” was not accepted, neither was a statement about one wearing glasses. It is allowed to say that people are different and maybe behave odd sometimes, but making such remarks could make it sound negative. And there really is nothing odd about wearing glasses. Another consideration is of course that both the storyline and difficulty level shall suit the target group. The difficulty level not only applies to the language but also the game-play. The youngest children who tried the game found the introduction a bit sinister, which we found very encouraging. A bigger challenge was that the knowledge level of the Finnish language is substantially different between Norwegian and Swedish pupils who are entitled to Finnish. The Norwegian children can choose to learn Finnish without any prior knowledge whereas the Swedish pupils must have some basic competence, and thus the Swedish children might be younger when they master Finnish well enough to play.

3.6 Technical Challenges The technical team started with a requirements document based on the project description and preliminary discussions in the project team. The resources were scarce so we were looking for an existing open source game engine with interface and multiplayer features that could be integrated into an LMS. We also decided to make a web-based game to make it more accessible. There were some heavy opponents for using Flash for the entire game, but the development team did not at the moment have enough Flash skills. They were also afraid that it would require too much development resources and that it would be difficult to make a multiplayer game. They had found the open source platform DimensioneX (http://www.dimensionex.net/) that could be used. The appearance of this platform was however not what we wanted, and both the experienced players and designers reacted negatively to the user interface. After both discussions and a workshop the designers outlined a new user interface that was integrated on top of the platform using Ajax techniques. It is also possible to integrate modules made in Flash into the new user interface, so both the start and end animations and a puzzle in the game are in Flash. The game is entirely web-based. The main reason behind this decision is to make sure that as many schools as possible should be able to use it. Schools normally don’t allow installation of software, and they also have firewalls that can cause problems. The drawback with this approach is that it makes the game slow, since graphics and sound has to be loaded while playing. Particularly the transition between the game engine and the Hot Potatoes exercises take time. We also see that if the connection is slow, the entire game gets a hang-up so that it cannot be played.

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4 The First User Reactions on the Game Two small groups of pupils aged 10-15 met to play the game at the very end of the project. The testing was not systematic, and of course the sample is so small that it does not have any statistic significance whatsoever. The trials could however give us some indication about whether we were on to something or the game was a total failure, and we had a small feedback form that we asked the test players to fill out. The first group of pupils was delivered on the doorstep of our research institute. These players were followed up by the development team – the only project participants who didn’t understand Finnish at all. They were placed in separate rooms. One of the kids had Finnish parents and spoke Finnish well whereas the others had started learning Finnish in school. They attacked the game very differently. The Finnish speaking kid was the youngest, but he understood the texts and helped the others after a couple of hours with game-play. He really worked with the texts and exercises, and one (for him) rather difficult exercise nearly drove him mad, but he didn’t give up. One kid used the dictionary extensively, and she also managed to understand the texts and find out how to proceed through hard work. The last example is the kid who knew the least Finnish, but who probably was the most experienced gamer. He quickly found out how to play, and also how to get enough points to go to the last part of the game by simple repetition. Except for this last example the others searched the game for exercises since they realised that this was the best way to get points. After about three hours they were finished, and some gathered around a computer to study the logs that they had found in the LMS. The second group was together with two Finnish teachers, and all of them were bilingual. They were sitting together in a lab outside their own schools. After four hours of game-playing the teacher literally had to drag them from the computers to reach a bus back to school. The only exception was a 16 years old boy who was significantly older than the rest (who were 11-12). He had the air of not belonging to the group from the very start, and he did not put any effort into playing the game, although he did mention there was not enough action. He also left after a short while. The rest of this group of kids searched the game for exercises and items. They also tried different levels of exercises. It seems like this last group had a bigger profit from the game than the first. There were three big differences between the two groups, and we don’t yet know what was the most significant; the presence of the teachers, the language knowledge or that they were sitting together in the same room. The test players mainly gave positive feedback on both the story and the layout. Some complained that the game was too short and they would have liked more scenes. The players in the small test groups did not use the chat function to discuss the game-play but they did try it out to contact each other. In these first tests we only wanted to test the game’s playability; that is weather the kids in the target group managed to play through all of the game and understood

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the contents and that they found it fun to play. We did nothing to assess what they might have learnt, and we observed the playing with as little interference as possible.

5 Conclusions The conclusions will be given on three themes: • • •

The game itself The process of making a game How to play the game.

The small tests we had of the game, were encouraging. The players liked the game, but they found it a bit slow at times and some also complained that it was too small. The game is also rather slow, and when the bandwidth is too narrow it is not possible to play the game at all. Therefore it would have been nice with a downloadable version. It seems that the current version is best suited for the bilingual pupils since some of the dialogues are pretty complex. The end exercise is also a bit tricky and should be redesigned. Game design and development really requires teamwork, and this is not made easier when the participants are in different countries, and the communication is in a foreign language. This is however a common problem, and we started the project with a tutorial and discussion about games and learning games. It turned out that this was not enough to create a common platform. We had several discussions and professional disputes, but we managed to maintain the respect for each other’s field and ended up as a team that worked well together and who dared to express their opinion. However, the game designers and educators should have worked more closely together from the beginning, and small fast prototyping would probably have helped us reach a common understanding earlier. We should also have spent even more time in the beginning of the project to establish a common understanding. Small demos would most likely have helped. The small lab trials that we had also indicated that the environment in which the game is played makes a difference but we have not had the chance to look into that more closely. We did not have the trials in the classroom but took the children out of the school and placed them in a different environment. It also seems to be of importance whether there is a teacher present or not, and whether the game is played alone or in a group. It would be very nice to be able to evaluate the game properly looking at all these factors and also include gender; do boys and girls react differently to the game: do they play in different ways and do they learn the same? The main contribution to the area of educational game development is the integration of the game into an LMS and thus enabling logging of the progress and achievements in the pupils’ folders no matter how they choose to log into the game itself (name and gender). The game should one common place.

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The team behind the game are now looking for further funding to be able to perform a more thorough evaluation that will direct the further development of the game. This further development address known weaknesses and take the evaluation results into consideration.

References Bateman, C. (2007). Game Writing, Narrative skills for Videogames. Boston, USA: Thomson Learning Inc, Charles River Media. Brox, E., Evertsen, G., Heggelund, A., Andreassen, M. (2006). Language learning through digital role-playing games. Report from an on going project, 5th European Conference on e-learning, Academic Conferences Limited (pp. 54–60). Brox.E., Evertsen, G., Heggelund, A., Bertling, B., Mokko, T., Tapiovaara, K., Lausas, P. (2007). Computer role-playing game integrated in a learning environment. In Proceeding at Inted 2007 – International Technology. Education and Development conference. Carr, D., Buckingham, D., Burn, A., Scott, G. (2006). Computer Games: text, narrative and play, Polity Press, UK. http://www.polity.co.uk. Gee, J. P. (2005). The Classroom of Popular Culture. What video games can teach us about making students want to learn, Harvard Educational letter. http://www.edletter.org/. Gros, B. (2003). The impact of digital games in education. First Monday, 8(7). Kirjavainen, A., Nousiainen, T., Kankaanranta, M. (2005). Prototyping in Educational Game Design. CHI’06, April 2005, Montréal, Québec, Canada. McFarlane A., Sparrowhawk, A., Heald Y. (2002). Report on the educational use of games, an exploration by TEEM on the contribution which games can make to the educational process. TEEM. http://www.teem.org.uk/publications. Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital immigrants, from On the Horizon. NCB University Press, 9(5). http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/. Sandford, R. & Williamson, B. (2005). Games and Leaning, A handbook from Futurelab. Bristol, United Kingdom. http://www.futurelab.org.uk/.

The Attitudes of Finnish School Teachers Towards Commercial Educational Games Minna Klemetti, Olli Taimisto and Paula Karppinen Happywise Ltd Kansankatu 47 A, 90100 Oulu, Finland [email protected]

Abstract: E-learning and educational software have since long been accepted as tools for teaching and learning. Even though games as such have been used in learning through ages, digital serious games, however, are still in the beginning of the process as the entire field is only emerging. The focus of this paper is to analyze opinions, experiences and attitudes of Finnish school teachers regarding digital educational/learning games, especially when they are equated with other commercial material for teaching. The conclusions are based on the material collected in three occasions during the year 2007. Surveys were used to collect information from about 400 teachers, some of whom were also interviewed. Most of the teachers who participated in the surveys work in comprehensive school (grades 1-9) in which the students are aged from 7 to 16. The study was based on the needs of a game developer company HappyWise Ltd. The surveys and interviews were conducted in order to direct the development process of Growwwings.net – Sustainable development learning game, in its pre-marketing phase.

1 Introduction E-learning and educational software have since long been accepted as tools for teaching and learning (The Finnish National Board of Education 2004). Even though games as such have been used in learning through ages, digital serious games, however, are still in the beginning of the process as the entire field is only emerging. Also the amount of research has grown significantly during the past decade. All around the world a growing number of seminars and conferences are arranged. The focus of this paper is to analyze the opinions, experiences and attitudes of Finnish school teachers regarding digital learning games especially when they are equated with other commercial material for teaching. Educational or learning games are treated as a sub-category of the vast field of serious games according to the Serious Games Taxonomy (Sawyer and Smith 2008). The effectiveness of different 97 M. Kankaanranta and P. Neittaanmäki (eds.), Design and Use of Serious Games, 97–105. © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009

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types of educational games or their comparison to other learning material is not discussed in this paper. The empirical study presented in this paper was conducted as three surveys during 2007. The results consist of the opinions and attitudes of Finnish school teachers towards commercial educational games. The study was based on the needs of a game developer company HappyWise Ltd, and its purpose was to direct product development plans.

2 Opportunities and Background of the Use of Serious Games There are significant opportunities as well as challenges for the use of serious games in schools. The common understanding among researchers and industry alike seems to be that serious games have great potential of becoming more and more influential in many walks of life in the future (Manninen 2006; Sawyer 2007). Need for lifelong learning, exponential growth in the amount of information and the complex interdependencies on phenomena of today’s world require new methods for more efficient learning. At the same time the games industry is in strong and steady growth (PricewaterhouseCoopers 2007; Eskelinen 2005, 24-25) and games keep on attracting new types of players. Also people, who have played since their childhood, still keep on playing and are also searching for new types of games. According to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) survey in 2007 the average game player is 33 years old. 38% of all game players are women. Playing games is a popular pastime, 49% of game players say that they play games online one or more hours per week. (Entertainment Software Association 2007) The increased awareness of the potential of serious games creates demand which may also lead to springing up of new companies specializing in serious games development. Information about the attitudes of potential customers towards serious games is vital for anyone developing serious games on commercial basis.

3 Challenges for the Use of Serious Games Since serious games are seen as such a potential area, why haven’t they made the breakthrough already a long time ago? May be the most common explanation is found in the organizational culture in schools as it changes slowly and the effective use of new methods takes time (e.g., Harju 2004). Other factors may include for example the availability of enabling technology in schools, the fact that online learning games are perceived to be free of charge, insufficient content and other hindrances in integrating games in teaching (e.g., Federation of American Scientists 2006).

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Some stronger opinions against learning games gathered by Kangas in 2003 included the following: The game content is daunting and games are a waste of time. Games and the internet offer false information that children and teenagers can’t distinguish from the truth. • E-learning and virtual learning environments are a dead duck. • •

Even though most of these comments apply to internet, IT and games generally, they are worth of noticing simply as they exist.

4 Empirical Study The empirical study discussed in this paper was conducted in order to direct the product development plans of a game developer company. The study affected especially the development process of Growwwings.net – Sustainable development learning game.

4.1 The Background of the Study In this paper the opinions, experiences and attitudes of Finnish school teachers regarding digital learning games are analyzed basing on surveys conducted in 2007. The material was collected in three occasions during the first half of 2007 in Finland; Educa 2007 the educational sector’s professional event in Helsinki, ITK 2007 – Interactive Technology in Education conference in Hämeenlinna, and an e-mail survey regarding a new game concept and its pricing. The surveys were based on information that was gathered from preliminary interviews conducted in 2006. Altogether 400 teachers participated in the surveys, 291 (73%) of whom worked in comprehensive school (grades 1-9) in which the students are aged from 7 to 16 (Table 1). Table 1. Statistics of the surveys. Survey

Survey participants

number of participants working in comprehensive school (grades 1-9)

228

170

ITK 2007

78

27

e-mail survey1

94

94

400

291

Educa 2007

Total

1

E-mail survey was sent to total of 600 teachers working in comprehensive schools in May 2007. Response percentage was 15.7.

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The surveys and interviews were conducted in order to direct the development process of Growwwings.net – Sustainable development learning game, in its premarketing phase. The purpose of the surveys was to find out both factual and attitudinal information about digital learning material and they consisted of both selections and open questions. In the following statistics only the replies of comprehensive school teachers are considered.

4.2 Statistics and Observations The factual part of the surveys dealt with the use of educational software generally, the current use of learning games in schools and the subjects in which learning games and educational software are used (Figure 1). The attitudinal part dealt with the willingness and readiness to use learning games in own teaching, opinions about the motivating effects of learning games, and the feedback on a new game concept and its pricing. 17 % 83 %

Uses educational software Doesn't use educational software Fig. 1. Statistics of educational software usage among teachers (n = 291).

According to the survey 83 % (241) of the respondents in comprehensive schools use educational software at school. 82% (238) of the teachers responded that they use learning games. It turned out that many teachers still consider learning games mainly as traditional games such as card or board games, as the amount decreased to 65% when the question emphasized digital learning games. Most often learning games and educational software are used in mathematics (31%) and Finnish language (27%) as presented in Figure 2. Digital learning material is also commonly used in natural sciences (20%) and foreign languages (19%). Since comprehensive digital learning games are not readily available for most subjects at school, teachers sometimes include some internet based free mini games in their classes. This may explain the relatively high percentage of digital learning game users.

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3% 19% 20%

Mathematics Natural sciences others

31% 27%

Finnish language Foreign languages

Fig. 2. Usage of learning games and educational software in different subjects (n = 232).

Almost all of the respondents (92%, 268) said that they could use learning games in their teaching. The opinion of 99% (288) of the teachers was that learning games would motivate their students in learning. Obviously teachers find learning games or at least the idea of them useful. Naturally it is possible that teachers who did not have even a slight interest towards digital learning material did not participate in the surveys. Considering the answers as a whole however it seems that the respondents represent a relatively good sample of Finnish school teachers. Generally the respondents emphasized that students like doing things on computers and games bring a welcome change to studying at school. However, even though games may help in understanding things, so far students have found most games interesting only for a short period of time. This also indicates that the games are concise and don’t offer much of a challenge to the learner: “So far learning games haven’t managed to interest students for long. In that sense it’s good if new ideas come to the market.”

A significant problem with increasing the use of learning games in teaching seemed to be the lack of resources, especially the amount of money for new learning material. In addition, in their own words teachers are not able to use the school computers in teaching as often as they would like to due to the inadequate number of computers at schools. There are variations between schools in the number of students per computer however, the average being 7-8 (Lehto 2007). The opinion of the teachers calls for solutions that enable the teacher to show the game on one computer for example via a video projector during the lesson. “The price is a significant factor.” “Shouldn’t be expensive for schools.”

The surveys also revealed some factors that teachers especially look for in learning games. The games should be very easy to use, yet versatile and challenging. They

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should provide enough material for several lessons, but they also should be able to be played in periods of single or double lessons. It is also hoped that the games are visually attractive, and at best they should include some positive social aspect. “There has to be enough material.” “The game works best if there are enough interesting things for several game sessions.” “Should be able to be played in one lesson.”

Many teachers also emphasized that they should be able to know how the students are doing in the game, and in some way be in charge of the situation. In addition, using a game in teaching should not increase the workload of the teacher.

4.3 Empirical Conclusions According to the surveys most of the teachers use some type of educational software in their teaching. Almost as many teachers have used and are willing to continue using learning games, even though some of them first think of traditional games instead of digital ones when speaking about learning games. It can be seen that the use of educational software (not especially educational games) is concentrated on subjects like mathematics and languages. The proportion of these classes at school is relatively high, digital learning material is widely available on the market, and schools have been willing to invest in it in addition to text books. Learning games are however seen as free resources since they are perceived as too concise and the themes not important or versatile enough to be invested in. Until recently this has been mostly true too. From the content point of view teachers emphasized themes that fit in the curriculum to make it easier to integrate games in teaching. The attitudes of teachers towards learning games is very positive, and teachers clearly see the potential of games in getting better learning results by better motivation.

5 Final Conclusions The potential of serious games as motivational tools for learning will most likely increasingly influence the organizational culture of schools. The conducted surveys show that there don’t seem to be remarkable hindrances for the acceptance of serious games as such in the attitudes of teachers. There are however several other factors to consider when developing commercial learning games for schools. Approving or even interested attitude towards serious games might not necessarily lead to effective use of games in teaching.

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5.1 Observed Challenges Schools often have to strongly prioritize all purchases, and learning games are at this point often seen as additional material only. There continues to be preference for printed materials, and the content of most learning games is seen inadequate in supporting the curriculum. Learning games are perceived as free resources on the internet that are used to enliven the lessons from time to time. So far many learning games available have been mini games made by some interest groups or for promotional purposes. Wider themes are often covered by games developed by universities and research units this leading to games being experimental in nature, and free of charge due to the public funding. Neither ensures that the learning games necessarily suit the curriculum. In addition it’s not the purpose of research units to maintain, and market the developed games to a wide audience. Teachers also reported lack of time or energy to get familiar with new learning material and to start using it, which is in accordance with the notion of slowly changing organizational culture in schools. The practical problem of inadequate amount of computers in some schools does not encourage familiarizing oneself with new digital learning material.

5.2 Implications of the Study One method of easing the access of learning games into effective use in schools could be developing games about wide and important themes within the curriculum. They still probably wouldn’t replace text books but it would be more reasonable for schools to consider purchasing digital material of this type. So far schools haven’t been used to paying for digital learning games, but they are used to paying for other types of educational software as it has been available much longer. In addition the internet is becoming increasingly important distribution channel also for educational material, including digital material with valuable content comparable to text books. The accordance to a specific curriculum however causes, at least partly, the problem of having to localize the game to fit the curriculum in each country if the game is intended for international markets. The learning games should also be designed to have good usability and be very easy to use in classroom context. In addition they shouldn’t increase the workload of teachers. The younger generations of teachers who are already used to computers and games, will probably affect the organizational culture in schools regarding the role of digital learning material. According to the Finnish National Board of Education representative Ella Kiesi (Lehto 2007) the number of students per computer shouldn’t be so much of a problem

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in Finland anymore. The opinions of the teachers in the conducted surveys were mostly contradictory to this. On the other hand only now serious games are starting to be developed by game developers in addition to pedagogical experts. This brings the integral elements of game development in serious games and may make the games of the future increasingly engaging as well as visually attractive. Yet another interesting aspect is user created content that also may be integrated in learning games. According to these results of the empirical study, Growwwings.net – Sustainable development learning game was designed to be extensive in content, fit the national curriculum and easy to use in classrooms during lessons. Teachers are also able to monitor the progress of their students within the game. As a final conclusion, as the growing interest in gaming and familiarity of e-learning solutions are combined, soon the time could be right for commercial educational games also in schools.

5.3 Future Avenues for Research The study was conducted in Finland among Finnish school teachers. It would be interesting however to expand the research to other Nordic Countries and analyze the variations between countries. It may be that mostly IT-oriented teachers took part in the survey, but already among these respondents there were replies indicating that the teacher was in no way interested in IT as such and yet the attitude towards learning games was positive. In addition it would be useful to compare the results of the study with participant observation in classrooms and see how the attitudes appear in practice when using learning games. Also a similar survey study could be conducted in 2-3 years time to see if the organizational culture and attitudes regarding digital learning material has changed.

References Entertainment Software Association. (2007). Game Player Data. Entertainment Software Association. http://www.theesa.com/facts/gamer_data.php. Accessed 27 February 2008. Eskelinen, M. (2005). Pelit ja pelitutkimus luovassa taloudessa. Sitran raportteja 51. Helsinki: Sitra. Federation of American Scientists. (2006). Summit on Educational Games. Federation of American Scientists. Harju, M. (2004). Digitaalisten oppimispalveluiden hankinta ja käyttö sekä niitä tukevat palvelut. Espoo: Culminatum. Kangas, S. (2003). Hyödyllistä pelaamista. Opetuspelit ja muut *tainmentit. Presented at the ITK conference, Hämeenlinna, Finland.

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Lehto, T. (2007). Ficom ja opetushallitus toivovat lisää koneita. Koulut uhkaavat jäädä jälkeen tietotekniikassa. Tietokone. http://www.tietokone.fi/uutta/uutinen.asp?news_id=31797&tyyppi=1. Accessed 26 February 2008. Manninen, T. (2006). Virtuaalipelit nuorten tulevaisuuden oppimisympäristönä. Presented at the Oppimisympäristöjä kehittämässä seminar, Oulu, Finland. PricewaterhouseCoopers. (2007). Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2007–2011 (Video games section). PricewaterhouseCoopers. Sawyer, B. (2007). Serious Games: What you don’t know. Presented at the Nordic Game Conference, Malmö, Sweden. Sawyer, B., & Smith, P. (2008). Serious Games Taxonomy. Presented at the Game Developers Conference, San Francisco, Kalifornia, USA. The Finnish National Board of Education. (2004). National Curriculum for Comprehensive Schools. Helsinki: The Finnish National Board of Education.

Using Videogames as Educational Tools: Building Bridges Between Commercial and Serious Games Pilar Lacasa1, Laura Méndez2 and Rut Martínez3 1) University of Alcala, 28801 Alcalá de Henares, Spain [email protected] 2) Facultad de Psicología – UNED, Juan del Rosal, Ciudad Universitaria, 28040 Madrid, Despacho 1.70, Spain 3) University of Alcalá, 28801 Alcalá de Henares, Spain [email protected]

Abstract: This paper describes how a social simulation videogame (The Sims 2 Pets) was introduced into the classroom as a educational tool, and discusses the activities and conversations of the children, teachers and researchers involved. This study adopts a qualitative analytical perspective based on narrative and ethnographic approaches and discourse analysis. Sixteen seven- to eight-year old children participated in the study. All the video recordings were segmented using Nudist 8.0 and Atlas.ti. The analysis allows us to delimit different phases according to the strategies that children and adults used to approach the game in the classroom context. Our results show the strategies used by the adult to guide the children through a deductive reasoning process.

1 Why Commercial Videogames with Serious Educational Purposes? Introducing commercial videogames into the classroom helps us to think about why and how cultural objects designed for fun rather than for educational purposes can be used to improve digital literacies at school. This paper addresses this question by focusing on how these games involve certain representations of the world that raise new challenges when the relationships that children and adults establish between real and virtual universes are analyzed. Education relates to learning and specifically to the acquisition of certain skills that help people to be part of their social and cultural worlds, by understanding and also transforming them. Behind these abilities there lies an ability to represent virtual and real worlds by means of various codes, for example oral, written or audio-visual discourses; nowadays, these are present not just in traditional media 107 M. Kankaanranta and P. Neittaanmäki (eds.), Design and Use of Serious Games, 107–123. © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009

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but also in digital screams. The school needs to reflect on how digital universes involve young people and children’s life in order to develop new forms of literacy (Gee 2007). Moreover, considering simulation as “an operating representation of central features of reality” (Eddington et al. 1982, 10; in Salen and Zimmerman 2004, 423), we relate digital literacy to the ability to make meaning of the simulated world that appears on the screen. But education cannot be completely identified with learning. People learn to utilize certain technologies by being educated to use them in social and cultural contexts which defined how these tools are utilized in everyday life and especially in communication situations with specific purposes. Education, in contrast to learning, implies the presence of shared goals that lead human activities in a certain direction defined by the most expert members of the community (Willoughby and Wood 2008). These goals relate to specific models for understanding the world, and involve mental representations that assign meaning to human activities merged with the social and cultural situations of those in which they are generated. Within this general framework, videogames can turn into an educational instrument because they engage with symbolic reconstructions of the world. Adopting this perspective we consider commercial videogames as a “purposeful, goaloriented, rule-based activity that the players perceive as fun”. (Klopfer 2008) and we wonder how using them as educational tools is somehow different than providing “serious games” for teachers and children. One of the clearest differences is that commercial videogames are present in children’s everyday life. Previous studies have shown that they can be a valuable tool to establish bridges between what happens inside and outside the classroom. Some other reasons can be considered in relation to this. First, they motivate children and young people, because videogames are “fun” and learners associate the games that they play outside the school with pleasant moments. Second, they require the use of a set of cognitive and social skills that are implemented when they are consciously approached; a set of metacognitive activities can thus be developed around them that would be difficult without adult support present in the classroom. Third, playing commercial videogames, as well as serious games, involves the ability to communicate and the use of multiple discourses that children use outside the school; in this perspective, the main difference between commercial and serious games is that the content of these discourses has meaning in very different contexts. Finally, even though commercial videogames are usually very far from the content of the traditional classroom curriculum, they open the door to suggestions for activities oriented to developing not merely the passive transmission of information but a process of knowledge construction. This paper presents some of the results of a project carried out in collaboration with teachers to explore how commercial video games can be used in elementary classrooms. During the school year we have been working in two different schools from an ethnographic perspective. Participants were the teachers and three class

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groups of children aged between 8 and 11. Five workshops were organized, each one based on a different video game. Three types of game were selected, each of which required different skills and introduced the children to different world representations: a) sports (for example, NBA Live 2007), which opened the possibility of approaching rules from a double perspective; the rules of the game as it is played in the real world and the videogame’s specific rules; b) adventure, related to the Harry Potter franchise, since these offered a vision of the world that centered predominantly on the concepts of magic and fantasy; c) social simulation; in our case, the Sims. With these three types of game we aimed to offer different representations of the virtual world and to examine how children and adults establish relationships between real and virtual worlds. The project had two general goals that we will consider in order to present the specific questions which we will deal with on these pages. First, the project examined how various commercial video games can be turned into educational instruments. From this perspective we will explore some of the results by focusing on the process that took place in the classroom when we worked with a social simulation such as the SIMS in a workshop; we will see several phases during which the children, their teacher and the research team approach social worlds in both real and virtual reality. We will show the process by which children generated metacognitive processes supported by the teacher, and established relationships between simulated persons and the spaces they inhabit. Secondly we focus on the conversations that took place during one session, in order to show the relationships that the videogame enables to be established between the children and the adults. The restrictions imposed by the rules of the game in order to develop specific social models are also considered, and we explore the strategies of the children and the adults who support the children when they talk, play and think together during the game. In order to define this goal we consider how The Sims relates to specific models of western society that could support reflective processes related to the way in which people organize their lives in specific spaces and according to social rules.

2 Building Bridges between the School and Everyday Life Why should we wish to bring social simulation games into the classroom? Because they offer multiple representations of the real world in an interactive form. Moreover, this interaction involves specific processes of thinking that are present in many situations in the everyday life of children. Our theoretical framework settles into a double axis that brings us into a certain social context and the specific processes of thought that can develop when such a game, in this case the Sims 2 Pets, comes to the classroom.

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2.1 The Outside World as a Model when Playing the Sims Pets Following Gee (2003), we assume that a cultural universe involves images, history, principles or metaphors that capture what a particular group finds “normal” or “typical” with respect to a given phenomenon. These cultural universes capture only a partial view of reality; i.e. a specific perspective. Adopting a similar view, Frasca focuses on The Sims from an ideological and social perspective. His approach is of interest to us right from his point of departure: “The Sims represents a breakthrough in videogame design. For the first time, a best-selling game is not about trolls and wizards. This simulation is about regular people – known as Sims – in everyday situations in an American, suburban environment. In my opinion the Sims’ biggest achievement was that it fully opened the Pandora’s box of simulating human life. Although structurally The Sims is similar to other resource management simulations, the fact that it portrays people, and not aliens, results in players asking questions about the game’s ideology” (Frasca 2004, 91).

The Sims is a model of real life in the US and possibly other Western societies. According to Frasca, in the social universe of The Sims, the player can control the character in a different way to that in other traditional games where the player “is” the character but his activities are much more closely controlled by the rules of the game. In any case, Frasca considers that The Sims’ characters are rather limited in the possibilities that the game offers to define them. For example, the most important decisions that the player can take refer to the characters’ clothes and other physical dimensions, but not to personal traits affecting their behavior. Continuing our examination of the contributions of this author, we wonder how the players reconstruct the social model presented in the Sims and to what extent this model orients his or her actions in the game. The educational value of this question is related to the fact that it enables children and young people to construct representations of the social reality in which they live, and to be critically aware of the above-mentioned models.

2.2 New Models of Narratives In the previous paragraph we pointed out that The Sims’ approach to specific forms of social reality reflects the fact that they are present in a virtual world, leading us to explore how these models are developed, depending on the game mechanics and the designers’ approach to the world. In that context, Jenkins refers to this game as an example of those that offer a new model for constructing narratives that express specific models of the world and the activities that its characters perform in it.

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Referring to simulating characters on The Sims, he writes: “(…)Wright frequently describes The Sims as a sandbox or dolls’ house game, suggesting that it should be understood as a kind of authoring environment within which players can define their own goals and write their own stories (…) Wright has created a world ripe with narrative possibilities, where each design decision has been made with an eye towards increasing the prospects of interpersonal romance or conflict. (…). Yet, let us now understand the designers’ contribution. The characters have a will of their own, not always submitting easily to the player’s control, as when a depressed protagonist refuses to seek employment, preferring to spend hour upon hour soaking in the bath or moping on the front porch” (Jenkins 2006, 684).

According to Jenkins, both the possibilities and the limitations imposed by the game are important. Players can define their characters by choosing from among several possibilities, often projecting their own desires, frustrations and hopes. In previous studies, we have seen that players enjoy the Sims because they can control what people do on the screen, while they cannot control what other people do in real life (Lacasa et al. 2008). Moreover, we need to remember that these characters act according to a well-defined set of possibilities; for example if we focus on The Sims Pets, important differences are found in what the characters can do, even based on the interface we are using. For example, PlayStation 2 gives gamers many more possibilities to define their preferred environment and the people who inhabit it.

3 Approaching to the Classroom: Action Research and Ethnography In order to analyze how a simulation game, The Sims Pets 2, can contribute to the development of digital literacies, as related to the interpretation of the game universe in a multimedia educational setting, we worked from an ethnographic and action research perspective. Our analyses are rooted in a sociolinguistic approach. In the project we acted as participant observers. Sixteen children between 7 and 8 years of age (seven boys and nine girls), their teacher and the research team participated in the workshop. All the children were highly motivated and interested in the games, although there were wide differences among them in terms of their expertise as gamers. The teacher was a young woman with at least ten years of experience. Although she was not an expert in the use of technology she wished to offer her students the new possibilities opened up by it. She was extremely cooperative with the research team and we worked well together; it is important to point out that when games and consoles were being used in the classroom or specific activities involving playing were designed, control of the classroom was passed to the research team. The roles of the members of the research team were clearly defined for the children, who regarded all of us as “the videogames teachers”; at least three people were always present during the sessions.

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As games we work with The Sims Pets 2, using both PlayStation 2 y Nintendo DS. Because we have worked in other classrooms with the same games using just one platform we decided to introduce an additional one on this occasion. Our previous experience had shown us how important it was that some of the children should take home the Nintendo DS to play and think about the game and its challenges. During class time, we used PlayStation 2, which permitted more complex game mechanics and the opportunity to play in large or small groups using a TV screen or a video projector. The workshop was carried out in the course of six sessions of approximately two hours each per week. An analysis of the process will be presented as a result of the study. We should point out that we have been working with the same teacher and children throughout the school year, and that we have previously worked together on sports and adventure games. We used both classical techniques (field/work diary, photography, compilation of materials produced by participants) audiovisual data (audio and video recordings), digitalization of all the recordings, and computer programs during the process of information processing (Nudist 8; ATLAS.ti 5.067). We also emphasize the importance of organizing the collected data according to temporal criteria. A narrative reconstruction of each session was produced by the researchers, focusing on the main goals of the participants and their use of videogames and other semiotic tools. The collected data appear in Table 1 and in Table 2. As we can see, several kinds of data were analyzed: a) video-recordings during seven hours, thirteen minutes and forty-one seconds enabled us to examine the interactions of adults and children as well as different moments of the children’s activities; b) sixteen children’s written contributions to the blog that we use as another tool that allows the children to publish their opinions about the games. As we will see later, this is also a useful tool that helps the children to become conscious of their activities when playing; c) photos taken in the classroom, that helped us to fix relevant moments, according to the research perspective and allowing us to complete or to extend the videorecording point of view; several photos taken by the children their own homes were also analyzed because the use of digital cameras was an educational strategy employed by the teacher and researchers to help children to establish relationships between real and virtual worlds. At the end of the workshops, all the video-recordings were segmented using Nudist 8.0 and Atlas.ti. We used this software to analyze the classroom sessions, to study the game reconstructions made by the researchers and to examine the children’s efforts in the classroom, in order to explore how the main characters are presented in their narratives. This allowed a series of moments in the classroom to be defined; these were subsequently transcribed in order to explore how the children’s and adults’ activities are related to specific models of the social dimensions of real life, as modulated by the mechanics of the game.

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Table 1. Collected data: Classroom and children’s photos at home. Session

Date

Photos

Children work

1 2

February 20, 2007 February 27, 2007

42 83

1:00:47 1:02:05 0:09:43

3

March 6, 2007

40

1:01:55 0:19:02

4

March 13, 2007

94

5

March 20, 2007

72

1:02:03 0:29:20

6

March 27, 2007

155

1:02:22 0:04:10

Total

486

16

Recorded Time Hour: min: sec

1:02:14

16

7:13:41

Table 2. Collected data: Classroom and children’s photos at home. Children

Date

Photos

Adrian

March 21, 2007

19

Alba

March 12, 2007

45

Ana B

March 13, 2007

10

Ana G

March 21, 2007

22

Andrea

March 13, 2007

34

Bea

March 22, 2007

15

Carol

March 14, 2007

14

Eloy

March 16, 2007

21

Guillermo

March 15, 2007

13

Jessica

March 14, 2007

20

Maite

March 22, 2007

29

Pablo

March 21, 2007

3

Sergio

March 22, 2007

10

Vivi

March 21, 2007

Total

40 295

4 What Happens when the Sims 2 were Present in the Classroom? We concentrate now on how the commercial videogame turned into an educational support tool to facilitate the acquisition of a digital literacy, allowing new ways of interpreting the world and also of using multiple codes of expression. This was also an important instrument for bringing the world of the school in to the daily

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life of the children, something that is not easy when the only instruments of learning in the classroom are designed with strictly didactic objectives in mind. We present the results of our analyses in terms of the two goals as set out above. First, to present a general picture of the process via which a commercial videogame acquired educational value in the course of the workshop and, second, to show how this helps to do elucidate various perspectives regarding how to understand social relationships that show differences between the approaches of the adults and the children. The results show how the adults sometimes imposed their interpretations on those of the children; sometimes they even went so far as to silence their students’ voices and even their active participation in the learning process. It is not enough to introduce new instruments in the classrooms; it is also necessary to look for new methodologies which, as in everyday life, ease the way towards more symmetrical relationships between children and adults.

4.1 Navigating Between Virtual and Real Worlds The first goal of this paper was to examine how a social simulation videogame, The Sims 2 Pets, was brought into the classroom as a educational tool, by analyzing the conversations and activities of the children, the teachers and the researchers. The analysis of the video recordings and the children’s productions allows us to delimit various phases according to the strategies that the children and adults used to approach the game in the classroom context; a synthesis appears in Figure 1.

Fig. 1. Main phases of the workshop.

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In order to understand what happened in specific situations during the workshop we need to examine them from a global perspective. As can be seen from the figure above, the course of the workshop displays four well differentiated phases. We focus briefly on each of them in turn, in order to examine how digital literacies in the classroom amplified other materials specifically designed for instructional purposes. In each of these phases we focus on one of the aspects mentioned before. 4.1.1 Planning and Introducing the Game What became clear during the first phase was that commercial games always approach school and everyday life by establishing relationships between real and virtual worlds. In the first session of the workshop the videogame “The Sims 2 Pets” was used and the children played in small groups and in a large group, using PlayStation Two. The game required them to make decisions about three aspects of its virtual social reality: planning the neighborhood, choosing the main characters of the family, and selecting a pet. References to both everyday life into and outside the school were present in all these three moments. Let us look at the description that appears in the researcher’s summary that refers to the way in which children created The Sims’ main characters. After a house was selected for the Sim family, the children helped by the adults must create the main characters that will be leaving there. One of the researchers said: Good, the first thing that we are going to create is a family. Think well, this is going to be the exercise. Later on, each of the children who participated in the conversation wanted to create as a main character one with the same sex as her- or himself. It was the adult’s suggestion that both a boy and a girl could be created that enabled progress to be made in the discussion. Then they chose clothes for each of them. Finally, the Sim family was given as family name the name of the city in which the children live (Alcalá de Henares). (Session 1. From 00:39:38 to 00:51:00)

The above text shows that the task of constructing the Sims’ family was proposed to the children with educational or even purely scholastic aims. One of the researchers refers to the exercise on which they are to work as homework after the game session. In fact, all the children wrote in their blogs about that topic and their texts was checked in the class on the following day. The summary also reveals how the decision to choose particular personages was agreed and suggested by the teacher rather than automatically. It also provided an opportunity to initiate a conversation about who would be the head of the new family. Discussing the reasons with the adult offered the children an opportunity to discuss their game decisions. Currently, the player takes these decisions automatically. Finally, the fact of creating a family that was closely linked to their immediate environment, giving the family the name of their own city, helped to bring to the classroom the children’ interests on which the teacher can rely to initiate a conversation about topics relevant to their everyday life.

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4.1.2 Talking about Strategies Sessions 2 and 3 saw the beginnings of a conscious process of focusing on both the mechanics of the game and the social lives of the characters. The process was supported by the adults, who helped the children to express, draw and write about their strategies and about the relationships between virtual and physical reality. As mentioned above, the task arises as a consequence of the previous session. The children wrote about how their Sims’ family would be and that it would be published in the class blog. Let us look at an example in Figure 2. “I want my Sims’ family to have a house with swimming pool, a billiards table, a very big house that has table football, a lot of games, a pinball machine, a ping-pong table and a dog”

The text clearly shows how the child projected onto the description everything that he would like to have. It might be suggested that very similar goals could be achieved by any widely used classroom teaching aid. The innovation introduced by the video game relates to the fact that the rules of the game introduce certain limits and restrictions on the children’s desires; moreover, the fact of playing the game on a screen forces them to use new tools that are absent from traditional classrooms. Moreover, in this example, the need to scan the drawings in order to present them in the blog gave the children the concept of an audience who interpreted their text, beyond the teacher and other students who, in a traditional school, are the only people who would see their notebooks.

Fig. 2. Excerpt from the class blog.

4.1.3 People and Spaces They Love The fact that they were planning inaccessible houses, far removed from their own possibilities, allowed us to generate a new strategy to help the children to establish

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relationships between the persons of the game and the spaces in which they live, often associated not only with their personalities but also with their possibilities. The following two sessions focused on that topic, combining the game with general discussions on the design of specific spaces. During sessions 4 and 5, the conversations focus on the relationships between people and the spaces they love. Once again, the role of the adult turned into a fundamental element at the time of designing activities that would help children to understand how people define and create the spaces in which they live in accordance with their own needs and preferences. Both in The Sims game and in real life, the children began to perceive and represent this reality with the aid of a digital camera. The camera helped them to achieve these goals; the children took pictures of people nearest to them and of their favorite spaces. Examples of their digital gaze on reality and of how the game can help them to deal with real life appear in Figure 3.

Fig. 3. People and the spaces they love.

The child took only three photos that appear at the top of Figure 3. The task as proposed by the teacher was to take some photos at home that showed a family member and his/her favorite space. Pablo’s work shows how he photographed his room and his cat, as well as the kitchen, in an almost identical context to the one that appears in The Sims Pets video game. Even when we remember that not all the children showed the same influence of the game on their elections, new studies need to study in depth the process that orients the way in which children relate virtual and real worlds.

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4.1.4 What did they Learn by Playing with Videogames? The workshop closed with a joint session of reflection on the entire learning process. Once again, dialoguing, writing and taking pictures helped the children to think about the most significant moments of the workshop and what they learned when playing and thinking about the game. It is relevant to show some of the photos that the children took in the classroom when they wondered about what they learned during the workshop and, more specifically, what had been important for them. If verbally they alluded in their conversation to the gaming situations in interacting with the console, in their pictures they focus on people much more than on material or digital objects; the teacher, the researchers and other children were their objects of interest. An example of these photos appears in Figure 4.

Fig. 4. Children expressed how they learned using a digital camera.

The fact that the children focus on people it is an example of how using videogames, which had been the principal motive for the design of this educational situation, contributes to create a consciousness of how other people are involved when they learn. Now that we have shown the general picture of the workshop that helps us to understand how videogames can be introduced into the classroom, we focus on some of the conversations that took place in the classroom in order to analyze some of the strategies that children and adults use to approach the game and to define the cultural universes present. What the following conversation shows is how children and adults talk about a virtual world but refer to it in terms of the everyday real world context. The examples show that children and adults seem to have different mental representations of the world, although it is the adult who finally sets the scene in the classroom. The fact that the adults were forced to justify their opinions, as they were asking the children to do, could be the reason why their own way of thinking was imposed on the students; considering other possible

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similar situations will help teachers to review their role in the classroom when commercial video games are introduced. A more symmetrical attitude on their part, giving more freedom to the children’s opinions, would create a much richer context from an educational perspective. We focus now on some fragments of the conversation that took place during the first session of the workshop when the children planned a house for the Sims family, and especially where it could be situated. When the game begins a screen like the one shown in Figure 5 appears. As we can see, the player needs to choose a house for the Sims family. At least three decisions need to be taken to define where this family will be living: 1) the name of their neighborhood, 2) the exact place where it will be located and, 3) how much money they want to pay for it.

Fig. 5. Choosing a house for The Sims Family.

We can look now at how children and adults approach this decision-making process together. The transcript is divided into several parts, according to the main topics explored during the dialogue. We can see how the adults tried to establish clear relationships between the options offered by the game and the children’s real lives in order to justify some of their decisions. The following parts of the conversation focus on the process of deciding the best place to build the Sims’ family house. While at first the only criterion seems to be the price, we can subsequently observe the strategy used by the adult to guide the children through a deductive reasoning process. We can see, as we have previously mentioned, that the adult’s model is gradually imposed in the course of the conversation, leaving the children few possibilities of choosing or elaborating on the choices made.

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Looking for a house 1. Researcher: Now then, what is the next thing that we have to do? A small house. 2. Adri: So if you want to build, you have to get a house. 3. Researcher: Look at the one on the lake; we are going to look at the one that is not occupied. 4. Researcher: And it costs 1500 dollars, the one on the lake is very expensive.

Let us focus now on the reasoning process that children and adults seem to perform together. Although the children are thinking and expressing their opinions freely, it seems to us that the adults, at least to some extent, are imposing their thinking on the children. We focus on how the conversation develops: Defining the criteria 6. Guillermo: I like this one. 7. Researcher: Why do you like this? 8. Guillermo: Because I like it.

9. Researcher 2: No, but that is not a reason. Just because you like this one more, Guillermo? 10. Researcher: He likes this place more. 11. Researcher 2: What is the difference between one house and another one?

12. Researcher 2: According to the information that we have here, the only thing you know to choose one or another is how close they are to the lake.

As we said before, differences between the two researchers are clear from the beginning. Researcher 2 seems to be much more interested in a explicit educational approach, leading the children to specific processes of reasoning; in contrast, the first researcher seems to be happy just going through the game options, although of course this was much more interesting for the children. While the first researcher restricted himself to repeating the responses of the boy, which would be a strategy that it would be he who gave an option in a later response, researcher 1 had the patience to wait to define a criterion with which to justify the choice; closeness to the lake Virtual and real life interwoven 13. Researcher: this one is much nearer the top of the hill, and this other one is quite near the lake. Where would you like to live? 14. Child: Closer to the lake. 15. Researcher 2: What do you think are the advantages of living in one place or another? What do you thing are the differences between living in the 6th floor or the apartment building or on the first floor? I think that maybe in the first floor you don’t have very nice views. 16. Child: But I live on the first floor.

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17. Researcher 2: You see almost nothing of the sky. (…) 20. Researcher: Where will we get to sooner? 21. Child: To the lake 22. Researcher2 : So, if I want to live at the top of the hill I will have much better views, but if I want to go swmming quickly, where would you prefer to live? 23. Children: Near the lake.

Reading the transcript carefully, we see that we need to choose between two options: the house at the top or at the bottom of the hill. The advantages and disadvantages of each of them were presented (see turns # 15, 20 and 22). Although the children were approaching a decision process and even reasoning, our main concern here refers to the models introduced by the adult. Perhaps it would have been more attractive for the children to take a little more time and to motivate them to participate more actively, even if the adult were to play a less important role. How could The Sims be used as an educational tool? Which main dimensions of the game could be taken into account to help these children to be aware of its mechanics? The answer here is not so clear as in NBA Live 07 or Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the other games that we use in other workshops during the same project. The fact that the player has a high level of control in defining the characters and their environment is one possible reason, but further research needs to be done to answer this question. What does seem to be clear is that the game offers its players the opportunity to be involved in complex decision-making processes, more or less close to their everyday lives. How to manage these decisions as they are made by adults and children working together, is another open question that will be explored in future studies.

5 Some General Conclusions In this paper we have shown how commercial videogames can extend the educational process by establishing relationships between children’s everyday lives in and outside the classroom. This goal is always an important goal for teachers and researchers, but to which the use of only materials that have been designed for instructional purposes scarcely contributes. More specifically, we examined how commercial videogames contribute to create innovative educational settings in which children and adults develop new digital literacies. When we focus on digital literacies and videogames, one of the most challenging topics has been to understand how games become a meaningful object, not just for the designer but also for their users in specific contexts. Moreover, we look at how this meaning can be shared with other people, not necessarily other players, by using oral, written, and audiovisual discourses. By literacy we understand, in this context, the process

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whereby people become conscious of the discourses they use and, by doing so, control it in communicative situations; in particular, using it in a reflective and critical way in order to achieve their own particular goals. This ability assumes that people, both individually and collectively, use discourses in cultural and historical contexts with specific purposes. The article has been organized around two main goals. The first was to explore educational settings where commercial videogames were present. Activities based on them have been considered as well as the educational strategies used by the teacher and researchers to facilitate the children’s processes of meta-reflection, relying on the use of expressive oral, written and audio-visual codes. The ways in which the children think and talk enabled us to explore the relations that they establish between social worlds, both virtual and real. The second goal was to explore the relationships in the classroom between children and adults when commercial videogames mediate these relationships. As one result of an exploratory conversational analysis we suggest that the fact of grasping awareness of the game as a system is part of a situated cognition process, dependent on at least two dimensions of the context: a) adult- child relationships, where adults help children to be literate with regard to the game, and b) the specific characteristics of the game. By examining the conversations about The Sims, the limitations and constraints imposed by the game design seem to be present in both the adults and the children. For example, the fact that the game offers very limited options and perhaps orients activities towards non-reflective decision-making tends to elicit very active and directive adult roles. Further studies will need to extend the perspectives opened in this study. For example, how the children manage to establish relationships between their own social reality and the space that presents the Sims is a very open topic. In any case, if we have to draw brief general conclusions, this study has demonstrated that commercial videogames can be an important instrument for facilitating a reflection about the relationships between virtual and real worlds, in both of which we will all be living in the immediate future.

References Eddington, H., Addinall, E., & Percival, F. (1982). A handbook of game design. London: Kogan Page. Frasca, G. (2004). Videogames of the oppressed: Critical thinking, education, tolerance, and other trivial issues. In N. Wardrip-Fruin & P. Harrigan (Eds.), First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game (pp. 85–94). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Gee, J. P. (2007). Good video games + good learning. Collected essays on video games, learning and literacy. New York: Peter Lang.

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Jenkins, H. (2006). Game design as narrative architecture. In K. Salen & E. Zimmerman (Eds.), The game design reader: A rules of play Anthology (pp. 670–689). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. Klopfer, E. (2008). Aumengted learning. Research. Reseach and design of mobile educational games. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Lacasa, P., Méndez, L., & Martínez, R. (2008). Developing new literacies using commercial videogames as educational tools. Linguistics & Education, 19, (2), 85–106. Salen, K., & Zimmerman, E. (Eds.). (2004). Rules of play. Game design fundamentals. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. Willoughby, T., & Wood, E. (2008). Children’s learning in a digital world. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.

Let’s Play Together with the Camera of Your Mobile Device Ekaterina Kuts1, Carolina Islas-Sedano2 and Erkki Sutinen3 University of Joensuu, P.O. Box 111, FI-80101 Joensuu, Finland 1) [email protected], 2) [email protected], 3) [email protected]

Abstract: Currently mobile games for educational purposes are a rapidly developing area. In this work we focus on multiplayer mobile games and specific aspects such as communication and collaboration between players and learners. This knowledge is valuable not only for further game development with an educational purpose but in any type of mobile games. However, during our research we have observed that there is not enough analysis done in this topic. The first step, towards this research, was a literature overview of several authors’ implementations of different communication types between players in educational mobile games. We analyzed those papers in the view of collaboration support. This overview showed that some types of media are almost not used or not used for this purpose. Based on the outcomes of this literature overview, we decided to implement an educational mobile game, which promotes collaboration at its core. Hence, in choosing the technology for the development we put special attention to the types of communication that might support collaboration in a specific game design. The proper decision on the communication types should support and keep in harmony the game-play in the educational context. This paper presents an approach to a multiplayer mobile game. As a technology for the player’s communication and collaboration we selected technology which is often used by mobile users but rarely supported in mobile games – photo exchange. We call our game “PiX (Picture eXchange)”. PiX is designed for attracting players to communicate and collaborate by increasing their interest in an other persons’ vision of the environment. The game enables players to see how different people interpret similar objects of the surroundings, what attracts people attention, and what kinds of emotions they have.

1 Introduction During the last few years mobile devices such as mobile phones, smart phones or PDAs have become an integral part of daily life. Continuous development of the technologies has made mobile devices smaller and more complex. Today a mobile device is used not only for the voice communication. Modern mobile devices have implemented various types of multimedia functionality from digital camera, 127 M. Kankaanranta and P. Neittaanmäki (eds.), Design and Use of Serious Games, 127–141. © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009

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graphical editors, MP3-players and voice recorders to several communication channels such as Internet connection via wireless network, or information exchange by using Bluetooth technology. Wireless technology facilitates interaction between people, easy and independent from location. Many providers allow upload of multimedia files (audio, video, images) to public sites for the common use directly from the mobile device. Many devices allow pictures and video to be viewed on TV via cable or Bluetooth connection. Thus, the mobile market is continuously growing and more and more users have become a part of the mobile community. Statistics demonstrate that mobile games are the most popular applications for mobile devices (Wagner 2005). Mobile games provide opportunities for study without the limitations of time and place. Games tend to consider the educational process as a form of entertainment. The focus on using games for educational purposes (or in other words serious games) has been growing over time. There are huge amount of work has to be done at the moment of this research but with technologies rapid development new perspectives opens all the time. The dynamic development of the mobile technologies as well as the wide-ranging possibilities for use provides a set of difficulties not only for users, but also for developers. There are many technologies which support communication and collaboration between players. Many researchers consider the problem of communication between players in educational mobile games as one of the most important; furthermore, for multiplayer mobile games the problem of collaboration is a common topic in the last few years. In this paper we are briefly overviewing existing multiplayer mobile games for the educational purposes which include collaborative work of the participants. The goal of this overview is to identify communication technologies which were used to support collaboration. We are interested in understanding how an integrated camera would be used to support communication and collaboration in multiplayer mobile games. Moreover, we need to distinguish concepts and state-of-the-art challenges which are present in the development of innovative applications that involve integrated camera use. These outcomes give the valuable information for developers into game and instructional design. Consequently, the scope of this paper includes an overview of existing educational multiplayer mobile games. Section 1.4 contains data about integrated camera interaction and related challenges. After, we present the concept of a multiplayer mobile game “PiX (Picture eXchange)” in Section 1.5 which also contains our development experience. We continue with conclusion and future work section.

2 Communication Technologies and Players’ Collaboration Multiplayer mobile gaming is a relatively new and rapidly expanding field of study. A lot of different studies have been done in this area but few of them touch upon the issue of communication and collaboration problem.

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Following the aim of this article, we conducted the scientific search of the existing publications. It enables us to understand the current situation on mobile game development market, and find technologies which are more popular between developers during the last years. The search was oriented on the electronic document search in academic databases (ACM Digital Library and IEEE Xplore and the Internet using Scholar Google. The search was performed during June – July 2007 and based on the keywords mobile games, multiplayer mobile game, mobile educational game, collaboration through mobile games, communication through mobile games. Abstract and conclusion was reviewed for each paper, and decision about further use of this article was given. If the article validated its claims and the data was useful for this review, then it was selected, in other cases the paper was rejected. As a result of this procedure, a total of 26 articles were selected. Most of them were published by ACM, CHI, MLEARN and NETGAMES The first outcome of this literature overview is the association of two main streams of reporting multiplayer mobile games: theoretical and practical. Theoretical papers are the articles with strong theoretical research that include literature reviews, analysis of existing games, new game concepts and recommendations for future development. The experimental set consists of the articles reporting empirical research and game prototypes with an educational component. As it was mentioned above, we got a set of 26 papers, amongst which we identify nine theoretical and seventeen practical ones. Year of publication of these papers varies between 2001 and middle of 2007, only one of them was published before 2001. Figure 1 presents the distribution of selected articles by the year of publication. According to Figure 1 interest in multiplayer mobile gaming has increased last years. The analysis of the publications enables us to see that many scientists consider the problem of collaboration between players as one of the most important. In spite of that, there is still not enough information and experience in the field to offer us a complete concept for successful support of collaboration in mobile games.

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Some of the practical papers include a part of the theoretical research which is used for the further development process. Thus, we observed research questions for each paper in both sets of articles to identify the most relative and popular topics for discussion. From the theoretical discussion we get fundamentals on how to start classifying the practical papers. The first general allows us to foresee the technology and equipment used, the type of game developed and since when it was available. Consequently, we compose Table 1. Table 1. Multiplayer mobile games – practical papers classification. Game

Technologies and equipment

Type

AvailabilityLocation

Savannah (Benford et al. 2005)

iPAQ PDAs with WiFi and GPS capabilities

Location-based From 2005

UK

Ancient Runes (Koivisto et al. 2006)

GPRS, Nokia 6600 phones.

Card collection 2006 game

Finland

CatchBob! (Nova et al. 2006)

TabletPC

Location-based 2005

Switzerland

BuinZoo (Sánchez et al. 2006)

PDA

Location-based 2006

Chile

Can you see me now? (Flintham et al. 2003)

Compaq iPAQ, 802.11b wireless local area network , GPS receiver

Location-based 2003

UK

Bystander (Flintham et al. Compaq iPAQ, 802.11b 2003) wireless local area network , GPS receiver

Location-based 2003

UK

Save the princess (Mottola 802.11 wireless interface, Location-based 2006 et al. 2006) Crossbow MICA2DOT motes, TinyLIME

Italy, Switzerland

Gopher (Casey et al. 2007) GSM, HTTP, Nokia Location-based 2007 Series 60 camera phones,

UK

Pirates! (Björk et al. 2001) HP Jornada 690 handheld Location-based 2001 computers with IEEE 802.11 WLAN cards

Sweden

game based on the popular GSM, GPRS and Capture The Flag and Bluetooth, cell phone Counter-Strike PC games (Mansley et al. 2004)

Location-based 2004

UK

MobileGame (Schwabe and Göth 2005)

Location-based Started in 2002

Germany

GPS, HTTP, Bluetooth, PDA

REXplorer (Ballagas et al. GPRS, HTTP, Nokia N70 Location-based Prototype mobile phone, GPS 2006, 2007) receiver developing started summer 2007

Germany

Let’s Play Together with the Camera of Your Mobile Device

Pervasive, location-based

SciMyst (Islas-Sedano et al. 2007a, b)

Nokia N80, WLAN

2007

Human Packman (Cheok et al. 2004)

Laptops, Bluetooth, Wire- Location-based 2004 less LAN serves, GPS

Finland

UK

Feeding Yoshi (Bell et al. PDA, WLAN 2006)

Location-based 2006

UK

Manhattan Story Mashup Nokia N80, WLAN (Tuulos et al. 2007)

Pervasive, location-based

Finland

2007

Treasure (Barkhuus et al. HP iPAQ PDA with GPS Outdoor mobile 2005 2005) and 802.11 WLAN multiplayer GSM – Global System for Mobile communications GPS - Global Positioning System HTTP - Hypertext Transfer Protocol

131

UK

PDA – Personal Digital Assistant WLAN – Wireless Local Area Network

According to Table 1, a combination of GPS technology and wireless network connection are used commonly to support collaboration and communication in multiplayer mobile games. Some authors mention suitability of Bluetooth technology for the low-latency location-aware mobile games (Schwabe and Goth 2005). Bluetooth connection is fast enough for the game purposes (round trip times between server and client is about 20–40ms), but game area is limited. Moreover, location-based games are most popular in implementing communication and collaboration functions. Consequently, we found that private and public text, photo and video messages exchange, calls, and game peripheral technologies are used today to support communication in mobile games. We define peripheral technologies as the technologies which provide technical information from game server about other player’s position or actions to use the modern mobile devices features. All these types of communication can be either private or public, and present in real and virtual environment, except the voice, which can exist at given moment only in physical world. According to literature review we compose Figure 2 showing different communication types used in educational mobile games. It is worth to notice that the peripheral technologies are occurring everywhere by game developers to support communication and collaboration embedded in learning experiences between players and the environment. According to Figure 2 all reviewed games use peripheral functions for player’s communication. Thus, peripheral technologies, voice and text messages are the most available tools to implement communication function in multiplayer mobile game environment. All the reviewed games use environment through peripheral technologies. As a result it is possible to see that the environment plays an important role in the player’s interaction. Notice that the game takes place in physical and virtual environment.

132 E. Kuts, C. Islas-Sedano and E. Sutinen

Fig. 2. Communication types in reviewed multiplayer mobile games (Kuts et al. 2007).

One question arises, why the use of picture is so unpopular among the games of this overview although the majority of the mobile devices are equipped with the integrated camera (Kruger et al. 2007). It can be three possible reasons for that, first from the human perspective. It can be difficult to understand through the picture what the player exactly wants to express because everybody has his/her own view of the surroundings, and with this it will raise several ethical questions. The second reason is that increased computing resources are needed for image processing calculations. Finally, the problem can refer to the integrated camera use. We will discuss the problem of using photos for communication and interaction via integrated camera in the next section.

3 Integrated Camera Interaction Currently, many mobile devices are equipped with a camera. Recently, integrated cameras of mobile devices have become much smaller and cheaper while the

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resolution of the taken images has increased. Some devices equipped with multiple cameras supporting different features. According to an analysis made by Kruger et al. (2007), by 2009 almost 85% of the devices will have a digital camera. Hence, for developers it is important to understand the concepts related to integrated camera is use as well as the challenges it offers for successful and innovative applications.

3.1 Implicit and Explicit Camera Interaction According to the input from the user, integrated camera is involved in implicit or explicit user interaction. In implicit interaction the camera is used as a “sensor”. In other words, when the user is not interested to record in his camera any specific image, instead the user wants to receive important extracted information from the bar-code (or any other symbol representation) for a specific purpose. Usually this bar-code or 3D tags, between other technologies have been previously coded by developers for specific purposes. An example of such kind of applications can be AC-Soccer (Paelke et al. 2004), a camera-centered mobile game with computer vision based interaction. An explicit user interaction emphasizes the image itself when a user wants to snap a specific object or situation (Kruger et al. 2007). And example of this type of use is the research project done by Nokia: Sensor Plane. Within it there are a diverse number of smaller projects; for instance, Manhattan Story Mashup (Tuulos et al. 2007) is a game based on the collaboration between online and mobile users on a street. Street players should hunt photos of nouns which illustrate the story written by online participants.

3.2 Integrated Camera Use Challenges A mobile integrated camera as any other technical equipment provides a set of challenges and problems that are relevant not only for the intended users but also for developers. Based on related literature overview we divided all challenges into three groups: first those which are related to the human interaction, secondly the ones related to the hardware and thirdly the ones related to the software used. Herein we do not consider the ethical problems related to the image sharing such as privacy, spying or teasing. This topic will be more suitable to analyze widely in other type of research. Table 2 represents our research findings. According to Table 2 we can observe relations between and inside some categories. Users’ diversity can influence on cognitive factors and at the same time have a relation with software. User interface can attract attention of the users or repulse him/her from the mobile device itself. Figure 3 demonstrates data from Table 2.

134 E. Kuts, C. Islas-Sedano and E. Sutinen Table 2. Integrated camera related challenges. Human related challenges Human-computer interaction

Interaction with a mobile device camera can be difficult for the users who have already got accustomed to the personal computer interaction style. Mobile device has a different data representation and does not have any analogs of the mouse pointer (Kruger et al. 2007). There is no a big freedom in a way of interaction.

Cognitive factors

This problem appears in applications with the implicit integrated camera use. It is difficult to recognize tags on the full of images screens, or sometimes the tag size too small for some people. In this case the image which is used as a tag should be defined clearly.

Sers’ diversity

An integrated camera use can be difficult for the people of the different social groups, age, and educational level. Young adults and teenagers adapt to the new technologies easier than older people.

Software related challenges Programming platform standardization

The mobile devices of similar types have similar programming interfaces (for mobile phones it is usually J2ME, APIs, web-services). Manufacturers sometimes do not provide access to some functions of the mobile device via standard APIs (Bolliger et al. 2007).

User interface

User interface of the camera-based application can be the reason of misunderstanding to the people. Some icons and buttons can confuse users and they can get lost in application. A good analysis of application interaction style required already in the prototyping phase of the development process. Besides, screen size is relatively small and it is difficult to imagine how image will look like at the wide screen.

Hardware related challenges Hardware characteristics

Applications with the implicit camera use have an implemented functionality for the target images recognition. It requires additional resources of the mobile device. Currently, mobile devices have a set of limitations and the image recognition takes some time. Image recognition problems can be avoided via developing new algorithms or device improvement. Camera-based text reading in spite of its perspectives has not yet been frequently used. The main problem is that text recognition requires a high resolution camera and good lightening (Kruger et al. 2007). If a person read a book, pages should (Continued)

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be without noise or damages. Besides, text recognition requires specific device resources and cannot be used by the moment. Camera characteristics

High camera resolution requires an additional storage space for the taken pictures and consequently additional device resources. Capturing time is increasing with the increasing of the resolution. Capturing time can be a challenge for some applications. The process of capturing image takes more than 1 second on the mobile devices because the standard capturing practice creates a jpeg or png image (Bolliger et al. 2007). This delay is significant for the applications which have a strong time limitations (such as mobile games) or for capturing movements. Several algorithms are developed to compensate the delays (Bolliger et al. 2007).

Fig. 3. Integrated camera related challenges.

According to the results of the theoretical research it is possible to observe a list of challenges that users and developers face during the work with mobile integrated cameras. These challenges are present in both types of interactions. In addition, in the previous section it was mentioned that photos were used for the collaborative purposes only in two reviewed games. Thus, in order to understand better the theory and practice of this phenomenon we designed a scenario for a camerabased application to explore explicit camera use more detailed in a collaborative multiplayer mobile game.

4 PiX – Collaborative Multiplayer Mobile Game Many applications with camera use are mobile games. Games use a similar interaction style as mobile device itself which makes them a suitable tool for an expanding

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of human-computer interaction. Mobile games are still in an experimental stage but they develop successfully and experience in this area can be expanded to the other types of applications (learning, marketing, etc.). According to these characteristics and research findings of the previous sections we develop a mobile game with the focus that should be simple, fast, and can be played anywhere and by anyone. For its development, we took into account possible challenges of the integrated camera use. We call our game “PiX (Picture eXchange)”. PiX is designed for attracting players to communication and collaboration by increasing their interest in another persons’ vision of the environment. The game enables players to see how different people interpret or label similar objects of the surroundings, and what attracts people attention. The main goal of the game design is to achieve player’s communication and collaboration through the learning, understanding and game play.

4.1 Game Description The idea of the PiX game is that it involves various people’s daily activities and knowledge in the game play. Routine tasks become a part of the game. The game dynamics transforms regular tasks into an enjoyable opportunity for discovery. The player takes a picture via phone camera, labels it with the most appropriate key word from the proposed set of words in accordance to the individual style of thinking, perceptions and associations. Afterwards it can optionally be sent to other players. When other players receive the picture, their task is to discover the train of thought of picture owner and guess the key word. For this purpose the guesser is allowed to take advantage of three help hints given by the picture owner. Each label group list contains ten words according to the main characteristics (Origin, Emotions, and Description). Moreover, there is possibility for an individual game with a game server. Table 3 represents the list of functionality available from different game modes: Table 3. PiX functionality. Functionality

Modes Individual game

Collaborative game

Take a picture

–

x

Guess the picture

x

x

Send picture

–

x

Save picture on server

–

x

Help to other players

–

x

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Fig. 4. Simple visual representation of the PiX game dynamics.

For the correct answers both players are granted with bonuses and extra-lives. For every hint used both players are fined with penalty (points or life). Figure 4 represents simple visualization of the PiX game concept. PiX is designed to have two interfaces: mobile game and web interaction. Currently, PiX has a website with a gallery of the photos taken by players in the game. Later after some further development, it will be synchronized with the game server and allows users to rank the published photos as well. Furthermore, several languages are planned to be implemented in future. Use of the real life environment as a connection between players via mobile devices makes this game innovative. Avoiding the verbal communication leads to PiX being language independent; it allows any individual to play independently of his/her skills. The player chooses appropriate language in the beginning of the game and all labels are written in the selected language. At the same time another person can select another language but they still can play together. Since both players deal with the very same set of entities, the server easily substitutes corresponding words from the selected language establishing the communication between players. PiX is a game which can be played anywhere and by anyone, it enables everybody to be involved in the game (developers, observers and players) to see how others discover and label their environment. Picture exchange can be fundamental not only for personal communication within one social and language group, but for intercultural communication and collaboration. Communication through images and graphics make game independent in many other aspects such as age, sex, background and nationality. Thus, through the game scenario we avoided some human related problems (users’ diversity, cognitive factors) but we could not avoid the hardware related challenges.

4.2 Development Challenges As a development platform we choose MUPE [www.mupe.net] from Nokia which already has implemented client-server functionality and has used all phone features to develop complete mobile application. The first version of PiX has been tested

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on Nokia N80 smart phone equipped with 3-megapixel camera and Wi-Fi support for accessing the game server without any charge. During development we were faced with some state-of-the-art problems related to the camera use. After taking some images, phone became “buzzed” and required a full restart. It resulted in additional problems and time to solve them. During December 2007 – January 2008 we tested the game on several types of mobile devices and found that there is a direct dependence on camera resolution. Our development heuristics is shown in Table 4. Tests included the game play during 10-15 minutes. We observed different internal characteristics of the mobile devices which can be the reason of the camera-related problems, such as camera resolution, SDRAM, operation system, series of the user interface, Java version. Data which is represented in Table 4 were collected from the mobile device developer’s official web-site. We conducted the tests partly in Educational technology laboratory at the University of Joensuu, Finland, and partly in Nokia Corp in Tampere, Finland. Table 4. Mobile devices’ characteristics. Mobile device

Camera resolution

SDRAM

OS

Nokia 7610 1 MP

8 Mb

Nokia N71

2 MP

Nokia N81

UI series

Java

Success of the PiX tests

Symbian S60 v 7.0s

MIDP 2.0

yes

Up to 10 Mb

Symbian S60 v 9.1

MIDP 2.0

yes

2 MP

96 Mb

Symbian S60 v 9.2

MIDP 2.0

yes

Nokia N9500

2 MP

Up to 50 Mb

Symbian S60 v 7.0

MIDP 2.0

yes

Nokia N80

3.15 MP

Up to 40 Mb

Symbian S60 v 9.1

MIDP 2.0

no

Nokia N93

3,2 MP

Up to 50 Mb

Symbian S60 v 9.2

MIDP 2.0

no

Nokia N95

5 MP

Up to 128 Mb

Symbian S60 v 9.2

MIDP 2.0

no

From Table 4 we found a direct relation between camera resolution and the success of the application run. We consider as successful when the application could take unlimited number of pictures and present no problems while playing the game in relationship with the use of the camera. We can see that the problems start with the cameras with the resolution higher than 2 Megapixels. We consider the reasons for the camera-related “bug” in the internal organization of the MUPE client and the phone’s memory use. For the further game analysis and evaluation we have developed a new user interface and run the game on the Nokia N9500 communicator.

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Our experience makes explicit that a camera can provide additional challenges for developers. For the specific case of PiX, hardware related challenges have been an impediment for a smooth software development. In addition, enough attention has not been devoted to this problem. Moreover, this kind of application problems can be a reason for misunderstandings or challenges for the intended users in the future, if such kind of an application is installed on a phone with no suitable hardware characteristics. Then, some camera-based applications are dependent on parameters of the specific phone model.

5 Conclusion and Future Work We described in the article the importance and relevance of the collaboration between people and analyzed existing multiplayer mobile game applications. This information enabled us to observe the different type of media use for the interaction between participants. The main finding of the literature overview was that pictures are mostly not used in order to achieve people communication even if the number of the mobile devices equipped with a camera is continuously increasing. Thus, we analyzed the actual interaction modes with the camera as well as the possible reasons for the lack of application with this technology. Finally, we created a scenario for a multiplayer mobile game (PiX) which is based on picture exchange to achieve collaboration between players. We described research and development heuristics and run the first version of the application. Looking to answer the question first stated on this work how an integrated camera would be used to support communication and collaboration in multiplayer mobile games? We conclude, from this work, that integrated camera can be explicitly used in the mobile games in order to support communication and collaboration between players. It implies additional reflection on scenario of the games which use camera as the main source for the players’ communication. Developers should understand the potential problems in order to develop successful applications. In addition, nowadays several technical challenges exist which make integrated camera use unpopular. Nevertheless, the main advantage of using the integrated camera as a tool for collaboration is that the users are familiar with it, especially with the explicit use of the camera. Our future aim, in particular, is to make our application platform-independent; hence, individuals can use their own mobile phones. Among other goals we are planning to continue development of the official game site. It will contain the photo gallery with the capability of rating photos, player personal statistics and total rating. This paper provides a set of open questions related to the integrated camera use. Most of them are of privacy control and could be a part of another scientific research.

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References Ballagas, R., Kratz, S., Borchers, J., Yu, E., Walz, S. P., Fuhr, C., Hovestadt, L., & Tann, M. (2007). REXplorer: A Mobile, Pervasive Spell-Casting Game for Tourists. In CHI ’07: Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1929–1934). USA, New York: ACM Press. Barkhuus, M., Chalmers, M., Tennent, P., Hall, M., Bell, M., Sherwood, S., & Brown, B. (2005). Picking Pockets on the Lawn: Picking pockets on the lawn: the development of tactics and strategies in a mobile game (pp. 358–374). Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3660. Bell, M., Chalmers, M., Barkhuus, L., Hall, M., Sherwood, S., Tennent, P., Brown, B., et al. (2006). Interweaving Mobile Games with Everyday Life. In Proceeding of ACM Conf. Human Factors in Computing Sysems CHI 2006 (Montreal, CA). New York: ACM. Benford, S., Rowland, D., Flintham, M., Drozd, A., Hull, R., & Reid, J., et al. (2005). Life on the edge: supporting collaboration in location-based experiences. In Proceedings of the 2005 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 721–730). Portland, Oregon: ACM Press. Björk, S., Falk, J., Hansson, R., & Ljungstrand, P. (2001). Pirates! – using the physical world as a game board. In Proceedings of Interact 2001. Tokyo, Japan. Bolliger, P., Köhler, M., & Römer, K. (2007). Facet: Towards a Smart Camera Network of Mobile Phones. In Proceedings of Autonomics 2007: ACM First International Conference on Autonomic Computing and Communication Systems. October 2007, Rome, Italy. Casey, S., Kirman, B., & Rowland, D. (2007). The Gopher Game: A Social, Mobile, Locative Game with User Generated Content and Peer Review. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology (pp. 9–16). Austria, Salzburg: ACM Press. Cheok, A. D., Goh, K. H., Liu, W., Farbiz, F., Fong, S. W., & Teo, S. L., et al. (2004). Human Pacman: a mobile wide-area entertainment system based on physical, social, and ubiquitous computing. Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology 2004 (pp. 360–361). Flintham, M., Anastasi, R., Benford, S. D., Hemmings, T., Crabtree, A., & Greenhalgh, C. M., et al. (2003). Where on-line meets on-the-streets: experiences with mobile mixed reality games. In Proceedings of the CHI 2003 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. New York: ACM Press. Islas-Sedano, C., Kuts, E., & Sutinen, E. (2007a). Computer Science students can help to solve problems of multiplayer mobile games. Forthcoming. In Proceedings Koli Calling 2008, November 2007, Koli National Park, Finland. Islas-Sedano, C., Laine, T. H., Vinni, M., & Sutinen, E. (2007b). Where is the answer? – The importance of curiosity pervasive mobile games. In Proceedings of the 2007 Conference on Future Play. November 2007, Toronto, Canada. Koivisto, E., Suomela, R., & Koivisto, A. (2006). Ancient Runes – Using Text Input for Interaction in Mobile Games. In Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH Video Game Symposium. Boston, USA. Kruger, A. & Xiaoyi, J. (2007). Improving human computer interaction through embedded vision technology (pp. 687–690). Multimedia and Expo, 2007 IEEE International Conference, July 2007. Kuts, E., Islas-Sedano, C., & Sutinen, E. (2007). Communication and collaboration in educational multiplayer mobile games. In Proceeding of Cognition and Exploratory Learning in Digital Age. December 2007. Alarve, Portugal. (forthcoming). Manhattan Story Mashup: Project-homepage http://www.storymashup.org/. Mansley, K., Scott, D., Tse, A., & Madhavapeddy, A. (2004). Feedback, Latency, Accuracy: Exploring Tradeoffs in Location-Aware Gaming. In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM 2004 Workshops on Netgames ’04 (pp. 93–97). Network and System Support for Games.

Let’s Play Together with the Camera of Your Mobile Device 141 Mottola, L., Murphy, A. L., & Picco, G. P. (2006). Pervasive games in a mote-enabled virtual world using tuple space middleware (p. 29). NETGAMES 2006. Nova, N., Girardin, F., & Dillenbourg, P. (2006). A Mobile Game to Explore the Use of Location Awareness on Collaboration. Poster for HCI International 2005, Las Vegas, USA. Paelke, V., Reimann, C., & Stichling, D. (2004). Foot-based mobile interaction in mobile games. In Proceedings ACE 2004 (pp. 321–324). July 2004, Singapore. Sánchez, J., Salinas, A., Sáenz, M. (2006). Mobile Game-Based Science Learning. In Proceedings of the Distance Learning and Internet Conference (pp. 18–30). APRONet 2006, Tokyo. Schwabe, G. & Göth, C. (2005). Mobile Learning with a Mobile Game: Design and Motivational Effects. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 21(3), 204. Tuulos, V., Scheible, J., & Nyholm, H. (2007). Combining Web, Mobile Phones and Public Displays in Large-Scale: Manhattan Story Mashup. In Proceedings the Fifth International Conference on Pervasive Computing, Toronto, Canada. Wagner, E. D. (2005). Enabling Mobile Learning. EDUCAUSE Review, 40(3), 40–53.

AnimalClass: Social Networks in Gaming Harri Ketamo1 and Marko Suominen2 1) Satakunta University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Business and Culture Tiedepuisto 3, FI-28600 Pori, Finland [email protected] 2) Tampere University of Technology Pohjoisranta 11, FI-28100 Pori, Finland [email protected]

Abstract: This study focuses on social networks built during the prerelease campaign of the AnimalClass game series. The study sample (n=736) consists of pupils, aged from 10 to 12, and teachers. All of the players are completely anonymous. There were no major hypotheses set beforehand and the social networks were approached from a Data Mining point of view. The network archetypes consist of two main types of social networks and minor social networks. In order to uncover phenomena behind the rare types of social networks, more theoretical and empirical research is needed. One aim of further studies will be to improve the personal security of pupils in network based gaming.

1 Introduction The AnimalClass game series consists of 24 games that utilize mathematics, natural sciences, languages and the arts. The games can be used as a part of classroom teaching, as well as for individual gaming. Players are anonymous in the game. They can either create their own usernames or pick from pre-defined usernames. In both cases, the real names behind the username cannot be determined, but friends and classmates naturally tell their usernames to one another. The games are based on the Finnish school curriculum: each game focuses on one learning objective as defined in the curriculum. The pedagogical idea of AnimalClass is to put a learner in the role of a teacher. The player gets his or her own virtual pet. The object is to teach that pet conceptually challenging themes from different subject areas. The background of the game is in learning-by-doing, learning-by-teaching and to some extent learning-by-programming. Technically AnimalClass is a client-server solution where the client operates in a presentation layer (graphics, sounds and user interface) and the server operates as the game’s artificial intelligence (AI). The traditional goal of AI is to make machines perform cognitive tasks that humans can do, or try to do. In the game industry, the definition of AI is extended so 143 M. Kankaanranta and P. Neittaanmäki (eds.), Design and Use of Serious Games, 143–154. © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009

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that the most important task of a game’s AI is to entertain. The game AI is allowed to cheat or be ‘stupid’ in order to achieve the illusion of intelligent behavior (Scott 2002). The balancing issue is also challenging within the domains of game game development and AI research: It is easy to create a poor or perfect opponent; the challenge is to build a reliable and entertaining opponent. (Liden 2003; Scott 2002). The game AI in AnimalClass is based on a dynamically extensible Bayesian (belief) Network (e.g. Reye 2004). The extensible user model is relatively close to Semantic Bayesian Networks (e.g. Kim et al. 2007) and the Qualitative Probabilistic Network (e.g. Lucas 2005). The inner structure of the game is based on concept networks that have been studied in the authors’ previous papers, e.g. Ketamo and Suominen (2006), Ketamo and Suominen (2007), Kiili and Ketamo (2007). Networks, as a mean of knowledge representation, can be used at a more general level of gameplay: In this paper the focus is on social networks built during gameplay. Social networks traditionally have been used in educational- or social sciences as a means of describing the roles and relations inside some population (a school, for example). AnimalClass players, as a population, are relatively similar to the population of a school: the players are divided into two different age groups (pupils and teachers). According to Del Valle et al. (2007) children interacted more often with other children and adults interacted with other adults in a computer-supported collaborative learning environment. In the AnimalClass context we can assume that such phenomena are not so strong because the interaction is not textual. However, Roberts et al. (2008) agree on the effects of age to relations within social networks, but they suggest that network size or quality is not related to a person’s age. The size and quality of pre-existing social networks is related to how learners construct and act in new social networks (Cho et al. 2007). In this study, we are not focusing on a player’s age, but it is important to recognize that there could be some implications on the results caused by a player’s age.

2 Game Description Playing AnimalClass requires reflective thinking. At the beginning of the game the virtual pet does not know anything. Its mind is an empty set of concepts and relations. The player has complete freedom to teach the virtual pet what he/she wants, even wrongly. The pet learns inductively: Each teaching phase increases and strengthens the network of concepts. When the pet achieves a concept network of a certain size, it can start to conclude. In AnimalClass teaching is always based on statements constructed by the player. The virtual pet answers according to its previous knowledge. If there is no previous knowledge, it will guess. The player then tells the pet if the answer is correct or not, and based on this, the pet forms relations between concepts.

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Fig. 1. The classroom.

The classroom (Figure 1) supports learning in two ways: Firstly, constructing a question requires knowledge about the subject. If there is not enough knowledge, the players are encouraged to discuss the problem with their friends. Secondly evaluating the answer of the pet supports reflective thinking: “What have I asked? Why did the pet answer in this way? What should I do next?” An interesting part of teaching is the possibility of teaching wrongly. There is a brain icon in the game (Figure 1) that describes the quality of learning compared to formal goals. The brain gets bigger if the quality increases and the brain gets smaller if the quality of learning decreases. If the overall concept network is wrong, the brain is replaced by a cactus icon to show the player that he/she is doing something completely wrong. The player can send his/her pet to compete (Figure 2). In the competition, the pet competes in a quiz against some other pet that has been taught by a real person (a friend or classmate perhaps). The competition is based completely on previous teaching. The role of the player is to observe the successes and failures of their pets. A challenge is accepted automatically; a player cannot refuse to compete. Furthermore, because the competition is based on previous teaching, the challenged player can be even offline.

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For most players competition was the motivating reason to teach the pets. Almost all of the pupils understood the importance of teaching after a few competitions had been lost. In fact, they felt very motivated to check out how well their octopus succeeded in a competition, and they would then come back to the classroom to teach more.

Fig. 2. Competition.

One key for successful game play from a learning point of view is in the development of conceptual understanding in both a pupil and his/her virtual pet. This can be done systematically or by trial and error. Each teaching phase is recorded in a concept network within the game AI with one or more ‘is (not/option) related to’, ‘is (not) bigger’, ‘is (not) equal’, etc. relations. In game play these relations are used logically: In a correctly answered question situation, the virtual pet gets concepts and relations put into its concept network according to the types of questions. During game play the conceptual structure in the virtual pet’s AI develops. When the virtual pet has achieved a concept network of a certain size, it can start to conclude. The following example describes the teaching and development of a concept network in AI with a question of ‘which one does not belong to the group’. In the following, Q represents a question posed by the learner, A represents answers made by the virtual pet and E represents the evaluation done by the learner.

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Brains

[empty]

Teaching Phase 1

Q: which one does not belong to the group; A, B or C A: A (The pet guesses, because it does not have previous knowledge) E: false

Brains

[B is not related to C]

Teaching Phase 2 (repeated question)

Q: which one does not belong to the group; A, B or C A: B (Pet guesses from set [B,C] because of previous teaching) E: false

Brains

[B is not related to C] [A is not related to C]

Teaching Phase 3 (repeated question)

Q: which one does not belong to the group; A, B or C A: C (The pet determines: A is not related to C and B is not related to C A and B are most likely to be related) E: true

Brains

[B is not related to C] [A is not related to C] [B is not related to C] [A is not related to C] [A is related to B]

(A is related to B or C according to logical rules of thinking)

(B is related to A or C)

(reinforced learning) (reinforced learning) (new relation/true)

Teaching Phase 4 (repeated question)

Q: Which one does not belong to the group; A, B or C A: C (The pet is sure) E: true

Brains

[B is not related to C] [A is not related to C] [B is not related to C]

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[A is not related to C] [A is related to B] [B is not related to C] [A is not related to C] [A is related to B]

(reinforced learning) (reinforced learning) (reinforced learning)

In the example, the learning was accompanied by ‘is not related to’ relations in the beginning. With ‘is not related to’ relations, the learning takes more time than with ‘is related to’ relations, that would have taken place if the pet had guessed correctly at learning phase 1. In AnimalClass, the guessing is completely randomized and all cases are possible. Another observation from the example is that the number of relations increases rapidly. During game play, the concept network will grow up to thousands of relations and a single teaching phase has only a limited effect on areas of the conceptual structure already taught. Understanding this phenomenon is valuable when trying to correct a wrongly taught part of the concept structure. Naturally, the wrong teaching could be corrected by teaching the correct structure enough times. The game AI uses all the taught information to back its decisions, and therefore it takes time to override wrong learning. On the other hand, completely wrong teaching does not always mean a poor learning outcome. In some cases, pupils teach a pet that is completely dumb on purpose: It always answers incorrectly, no matter what was asked. In such cases, the pupils have understood the gameplay at least as well as those who have taught their pet correctly. However, this is not a surprise: Teaching all possible relations incorrectly requires the same knowledge as teaching everything correctly and as a strategic operation, teaching incorrectly is even more difficult than teaching correctly.

3 The Research Task and Methods The study focuses on social network formation in a game environment. The social actions and events in the game were relatively restricted compared to a faceto-face context, which should be recognized. There were no high level hypotheses set beforehand. The social networks during gameplay were approached from a Data Mining point of view: The data is computed (mined) by several methods and combinations in order to see what kinds of results appear. The importance of the results is based on an explanative power: Results can be parallel or contradictory to previous results, or in some cases, results can be the grounds for a new framework, model or theory. In all cases results are not numbers, they are arguments. However, limitations caused by game mechanics and data mining methods were recognized beforehand. One of the most important limitations to recognize is

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the selection of an opponent: In order to challenge another virtual pet, a player has to know the username of the opponent. Otherwise the player has to pick an opponent from the list. In a case where the player decides to challenge a friend, the challenge describes a real life social network. In a case where a player picks an opponent from a suggested list, the opponent could be picked either randomly, according to previous challenges, or according to rank status. In all of these cases the game mechanics have limited the possibilities of the player, which can be seen in the results of the study. The sample of the study (n=736) was collected during a pre-release campaign of AnimalClass, 17 – 31.9.2007. The players are pupils, aged from 10 to 12, and teachers, the age distribution of which we do not know. All players are completely anonymous. We could not even be sure who was a teacher and who was a pupil. A short interval for the data collection is meant to increase the validity of social networking: With a longer data collection period the number of the occasional social networks could increase. In this study, a social network is defined as relations formed by who is challenging whom during game play: When a learner challenges another learner’s pet to a competition, at least a one-way relation exists between them. When the already challenged pet (learner) challenges its pre-existing challenger, a two-way relation occurs. The value of a one-way-relation is the number of challenges made by a learner to this unique opponent. The value of two-way relations is the total number of challenges made by both learners to one another. In the case of a two-way relation, the data mining application operates with two-way relations and one-way relations received from both players. In the following example the formation of one-way relations and two-way relations are explained in a simple case: Action:

Network:

1) Harri’s pet challenges Marko’s pet.

One-way relation: Harri Marko Strength: 1

2) Harri’s pet challenges Marko’s pet.

One-way relation: Harri Marko Strength: 2

3) Marko’s pet challenges Harri’s pet.

Two-way relation: Harri  Marko Strength: 3 One-way relation: Harri Marko Strength: 2 One-way relation: Marko Harri Strength: 1

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4) Harri’s pet challenges Marko’s pet.

Two-way relation: Harri  Marko Strength: 4 One-way relation: Harri Marko Strength: 3 One-way relation: Marko Harri Strength: 1

Basically one challenge increases the strength of the network by one unit, but as a consequence of the modeling, the unit can take place in one one-way relation as well as in a two-way relation, if such exists. The data is analyzed with an application designed and implemented especially for this study. The application builds a multilayered, directed and weighted graph that can be manipulated, searched and analyzed by traditional computational methods. The results of the analysis are visualized as XML Topic Maps (XTM) using cMapTools software. In the results section the discussion is based upon the visualized networks. Computational information is presented only in those cases that bring something more than visualized networks.

4 Results When the social networks were mined at a general level and the archetypes of different types of networks were formed, we could find 1) two main types of social networks, 2) minor social networks and 3) a dominating strategy during gameplay. In Figures 3–6 all relations are visualized as one-way-relations. Two-way relations can be seen by comparing relations in and outside the nodes (usernames). If there is a one-way-relation between A and B and also a one-way-relation between B and A, basically a two-way-relation exists between A and B. The social network that controls the whole data set is formed by the persons at the top of the ranking list (Figure 3). The cluster itself was not a surprise, but the strength of this type of social network was a surprise. This network changed as a consequence of new top players in the ranking list, but all members of such clusters represent the top at some time. However, the formation of this network and its changes are parallel to Cho et al.’s (2007) results, showing that changes in social networks depend on the actor’s pre-existing social networks. Another very common type of social network was formed, for example, between classmates or other friend-based groups (Figure 4). In these groups the dominant feature was tightness of the group: There were many noticeably strong two-way relations but only a few one-way relations in these groups.

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Fig. 3. The social network structure of one ‘top ranking’ gamers group. In this figure the relations in and outside of the group are filtered in order to improve the explanative power of the visualization. Some of the usernames are hidden in order to minimize the possibility of recognizing players.

Fig. 4. The social network structure of a ‘classmates’ type of group. The usernames are partially hidden in order to minimize the possibility of recognizing players. All relations related to this group are presented.

Rare types of social networks (less than 5% of the population) appeared, for example, in groups based around a central person and refer to a situation in which members a,b,c and d establish the group (Figure 5 and Figure 6). A has a two-way or one-way relation to members (b,c,d) but other members do not even have oneway relations to one another themselves. In Figure 5, a central person is challenged by several classmates or friends. This can be explained either as mobbing or as leadership. In a case of mobbing, the classmates pick up an opponent that they know is e.g. low-skilled in the game domain. However, if a person is likely to be mobbed, he/she can remain anonymous by not telling his/her username. Classmates cannot figure out a username in the game, but they certainly can force a mobbed pupil to tell his username. In a case of leadership, the classmates pick an opponent that is a central person of the

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Fig. 5. Possibly a case of mobbing? The usernames are partially hidden in order to minimize the possibility of recognizing a player. All relations related to these groups are presented.

Fig. 6. Social leadership? The usernames are partially hidden in order to minimize the possibility of recognizing a player. All relations related to these groups are presented.

class’s real social network. Furthermore, if a person is a social leader of the class, he/she probably challenges his/her friends as in Figure 6. Approximately 65% of relations were two-way relations. On the other hand, the majority of the players played games with only one-way relations. This means that those with pre-existing social networks made more challenges than those without pre-existing social network. More than 80% of these ‘one-way-relation-players’ played against the top of the results list and less than 20% picked their opponents randomly. Basically we can see that in this case, competition against the top of the ranking list was the dominating strategy for gameplay, regardless of whether the players could get better ranking scores by challenging slightly easier opponents.

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5 Conclusions In this study, the game world was relatively restricted: the only form of social interaction was challenges and all players could keep their anonymity. However, there were numerous friend-based social networks that show that most of the players shared their usernames or nicknames with their friends in order to compete against them. On the other hand, because most players were anonymous, all players could behave normally. There was no need to alter behavior. The rare types of social networks were interesting theoretically: Is it possible that some networks uncover the social leader of the class and other networks include mobbing? This study is based on relatively simple computational research methods on social networks. In order to uncover phenomena behind rare types of social networks, more theoretical and empirical research is needed. One aim of further studies is to improve the personal security of pupils in network based gaming. By tracking abnormal social networks and abnormal network behavior, we can possibly show threats on the personal security of pupils. Of course, such an analysis does not show if some person or group is doing something illegal: the result is a signal to the administrator or teacher to check on the situation in real life. Such observations might as well be based on weak social skills. There are currently several methods to increase personal security in game environments meant for children, but the methods are mostly vocabulary-based. When focusing on behavior, we can find something that vocabulary-based methods cannot.

References Cho, H., Gay, G., Davidson, B., Ingraffea, A. (2007). Social networks, communication styles, and learning performance in a CSCL community. Computers & Education, 49, 309–329. Del Valle, S. Y., Hymanb, J. M., Hethcote, H. W., Eubank, S. G. (2007). Mixing patterns between age groups in social networks. Social Networks, 29, 539–554. Ketamo, H. & Suominen, M. (2007). Learning by Teaching: A Case Study on Explorative Behaviour in an Educational Games. In H. Ruokamo, M. Kangas, M. Lehtonen & K. Kumpulainen (Eds.), The Power of Media in Education – Proceedings of the 2nd International Network-Based Education Conference (pp. 197–203). June 2007, Rovaniemi, Finland. University of Lapland Publication in Education 17. Ketamo, H. & Suominen, M. (2006). AnimalClass – Animals that learn. In Proceeding of Online Educa. November and December 2006, Berlin, Germany. Kiili, K. & Ketamo, H. (2007). Exploring the Learning Mechanism in Educational Games. Journal of Computing and Information Technology, 15(4), 319–324. Kim, K. M., Hong, J. H., & Cho, S. B. (2007). A semantic Bayesian network approach to retrieving information with intelligent conversational agents. Information Processing & Management, 43(1), 225–236. Liden, L. (2003) Artificial Stupidity: The Art of Intentional Mistakes. In S. Rabin (Ed.), AI Game Programming Wisdom II. Massachusetts: Charles River Media, Inc. Lucas, P. J. F. (2005). Bayesian network modelling through qualitative patterns. Artificial Intelligence, 163( 2), 233–263.

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Reye, J. (2004) Student Modelling based on Belief Networks. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 14, 63–96. Roberts, S. G. B., Wilson, R., Fedurek, P., & Dunbar, R. I. M. (2008). Individual differences and personal social network size and structure. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 954–964. Scott, B. (2002). The Illusion of Intelligence. In S. Rabin (Ed.), AI Game Programming Wisdom. (pp. 16–20). Massachusetts: Charles River Media, Inc.

Multiplayer Interface for a Computer-Augmented Learning Game Ari Putkonen1 and Markus Forstén2 Turku University of Applied Sciences, Joukahaisenkatu 3A, 20520 Turku, Finland 1) [email protected], 2) [email protected]

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to introduce an advanced user interface concept for collaborative simulation game. The user interface design was performed by a constructive proceeding. The functionality and the physical elements of a traditional board game and the calculation performance of a computer simulation model were combined in the new multiplayer interface concept. The operations of players are mediated to the computer through the game board elements, not through the standard input devices of the computer. The key usability targets of the user interface have been also identified. Based on very early findings the developed multiplayer interface seems to support the usability targets in terms of naturalness and collaboration. The conventional arrangement with the digital multiplayer simulation games is the user interface, where each player has their own keyboard and visual display. This study introduces new possibility for game designers to integrate a traditional board game concept and a computer simulation model to enhance collaboration and learning in gaming.

1 Introduction Player cooperation seems to be a less implemented area in games (Salen and Zimmerman 2004). Most collaborative games are nowadays implemented in computer networks, where the common virtual gaming environment is created digitally. Collaboration is difficult to achieve games of this type because social interaction is mediated by electronic devices. Referring to game design on the whole, Manninen and Korva (2005) concluded that it is much more difficult to design constructive multiplayer games than the traditional destructive ones. Collaborative multiplayer simulation can support the learning of work group. Ruohomäki (2003) has found that the bridge between the present collaborative skills of the team and future needs can be built based on experiences shared by participants during the simulation game. Such collaborative skills are emerging required, for instance, among designers and other stakeholders who are developing new products. Technology alone is not the solution to product success on the markets, thus the increasing complexity of products requires more teamwork skills as well. 155 M. Kankaanranta and P. Neittaanmäki (eds.), Design and Use of Serious Games, 155–167. © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009

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Having a shared conception of the product idea and a mutual understanding about the design process are essential prerequisites of success for development teams. Poor communication and knowledge sharing between the project team members reduces the potential output of the project significantly (Precup et al. 2006). Therefore, individuals from all functions of the organisation should participate in the development process. This study supports the overall target of developing a simulation game of product development (PD) activities entitled DESIM. The purpose of DESIM is to simulate and support collaborative product development activities. Thus, it requires cooperation and information sharing between players in order to achieve the mutual target of the game. DESIM will be designed for training purposes in companies and education organizations. The contents of DESIM encompass business economics, project management characteristics and team collaboration. (See closer Putkonen and Forstén 2008). In a collaborative game context an advanced user interface solution is required. This study contributes to the discussion on collaborative learning with games by introducing a new kind of user interface to enhance collaboration and learning in gaming. The target of this study is to integrate a traditional board game concept and a computer simulation model from the user interface point of view. The board game concept is intended to enhance face-to-face teamwork and natural negotiations between players. The computer simulation model is needed for complex dynamic calculations related to the flow of the product development process at the company. We believe that an efficient and comfortable learning environment can be realised by combining these two concepts. The first question of this study is: (1) how the functionality and the physical elements of a traditional board game and a computer simulation model can be utilized in the same game concept. The second interest is to (2) identify the key usability targets of the user interface and estimate how they will be fulfilled by the multiplayer interface concept. The article is organised as follows: the first heading of the literature section introduces the simulation game as a collaborative learning environment and considers the concepts of computer augmentation. The second heading describes the starting points and context of use for designing a user interface for the product development simulation game. Next, the methods used in the study are introduced. Thereafter, as results, the developed multiplayer interface concept and related usability factors are illustrated. Finally, the results are summarised and some future research needs are presented in the concluding section.

2 Simulation Game as a Collaborative Learning Environment Complex work process dynamics is difficult to understand and manage. Simulation game is an efficient method providing an in-depth insight into the structure

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and behavior of the work system. Simulation games are increasingly used to learn new successful policies in companies and the public sector.

2.1 Learning with Simulations Social simulations are quite often used when the function of a team or a community needs to be more efficient with processes which are complex and dynamic (Lehtonen 2004). Learning is based on the team’s prior knowledge of the system or a process being modelled. This knowledge and know-how utilised during the simulation process in problem solving and decision making situations often create the collaborative action and emotional flow to the simulation (Vahtivuori-Hänninen et al. 2005). A fundamental element in learning in simulation games is the flow players experience during the game. Kiili (2006) has studied the antecedents of the flow and observed that a player’s skill level, clear goals, unambiguous feedback, a sense of control and playability are the basic elements when designing an engaging game. All these antecedents are also present when designing a collaborative interface in the simulation game and can be used as guidelines for interface design. The connection between interface and learning has also been studied when improving the teaching in complex system design. Linja-aho (2006) states that learnability consists of the user interface design, a user’s expectations and training and have presented 18 factors of learnability factors derived from the three aspects. The factors are consistent with flow creation and thus prerequisites in creating engaging and effective simulation game.

2.2 Computer Augmentation for Enhancing Learning Computers have been used to model building and simulations for decades. Where a simulation is a procedural representation of aspects of reality (Salen and Zimmerman 2004), a model is a symbolic representation of a system, process, theory or behavior. There are various types of models, with the most important type of simulation models being task-network or event-driven models, manual control models and deterministic models (Meister 1995). These models need the capacity of a computer in order to give data from the simulation process. Computer-augmenter board games have been created from the early 1980’s. Lundgren and Björk (2003) have mentioned two commercial early examples; ‘Stop thief by the Parker Brothers, 1979 and ‘Dark tower by Milton Bradley, 1981. However, most computer-augmented games have been developed within academia. Recently created computer-augmented board games have been using the board to

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create more interactive game sessions among players (Peitz et al. 2006) and to enhance the interaction between the virtual and physical world (Bohn 2004). Tse et al. (2007) recognised also that the game board offers a more ergonomic environment for collaboration. Computer-augmentation is required with the DESIM simulation game, because the subject of simulation is complex and dynamic in nature, and also includes various decision and policy strategies. This knowledge is difficult to offer players without interactive simulation. The simulation model is based on the three-layer conceptual model (Putkonen and Forstén 2008). The computer simulation model was represented by causal loops, stocks and flows with mathematical equations and applied into the software of the simulation game. The development of the model was based on the system dynamics modelling technique (Sterman 2000). Klabbers (2006) describes the interaction between players and the system dynamics model so that players communicate, share knowledge and information in order to gain influence in the internal dynamics of the simulation model. They adjust parameters according to the rules of the game and control the system. In doing so, they develop strategies for steering resources. This way games with computer simulation models provide an interactive learning environment.

3 Designing a User Interface for the DESIM The design process of the shared, multiplayer interface has several challenges concerning information and data distribution from the system to game board and visual display and also between them.

3.1 Team Collaboration in Product Development Simulation Design problem solving usually requires multiple competencies. The nature of a design problem is quite often very complex and impossible to divide into independent problems for individuals to solve. Thus, the development of collaboration between team members from various disciplines is necessary (Détienne 2006). Collaboration in this context is seen as interaction and communication in problem solving and decision making situations. Shared mental representations and the sense-making process are positively associated with product success (Akgün 2006). Active communication ensures intercomprehension and construction of shared representation of the current state of the problem, solution, plans, design rules and more general design knowledge (Détienne 2006). Usually, the tasks of PD are interrelated and thus, successful results demand an understanding of different aspects of the process i.e. project roles and different

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competencies of the team members, timing of the projects, available resources and progression of the projects. A computer-augmented simulation game can work as a mediator for PD teams, which do not have shared representations of the process. It offers an informal communication tool to organise, communicate and share information and knowledge. In the decision-making process players are able to make their demands and decisions visible for other players. With different perspectives on the problem, players try to conclude mutual decisions concerning the challenges of the game. This informal communication strengthens the collaboration of the team (Vahtivuori et al. 1999). Wynn et al. (2005) state that the successful co-ordination of design activities rely often upon informal communication and an assumption of shared knowledge. With simulation it is possible to improve process visibility and thus reduce product development time and rework. It offers a safe environment where teams can develop common and shared interpretations of the information available and consequently create alternative ways of solving problems of complex systems or processes in real life (Ruohomäki 2002).

3.2 User-Centred Design Approach Pheasant (1996) has concluded that the objective of ergonomics is to achieve the best possible match between the product and its users in the context of the task that is to be performed. Among others, the following criteria for a successful match have been proposed: functional efficiency, ease of use, comfort, health and safety, quality and the well-being of user. Human-centred design is an especially useful approach when designing complex systems where human skills and machines, for instance computers, work together. One exemplification is presented by Olsson and Jansson (2005) in their study related to the user interface development of train and engine drivers’ participation in the process. The human centred design process for interactive systems is described in the European Standard EN ISO 13407 (ISO 13407, 1999). It gives a framework for user-centred development activities that can be adapted into numerous development environments. The key principle of the methodology is iterativeness. The cycle should be repeated until particular usability objectives have been achieved. The cycle, in order to meet usability requirements, is as follows: plan the humancentred design process, specify the context of use, specify user and organisational requirements, produce design solutions, evaluate designs against user requirements and repeat this loop until the design meets the overall requirements. The iterative approach is a known method also in game design. Kiili and Lainema (2006) have introduced how the design, evaluation and testing of a prototype and further improvements follow each other in cycles. This way the design process collects

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new information quickly, potential players can participate in the development process and new features can be created based on the experiences. An evaluation workshop is one participatory method where users try to use the system to accomplish given tasks while designers observe. Several trials can be run to focus on different features or versions of the system. Multi-user involvement gives a number of perspectives on a particular design issue. (Maguire 2001). Details of the above mentioned methods are presented in a number of text books (See e.g. Karwowski 2001).

3.3 Role of the User Interface Based on the literature, the usability of the artifact is enhancing the productivity and satisfaction of users. A good user interface supports operation so flawlessly that it is ‘invisible’ for the user (Faulkner 1998). Because of this we assume that the user interface is also an important element in supporting learning and especially collaborative learning in gaming. Klabbers (2006) describes a model where information flow and resources forms a system, but in order to build a social system, these two must be integrated and represented in a suitable manner for the actors. In designing a multi-actor system, the interface should be taken into consideration from the early stages of the system design. Based on an understanding of the physical, physiological, mental and psychological abilities of users, several user interface design principles have been presented. They represent high-level concepts that should be used to guide the design of human-computer interaction. Some of these principles are relevant only in a desktop computing situation. Nevertheless, most are applicable in any human-device-task context. Before product usability testing can be conducted, overall product usability goals should be identified. Faulkner (1998) categorises usability guidelines into five categories: naturalness, consistency, relevance, supportiveness and flexibility. These usability targets are not directly measurable they have to break down into usability objectives, which are more specific and detailed, and ultimately, are measurable. The game board can be seen as a part of the multiplayer interface (MPI) of the game. The term multi-user interface (MUI) is usually seen as a network of several computer terminals using the same interface. The common characteristic of MUI is that the user is able to share one interface with several other users. The conventional user interface of a computer does not support concurrent multi-user access for several users which sets restrictions to team collaboration and weakens the information flow between users.

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4 Design Methodology First, in order to gain an in depth understanding of the topic, PD processes and case studies on the industry were analysed to identify the essential aspects and success factors in product development (Ulrich and Eppinger 2004; Cooper 1996; van Aken 2005; Owens 2007; Lewis 2001). Articles concerning teamwork, the financial management of the PD and simulation gaming were extracted from databases as well. The user interface design was performed by a constructive proceeding. The human centred design process (ISO 13407, 1999) for interactive systems was used as a framework for this study. The iterative cycle, in order to meet design requirements, was as follows: planning the design process, specifying the context of use, specifying user and organisational requirements, producing design solutions, and evaluation of designs against the requirements. Finally, the applicability of the user interface solution was preliminary tested by the participatory evaluation.

5 Results The traditional game board concept is a convenient medium for distributing information and illustrating material flows when designing a multiplayer system. However, when complex and fast changing information should be expressed, the game board is a limited concept. A visual display interface linked to the computerbased simulation system can supply a sufficient amount of detailed information for the players, but its usability suffers when more than one player is involved. Nevertheless, the problem can be solved by integrating these two interface concepts.

5.1 Multiplayer Interface A multiplayer interface (MPI) is a user interface that can be accessed by several users simultaneously. Figure 1 depicts interactions between the players and a simulation model. The MPI can be divided into three elements: the visual display, game board elements and controls. Players receive information from the simulation model through a visual display. Players also receive information from the game board mainly related to the game status and resources. The game board and its elements such as tasks, actors and resources are intended to function as controls. Their other function is to show the general status of the game and symbolise the resources available. The game board elements act as controls from the perspective of the computer. The controls generate data flow to

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the computer where the simulation model functions. The computer processes data flow to the visual display where it is shown as information for the players. In the MPI concept developed in this study, the operations of players are meditated to the computer through the game board elements, not through the standard input devices of the computer. RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology is implemented and RFID tags are attached to the moving game elements. This makes the user interface more ‘invisible’ for the players. Players are not forced to use conventional computer controls i.e. a keyboard or mouse, which are meant for a single user only. Nevertheless, the mathematical calculation capacity of a computer is still in use. Face-to-face communication is a prerequisite for the natural collaboration between team members. Consequently, collaboration enhances the learning of players which is the fundamental target of a simulation game.

Processing by Players

Information

Information

Operation

Game Board Elements

MPI

Controls

Visual Display

Data

Simulation model

Data

Processing by Computer Fig. 1. Multiplayer interface concept of the computer-augmented simulation game.

5.2 Usability Goals of MPI Concept From the interaction point of view, the control board was defined as a game board and the visual display was defined as a video screen between players and computer. Usability targets of the developed MPI concept were considered by associating the assumed characteristics of the game board and video screen with the design criteria of the optimal user interface. The contribution of both MPI elements to the objectives is summarized in Table 1. The criteria for the user interface have been examined separately concerning the video screen and the game board. The game board has certain advantages over

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the video screen in this simulation game context. It contributes excellently to the criterion of naturalness. The video screen contributes excellently to the criterion of flexibility. In contrast, it is poorly supported by the game board. The other user interface criteria such as consistency, relevancy and supportiveness are fulfilled equally by both devices. Their contribution is more related to the quality of design than the nature of the interface itself. Table 1. Assumed contributions of the interface elements to the usability criteria. General criteria for user interface (Faulkner 1998)

Contribution of game Contribution of video board screen

Naturalness

Excellent

Poor

Consistency

Good

Good

Relevance

Good

Good

Flexibility

Poor

Excellent

Supportiveness

Good

Good

Collaborative simulation game related criteria for user interface Collaboration (Manninen and Korva 2005)

Excellent

Good

Game flow (Kiili 2006)

Good

Good

Immediate feedback (Kiili 2006)

Good

Excellent

Physical dimensions (Dul and Weerdmeester 2001)

Excellent

Contradictory

Positioning of controls (Dul and Weerdmeester 2001)

Good

N/A

The collaborative simulation game sets some specific criteria for the user interface which can not be covered by fulfilling only the general user interface criteria. The game board based simulation has to support, for instance, collaboration, game flow and immediate feedback. The physical dimensions of the game and the positioning of the controls (game elements) are important criteria as well. As a general conclusion it seems that in principle, the criteria of collaboration and physical dimensions are ideally supported by the game board, because it can be placed in the middle of players. The video screen contributes excellently to the criterion of immediate feedback. In contrast, the physical dimensions of the video screen are contradictory; on the one hand it can be zoomed to be large, but on the other hand the reading distance of the characters and diagrams vary by players. Too large an amount of simultaneous information should also be avoided. An ordinary video screen does not support control elements. The game flow is, in principle, independent of interface elements and strongly related to the game mechanics. Certainly, it can be destroyed by the unsatisfactory usability of interface elements. The usability of the game layout was preliminary evaluated with a game prototype. The physical elements of the game are in the initial stages of development and can be easily and inexpensively modified. The main interface components such as game

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board, game board elements (tasks, resources, and command cards), simulation program, computer, video projector and RFID-reader and RFID-tags of the product were available for the evaluation. The evaluation was performed by following the guidelines of the participatory evaluation.

5.3 Participatory Evaluation The developed MPI layout was preliminarily tested by the participatory evaluation. It was compared with the other common user interface concept for multiuser simulation games, from the player interaction point of view. The preparatory comparison of two different user interface concepts was performed by four subjects and one observer who documented the evaluation results. Figure 2 (a) shows the user layout of the developed MPI. Figure 2 (b) shows the layout of the benchmarked conventional player interface, where each player has their own keyboard and visual display. This is well known and a used arrangement with the digital multiplayer simulation games. Based on our very early findings the developed MPI seems to support the usability targets in terms of naturalness and collaboration. The game board is for the players such a shared control board that generates discussion and interaction. The video screen was large enough, but the reading distance varied by players and they did not have means point to information on the screen, except verbally.

(a)

(b)

Fig. 2. Prototype setup of the developed MPI (a) and the benchmarked conventional setup (b).

6 Conclusions A good user interface is an important element in supporting collaborative learning in gaming. This study discussed how the functionality and the physical elements of a traditional board game and a computer simulation model could be utilised in

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the same game concept in order to enhance collaboration and learning in gaming. The board game concept was used to enhance face-to-face teamwork and natural negotiations between players. The computer simulation model was used for complex dynamic calculations related to the flow of the simulation game. As a result, the multiplayer interface concept and related usability factors were illustrated. The participatory evaluation of the simulation game prototype showed that the MPI concept enables interaction and face-to-face collaboration. This gives new possibilities for game designers to overcome the limitations of the conventional user interface of personal computer and enhance collaboration and learning in digital simulation gaming. The future challenges of the DESIM simulation game project are to test prototypes with appropriate ergonomic methods, collect empirical data from companies and educational institutions and develop the game with the MPI concept further. Acknowledgments: The authors would like to thank The Finnish Workplace Development Programme Tykes for funding this simulation game project.

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RACER: A Non-Commercial Driving Game which Became a Serious Tool in the Research of Driver Fatigue Narciso González1, Igor Kalyakin2 and Heikki Lyytinen3 1) University of Jyväskylä, AGORA Innoroad Laboratory, Jyväskylä; P.O. Box 35, FI-40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland [email protected] 2) University of Jyväskylä, Department of Mathematical Information Technology, Jyväskylä; P.O. Box 35, FI-40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland [email protected] 3) University of Jyväskylä, Department of Psychology, Jyväskylä; P.O. Box 35, FI-40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland [email protected]

Abstract: Driver fatigue represents one of the main targets in the road safety agenda. Fatigue is, subjectively, physiologically, and psychologically, a complex state. This chapter introduces our research on driver fatigue intertwined with the presentation of the serious driving game we adopted. The motivations to choose RACER as a serious tool in the research of fatigue while driving are described. We present the adaptations implemented on it to meet our research requirements. The method, instruments and procedures employed in addition to this simulator software are detailed. Experimental results, the advantages of this serious tool and desirable improvements from a research stand point are discussed. We conclude that using RACER has been a cost-effective choice. Most importantly, the research results might help to reduce fatigue related road fatalities through the development of training and driver assistance systems.

1 Introduction Internationally, driver fatigue continues to be a black spot in the road safety agenda. In this area of research, it is commonly admitted that fatigue is a complex phenomenon with different manifestations at least at the subjective, physiological, cognitive, and task performance dimensions. In the year 2000, road accidents killed over 40 000 people in the European Union (EU) and injured more than 1.7 million. The EU has set the goal of halving the number of people killed between 2000 and 2010 (European Commission 2001). During 2007, in Finland, 378 people died in traffic accidents. This represents 42 deceased more than in the previous year, though the number of traffic accidents decreased by 59 compared to 2006 (Liikenneturva 2008). 171 M. Kankaanranta and P. Neittaanmäki (eds.), Design and Use of Serious Games, 171–184. © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009

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It seems clear that today’s accidents are mostly attributable to human driving errors of different characteristics. The Road Safety 2006–2010 report by the Ministry of Transport and Communications Finland indicates that the figures from accident investigation boards have shown that the “principal causes of head-on collisions on public roads are vehicle handling error (36%), error of observation or anticipation (19%), and poor positioning (15%). Falling asleep accounted for 12% of head-on collisions and suicide for 10%”. (Ministry of Transport and Communications Finland 2006, 22.) Hence, in 92 out of 100 head-on collisions the human driver has been responsible for the accident. Furthermore, in 2004, 1295 out of the total 3486 (37%) road accidents causing personal injury involved exclusively a single vehicle (Finnish Road Administration 2005). Despite these accidents are mainly associated to inadequate speed, the ultimate cause could be inattention, distraction, or fatigue. In a Canadian report, the authors found that from 107 single-vehicle truck accidents selected, 58% were considered to have fatigue as a probable cause, and 19 out of the 107 drivers stated that they fell asleep while driving (Wylie et al. 1996). Other international statistics also identify driver drowsiness as an important cause of severe traffic accidents. Estimates of the involvement of fatigue or drowsiness are in the range between 2 and 23% of all crashes (Horne and Reyner 2001; Wylie et al. 1996). Critical manifestations of impaired driving performance are increased reaction time (RT), reduced vigilance and attention, reduced information processing capability, and ultimately loss of control of the car (Lal and Craig, 2001; Verwey and Zaidel 2000; Wylie et al. 1996). These instances of impairment indicate that fatigue is susceptible of measurement, evaluation, and prevention through its psychological and physiological correlates (NHTSA 1998). Circadian and situational factors are strongly associated with road traffic accidents related to increased fatigue and diminished alertness. Circadian influences include two main periods of the day, i.e., late night/early morning (02:0006:00 h), and late afternoon (14:00-16:00 h). Reporting fatality statistics in Europe, Hoeglinger et al. (2006) show that there are systematic peaks in the distribution of fatalities in the late afternoon (14:00-19:00) every day of the week. During the weekends the most notorious increase occurs at night (see Figure 1). Among the conditions more frequently associated with this type of accidents it is worth noting the following: The accident happens on a motorway or high-speed road, a single vehicle drives off the road, the driver does not attempt to avoid the accident (Horne and Reyner 2001; NHTSA 1998; Wylie et al. 1996), and the accident happens during a long and monotonous trip (Summala and Mikkola 1994; Verwey and Zaidel 2000). Therefore, these factors are considered important in the research and prevention of traffic accidents due to impaired driver performance, which, among other factors such as inattention or distraction, may be caused by fatigue. Focusing on these circadian and situational conditions, different prevention strategies have been attempted. Among others, regulatory decisions have been made to restrict the amount of hours that professional drivers can drive uninterruptedly. Public advertising campaigns have aimed to increase awareness of the problem. Also,

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350

Total fatalities per hour

300 250 200 150 100 50 0 06 12 18 Monday

06 12 18 Tuesday

06 12 18 Wednesday

06 12 18 Thursday

06 12 18 Friday

06 12 18 Saturday

06 12 18 Sunday

Fig. 1. Fatalities in EU-14 countries by day of the week and time of the day in 2004 (Hoeglinger et al. 2006).

predictive models have been developed, which take situational conditions, i.e., hours of wakefulness or hours of work, as input to manage work schedules (Dawson and Fletcher 2001; Fletcher and Dawson 2001).

2 Driver’s Awareness of Fatigue There is some controversy about the degree to which drivers are aware of their physiological condition of fatigue and suboptimal alertness and what actions they take once they realize it. Some authors argue that sleep does not occur suddenly without any warning to the driver (Horne and Baulk 2004). On the contrary, others suggest that drivers are unaware of the precursor signs of drowsiness or that drivers are reluctant to stop driving when they notice these symptoms (NHTSA 1998; Sagberg 1999). Whether or not drivers might be aware of their reduced alertness is a relevant question. The selection of the feasible measures that could be used to develop alertness monitoring systems might depend on which answers are provided to this question. If drivers were unequivocally aware of their alertness level, their own judgment or a subjective scale administered periodically could suffice. Bearing on this assumption, different subjective or self evaluation scales such as the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS) (Åkerstedt and Gillberg 1990), the Stanford Sleepiness Scale (SSS) (Hoddes et al. 1971), or the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) (Johns 1991) have been developed. However, as Brown (1997) indicates, evidence does not seem to support the self awareness tenet. Alternatively, assuming that drivers are not reliable judges of their alertness state, when this is clearly reduced, points directly to the development of technological monitoring systems based on objective measures (Knipling and Wierwille 1994). Objective measures of fatigue can be broadly classified into psychophysio-logical and psychological or performance measures.

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3 Objective Estimation of Fatigue Among the most commonly employed psychophysiological measures in the research of drowsiness, fatigue, or alertness it is worth mentioning the electroencephalogram (EEG), mainly through the alpha (frequency range 8-13 Hz) and theta (4-8 Hz) rhythms, but also through the delta (0.5-4 Hz) and beta (13-30 Hz) rhythms of the brain wave signals (e.g. Lal and Craig 2001; Lal and Craig 2002). Other psychophysiological measures sensitive to reflect wakefulness and attention state affected processing involve event-related potentials (ERPs) such as the mismatch negativity (MMN), autonomic nervous system (ANS) function such as electrocardiography (ECG), e.g. heart rate (HR), and the electrodermal activity (EDA) through its conductance, resistance, or potential parameters (Hori 1982; Lyytinen et al. 1992; Nittono et al. 2001; Riemersma et al. 1977; Sallinen et al. 1997). Other physiological measures which have captured much of the attention of researchers and industry are the ones derived from the activity of the eyelids, e.g. blink rate and the percentage of eyelid closure (PERCLOS), mainly assessed through video processing (Alloway et al. 1997; Summala et al. 1999). However, the search for effective indicators of fatigue or reduced alertness remains inconclusive (Lal and Craig 2002; Nilsson et al. 1997). Task performance deteriorates under drowsy conditions (see e.g., Horne and Reyner 2001; Knipling and Wierwille 1994). Thus, fatigue and reduced alertness can be evaluated by the degree of performance deterioration. The relation between drowsiness and performance deterioration is assumed to follow a negatively or positively accelerated function, i.e., depending on the measure used to assess performance, the more fatigued the person is the more performance deteriorates. Miró et al. (2002) found that RT was significantly increased as a result of 48 hours of sleep deprivation. In a simulated driving task, Baulk et al. (2001) did not find useful evidence of increased RT resulting from driver’s sleepiness. Furthermore, they found the simple auditory RT task to be an arousing factor. Fletcher and Dawson (2001), however, found that increased RT was highly correlated to sleep deprivation (see also Williamson et al. 2001). Taking these indications into account, we assume that RT can be a good index of driver fatigue. Most of the previous research has concentrated on one of the human response systems, i.e., physiological such as electroencephalography, or behavioural performance measures such as lateral position and steering wheel movement (e.g., Kircher et al. 2002; Lal and Craig 2002). Despite the different attempts to predict drowsiness by means of different measures, Kircher et al. (2002) conclude that single measures do not seem to be reliable by themselves, and a composite of measures should be desirable instead (see also Boivin 2000; Brookhuis et al. 2003). Despite this broader research concentrates on a composite of measures as likely precursors of the process of fatigue instauration and possibly falling asleep while driving, only a selection of the results are reported here.

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4 The Choice of RACER Empirical research in the area of road safety is typically realized through commercial driving simulators (Baulk et al. 2008) or actual vehicles instrumented with the appropriate data collection equipment, e.g., recording of video, electrophysiological, eye tracking, parameters of the subsystems of the vehicle, global positioning system (GPS), and so forth (e.g. Belz et al. 2004). When actual vehicles are employed, the driving task is performed either on closed tracks or in real traffic conditions. Each of these methods has its advantages and disadvantages. However, the reproducibility of the experimental conditions, the absence of risk of injuries to participants and researchers, and an exhaust free environment, favour the simulation methodology. In order to carry out our research on driver fatigue, alternative high-end commercial driving simulator offers were evaluated. Also, non-commercial and commercial games such as the NASCAR racing game (2002), which we used in a previous study (Kauppi and González 2008), were considered. A commercial driving simulator was financially unaffordable. In addition to this, a high-end and high-price simulator for this goal-oriented research would probably not have been a costeffective option (see González 2002). The main requirements sought in a driving simulation tool were reliability to stand three or more hours of driving, an adequate physical model of the vehicle with performance similar or close to that of a real vehicle, a two-lane motorway looking like a Finnish one, no sharp curves demanding focused attention, monotonous surrounding landscapes, and capability of recording the performance of the driver through the controls and the positions of the vehicle on the road. After a comparative evaluation of different alternatives against these requirements, the RACER car simulator (van Gaal 2006) was deemed a valuable and serious option to implement the research procedure that will be described later.

4.1 RACER Features The main features of this simulator related to our requirements are the following: Firstly, it is totally free for non-commercial use. Most of the features of cars and roads are customizable through ASCII files, i.e., files with extension INI. The log file data can be used for off-line analysis of the performance of the driver. The logging sampling rate for data acquisition can be defined as required. To match the sampling rate of the physiological data we set this at 200 Hz. Other simulators only allow sampling rates of 10 samples per second (10 Hz) (see e.g. Baulk et al. 2008). Typically the number of rows in the file after three hours’ driving is very large (more than 2 160 000 rows of text format data). Processing these data requires applications suited for this purpose, such as Mat Lab or similar. There are many car and road 3D models available from user forums such as http://forum.RaceSimCentral.com and http://www.XTremeRacers.net. Support from other RACER users can be sought through these sites. The user can also, with

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proper 3D modelling skills, implement any car or road model. There are also references to available non-commercial 3D modelling tools. The physical model of the vehicle can be considered realistic. In the opinion of driving school instructors who experienced this research set up in March 2007, the performance of the Opel Vectra GTS car seems realistic. It must be noted that these statements were informal and no controlled testing or interviewing took place. A commercial-quality rendering engine produces adequate visual reproduction depending on the quality of the 3D models. Furthermore, the real-time internal clock avoids the dependency of the simulation process on the video frame rate. This allows the logging of simulator data as described above. Finally, documentation on the simulator is available at the Web site (www.racer.nl) and the INI files also provide useful information in the form of comments.

4.2 Relevant Files The simulator consists of the executable and a series of INI files which are used to set numerous parameters of the simulation process. Figure 2 shows the structure of the directory and the main folders on which the modifications required to meet our aims were performed.

Fig. 2. Directory structure of RACER highlighting some of the files and folders of interest.

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4.3 Car and Road Models Due to the vast amount of options available on Racer user forums, a test and selection process of the most adequate vehicle and road models was compulsory. Among those options, the chosen car model was an Opel Vectra GTS provided by Iroker (2005) (available at www.iroker.com). The road model matching our requirements was a high speed oval road designed by Annuk (2005) (available at www.xtremeracers.net). The vehicle and the original road are illustrated in Figure 3.

Fig. 3. External image of the Opel Vectra GTS and the Speedest2 track/road.

4.4 Modifications to the Road Model Roads and vehicle models are designed or modified from existing ones by designers who have their particular interests. These models are donated for other users to try and enjoy playing with them. Most are directed towards high speed or competition driving styles. Therefore, they are somewhat different from actual roads. For example, they may be wider allowing more participating vehicles like racing circuits, they might have road markings delineating lanes differently than real roads, and they can differ in terms of many other characteristics as well. To fulfil the requirements set for this study, some changes to the visual appearance of the road were unavoidable (Figure 4). The metal fence produced a blurred image on the screen which, by itself, could provoke ocular fatigue and was removed. To reduce the contrast with the rest of the surface of the road, an asphalt image of a lighter colour was applied on the curve shown in Figure 4. The position of the sun was changed to avoid required adaptations of the eyes of the drivers in this segment of the road. Compared to other parts of the road, this segment was very bright and the shining of the sun on the eyes could not be prevented by any other means than postural adjustments of the drivers, changing the direction of their gaze, or blocking the incidence of the sun on the eyes with the hand. These behaveours would have introduced undesirable experimental error. More neutral pictures

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Fig. 4. Modifications affecting the visual appearance of the Speedest2 track. The left panel shows the original design and the changes are illustrated on the right panel. The elements which were modified are indicated with stars.

where placed on the advertisement boards shown on the right panel of Figure 4. The markings of the lanes were replaced so that their width was closer to the common Finnish motorways with lanes about 3.7 m wide (VTT 2000).

5 Method 5.1 Participants Seventeen young adults (16 male and one female) undergoing their training to obtain the C/D professional driving licence volunteered to participate in the study. Their mean age was 30.7 years (range 20–45 years). They were recruited from their professional driver courses from the local vocational education school. They were all healthy without declared sleep problems or any other medical condition that could have prevented their participation. They had normal or corrected-to-normal vision. Each of the participants held a valid driving license for more than two years and drove daily except for one participant who drove from 3 to 5 days per week. Regularly, the participants drove from 5000 to 25000 km/year at the time of this study.

5.2 Instruments and Materials A personal computer (PC) ran the RACER simulator under Windows XP (van Gaal 2006). The driving scenery was back projected on a screen (1080 × 924 mm) in front of the participant who sat 1250 mm from it. The driving scenario shown in Figure 2 represented a high speed oval road. As shown earlier, the original road

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markings and other visual features in the Speedest2 model were modified to resemble a typical Finnish motorway. The oval road is 8000 m long. Each of the two curves is 2574 m long with 820 m radius. The curves are banked 28 degrees. There were no other cars on the road throughout the experiment. The car was controlled with a Logitech MOMO Force steering wheel, throttle and brake pedals. The force feedback capability of the steering wheel was turned off to avoid movement noise in the electrophysiological recording of EDA. Concurrently to driving, a vigilance task (VT) was administered by the E-Prime software (Version 1.1; Psychology Software Tools 2002) running on a different PC. It consisted of a visual choice RT task. Turning on the external LEDs (2 cm diameter), receiving the responses from the buttons on the steering wheel, and sending transistor-transistor logic (TTL) pulses to flag the onset (light on) and offset (response) of the visual stimuli was done through the parallel port. The TTL pulses were stored by DSAMP on one channel synchronized with the physiological data. Another E-Prime procedure presented auditory stimuli. This was an oddball paradigm aiming at eliciting event related potentials (ERPs) such as the mismatch negativity (MMN). However, these data are not reported here. E-Prime also produced the trigger signals from which DSAMP initiated the recording epochs. The digitized data were recorded as sequential epochs of 31 245 msec with 5 msec gap between each epoch. The diagram of the set up of this experimental procedure is illustrated in Figure 5.

Fig. 5. Model of the INNOROAD laboratory instrumentation set up. Input and output of different components are indicated with directional arrows. VT = vigilance task; AUD = auditory stimulation. TTL = transistor-transistor logic pulses. One video camera records the face of the driver and the other records the road scenery shown on the top of the figure.

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6 Results 6.1 Progression of Fatigue Experimental results from repeated measures ANOVAs indicate that this long (~3 hour) driving task the participants performed induced fatigue symptoms. Reaction times in the vigilance task were significantly increased as driving time (TOT)

Fig. 6. Experimental results showing the effects of driving time or TOT on RT in the vigilance task, blink rate, heart rate, vehicle speed, standard deviation of the steering wheel position, and proportion of time per block of approximately 9 minutes that the vehicle was in an incident situation.

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progressed (p = .006). Blink rate also increased significantly with TOT (p = .022). Heart rate approached significant slowing (p = .068). Significant results were also obtained on the mean speed of the vehicle, the standard deviation of the steering wheel position, and the proportion of time that drivers were in an incident situation, i.e., crossing the edges of the lane. Each of these analyses showed a probability smaller than .001. These results are illustrated in Figure 6.

6.2 Performance of the RACER Simulator The statistical results indicate that the choice of RACER and the car and road models suited our expectancies. The RACER simulator proved to be reliable allowing drives of more than three hours without complications. The resulting log files are of course very large but no problems have been appreciated with the integrity of the data. None of the participants complained about simulator sickness.

7 Discussion Fatigue is a complex condition and its effects on road safety too dramatic to be ignored. The measurement of fatigue in real or simulated environments still demands continued research efforts as many questions remain unanswered. In this study, with the technical support of the RACER simulator (van Gaal 2006) and other 3D designers (Iroker 2005; Annuk 2005), we were able to devise a driving environment which elicited fatigue through prolonged driving time, monotony of the road environment and absence of surprising events. The results indicate that fatigue affected drivers’ performance negatively, i.e., increased RT on the subsidiary VT, speed maintenance, steering activity, and the occurrence of incidents. Psychophysiological measures such as blink rate and heart rate appear to be associated with performance. However, HR did not show very robust decrements throughout the drive considering each of the drivers as a group. The RACER simulator proved to be a highly cost-effective alternative for this goal oriented research. Some features of the simulator could help to improve its applicability for research. An output signal provided by the simulator for automatic synchronization with other signals would be an advantage. Automatic computation of driving performance parameters (steering, speed, lane tracking variability, incidents, etc.) in addition to the raw data could reduce the current computational demands in off-line data processing The addition of controllable or autonomous interactive traffic would allow creating or re-constructing traffic conflicts in a reproducible way. Testing situations could be created under this condition.

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The Speedest2 curve geometry would improve its realism by constraining the existing 28 degree banking to 1-2 degrees. Additionally, the road could be shaped as an 8 instead of an oval. In this way curves could be both left and right allowing perhaps for more subtle comparisons of the effects of fatigue. Car models with realistic head light performance to simulate night driving could be an advantage. For the time being, we have not been able to find a vehicle model whose head lights illuminate the road properly.

8 Conclusions In this monotonous driving environment performance is impaired as time on task progresses. The trends in the psychophysiological measures suggest that these are associated with performance measures. A composite measure of alertness can be more reliable than a single one, and future research should attempt to discover such a composite measure. Despite its valuable cost-effectiveness in this goal oriented research, some improvements in the RACER simulator would expand its utility as a serious research tool. In the battle against road fatalities caused by fatigue, these research results might help to reduce road fatalities. This contribution could stem from the development of training to manage individual driver fatigue and the development of reliable driver assistance systems. Acknowledgments: This research has been financially supported by Suomen Akatemia (The Academy of Finland) and Henry Fordin Saatiö (The Henry Ford Foundation). We would like to thank, Juhani Forsman, Lauri Viljanto, Tuomo Kujala, Anu Kauppi, Aarne Kankaanpää, Heidi Inkeri, Kai Luhtala, and the voluntary drivers. The contributions of Ruud van Gaal (RACER) and the developers of other tools we have used are greatly appreciated.

References Alloway, C. E. D., Ogilvie, R. D., & Shapiro, C. M. (1997). The alpha attenuation test: Assessing excessive daytime sleepiness in narcolepsy-cataplexy. Sleep: Journal of Sleep & Sleep Disorders Research, 20, 258–266. Annuk, S. (2005). Speedest2 top speed oval [computer software]. http://www.aai.ee/~siim/racer/. Available at http://www.xtremeracers.net. Accessed 13 January 2006. Baulk S. D., Biggs, S. N., Reid, K. J., van den Heuvel, C. J., & Dawson, D. (2008). Chasing the silver bullet: Measuring driver fatigue using simple and complex tasks. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 40, 396–402. Baulk, S. D., Reyner, L. A., & Horne, J. A. (2001). Driver sleepiness: Evaluation of reaction time measurement as a secondary task. Sleep, 24, 695–698. Belz, S. M., Robinson, G. S., & Casali, J. G. (2004). Temporal separation and self-rating of alertness as indicators of driver fatigue in commercial motor vehicle operators. Human Factors, 46, 154–169.

RACER: A Non-Commercial Driving Game 183 Boivin, D. B. (2000). Best practices compendium of fatigue countermeasures in transport operations (Report No. TP 13620E). Montreal, Quebec: Transportation Development Centre (TDC). Brookhuis, K. A., De Waard, D., & Fairclough, S. H. (2003). Criteria for driver impairment. Ergonomics, 46, 433–445. Brown, I. D. (1997). Prospects for technological countermeasures against driver fatigue. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 29, 525–531. Dawson, D., & Fletcher, A. (2001). A quantitative model of work-related fatigue: background and definition. Ergonomics, 44, 144–163. European Commission (2001). White Paper-European transport policy for 2010: time to decide. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. Finnish Road Administration (2005). Public roads in Finland 1.1.2005. http://www.tiehallinto.fi/ pls/wwwedit/docs/7994.pdf. Accessed 24 February 2005. Fletcher, A., & Dawson, D. (2001). A quantitative model of work-related fatigue: Empirical evaluations. Ergonomics, 44, 475–488. González, N. (2002). Factors affecting simulator-training effectiveness. Jyväskylä, Finland: University of Jyväskylä. Hoddes, E., Dement, W. C., & Zarcone, V. (1971). The history and use of the Stanford Sleepiness Scale. Psychophysiology, 9, 150. Hoeglinger, S., Angermann, A., Weiss, V., Yannis, G., Evgenikos, P., Bos, N., et al. (2006). Traffic Safety Basic Facts 2006: Main Figures. http://www.erso.eu/data/content/ main_figures.htm#_Main_figures. Accessed 15 March 2007. Hori, T. (1982). Electrodermal and Electro-oculographic activity in a hypnagogic state. Psychophysiology, 19, 668–672. Horne, J. & Reyner, L. (2001). Sleep-related vehicle accidents: Some guides for road safety policies. Transportation Research Part F, 4, 63–74. Horne, J. A. & Baulk, S. D. (2004). Awareness of sleepiness when driving. Psychophysiology, 41, 161–165. Iroker (2005). Opel Vectra GTS (Version 2.0) [Computer software]. http://www.iroker.com/ e107_plugins/dbase/brand.php?brand=Opel. Accessed 12 July 2006. Johns, M. W. (1991). A new method for measuring daytime sleepiness: the Epworth sleepiness scale. Sleep, 14, 540–545. Kauppi, A. I. & González, N. (2008). The psychophysiological prediction of driving quality under fatigue: Simulated driving by sleep-deprived participants. VDM Verlag. Forthcoming. Kircher, A., Uddman, M., & Sandin, J. (2002). Vehicle Control and Drowsiness. VTI Meddelande 922A. VTI Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute. Knipling, R. R. & Wierwille, W. W. (1994). Vehicle-based drowsy driver detection: Current status and future prospects. In Proceedings of the IVHS America Fourth Annual Meeting (pp. 245-256). April 1994, Atlanta, GA. Lal, S. K. L. & Craig, A. (2001). A critical review of the psychophysiology of driver fatigue. Biological Psychology, 55, 173–194. Lal, S. K. L. & Craig, A. (2002). Driver fatigue: Electroencephalography and psychological assessment. Psychophysiology, 39, 313–321. Liikenneturva (2008). Tilastokatsaus. http://www.liikenneturva.fi/fi/tilastot/liitetiedostot/ Tieliikenne_tilannekatsaus__12_2007.pdf. Accessed 28 January 2008. Lyytinen, H., Blomberg, A. P., & Näätänen, R. (1992). Event-related potentials and autonomic responses to a change in unattended auditory stimuli. Psychophysiology, 29, 523–534. Ministry of Transport and Communications Finland (2006). Road safety 2006 – 2010. http:// www.mintc.fi/oliver/upl959-OS1_2006.pdf. Accessed 8 August 2006. Miró, E., Cano-Lozano, M. C., & Buela-Casal, G. (2002). Electrodermal activity during total sleep deprivation and its relationship with other activation and performance measures. Journal of Sleep Research, 11, 105–112.

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NASCAR® Racing 2002 Season [Computer software]. (2002). Reading, UK: Vivendi Universal Games UK Ltd (Developer: Papyrus Racing Games. Inc). NHTSA (1998). Drowsy driving and automobile crashes, NHSDR/NHTSA expert panel on driver fatigue and sleepiness. Report No.: DOT HS 808 707. Nilsson, T., Nelson, T. M., & Carlson, D. (1997). Development of fatigue symptoms during simulated driving. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 29, 479–488. Nittono, H., Momose, D., & Hori, T. (2001). The vanishing point of the mismatch negativity at sleep onset. Clinical Neurophysiology, 112, 732–739. Psychology Software Tools (2002). E-Prime (Version 1.1) [Computer software]. Pittsburgh, PA. Riemersma, J. B. J., Sanders, A. F., Hildervanck, C., & Gaillard, A. W. (1977). Performance decrement during prolonged night driving. In R. R. Mackie (Ed.), Vigilance: Theory, operational performance and physiological correlates (pp. 41–58). New York: Plenum Press. Sagberg, F. (1999). Road accidents caused by drivers falling asleep. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 31, 639–649. Sallinen, M., Kaartinen, J., & Lyytinen, H. (1997). Precursors of the evoked K-complex in eventrelated brain potentials in stage 2 sleep. Electroencephalography & Clinical Neurophysiology, 102, 363–373. Summala, H. & Mikkola, T. (1994). Fatal accidents among car and truck drivers: effects of fatigue, age and alcohol. Human Factors, 36, 315–326. Summala, H., Hakkanen, H., Mikkola, T., & Sinkkonen, J. (1999). Task effects on fatigue symptoms in overnight driving. Ergonomics, 42, 798–806. van Gaal, R. (2006). RACER [computer software]. http://www.racer.nl. Accessed 21 January 2006. Verwey, W. B. & Zaidel, D. M. (2000). Predicting drowsiness accidents from personal attributes, eye blinks and ongoing driving behaviour. Personality & Individual Differences, 28, 123–142. VTT (2000). Head-on and run-off-the-road accidents on rural roads in Finland (Deliverable 4.2 EC FP4 Safestar project). Williamson, A. M., Feyer, A. M., Mattick, R. P., Friswell, R., & Finlay-Brown, S. (2001). Developing measures of fatigue using an alcohol comparison to validate the effects of fatigue on performance. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 33, 313–326. Wylie, C. D., Shultz, T., Miller, J. C., Mitler, M. M., & Mackie, R. R. (1996). Commercial motor vehicle driver fatigue and alertness study: Technical summary (Report No.: TP 12876E). Montreal, Quebec: Transportation Development Centre (TDC). Åkerstedt, T. & Gillberg, M. (1990). Subjective and objective sleepiness in the active individual. International Journal of Neuroscience, 52, 29–37.

VIPROSA – Game-like Tool for Visual Process Simulation and Analysis Tapani N. Liukkonen Department of Information Processing Science, P.O. Box 3000, 90014 University of Oulu [email protected]

Abstract: Business process development aims to improve the efficiency of the organisations, and to adapt them to the changing operational environment. To improve the results of this work, we describe a novel way to combine gaming with business process simulation tools to achieve better collaboration between the business process experts and the workers participating in the business process development efforts. To achieve this goal our game tries to include the workers to the development process. This way the tacit knowledge about the work processes possessed by them could be used to tailor the new processes. In this paper we will introduce the topics of business process management and games to the readers, after which we sketch the outlines of our design. Our own game-like tool is introduced by laying down the basic architecture of our game-like tool design from a high-level view, and by explaining the role of the different building blocks. After these explanations we compare our tool with the existing tools and criteria’s derived from them. Our tool has great potential at presenting the complex simulation to the workers in a form that does not require special training or previous knowledge. We have strong confidence on our tool, and believe that it would have an impact on bringing the business process modelling and simulation closer to the workers in the organisations using it.

1 Introduction In this paper the conceptual model for a simulation game called VIPROSA is introduced to the readers. VIPROSA is a shorthand notation for VIsual PROcess Simulation and Analysis, and as a game it is a tool for business process simulation and analysis. First goal of the game is to inform different participants about the current and future work processes of the organisation, and to foster process development between these two states and collaboration between different user groups. Second goal for this tool is to be a training tool for new members of the organisation, acting as an introduction training game that familiarises the new employee to business processes and different actors working on these processes inside the organisation. We also introduce the reasoning why this kind of tool is needed, and 185 M. Kankaanranta and P. Neittaanmäki (eds.), Design and Use of Serious Games, 185–206. © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009

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some examples how it could be implemented and used in the context of the business processes. Theoretical framework for our work presented on the Figure 1 is adapted from framework used by Lainema (2003). Original framework was used on the construction and the evaluation of business management simulation game, Real Game. Instead of continuous processing being in the spotlight, we have promoted the serious games and visualisation as the main improvement ideas for current business process simulation tools.

Fig. 1. Theoretical Framework for VIPROSA (Adapted from Lainema 2003, 17).

Actual construction and the effects of the different learning theories to the learning results are omitted from this phase of the project. Dotted line on the Figure 1 presents the scope of this paper compared to the full project. Model of VIPROSA – part is a substitution for the actual construction as it is not a feasible goal on the scope and time frame at this point. According to Aalst and Hee (2002), the business processes development has shifted from the solitary domain of the business experts to include an information technologists. We aim to include the workers inside the business processes to this crowd among the business and technology experts. Currently, when existing processes are defined and modelled, workers are interviewed to find out how they do their work by experts, and sometimes they are instructed how to draw process models of their own work. In the analysing stage the workers might get a chance to participate and express their views and comment about the ideas expressed by the experts.

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We see this as a limited form of participation, and as a waste of their tacit knowledge about how work really is done in the organisation. Our aim is to empower the workers by translating the business process lingo to more comprehensible form for them. This way the tacit knowledge of the workers would be added to the process improvement project. So, at part we are trying to help the process of transforming tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. To support our view on this, we have used studies made by Nonaka and Takeuchi about knowledge transformation inside organisations, and studies of Klabbers about games and simulations (see Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995; Klabbers 1999). Our main hypothesis is that visualisation and game mechanics used in gaming in general and in serious games is the way to make business process models and simulations more accessible to the workers. Reasoning for this hypothesis is strongly supported by Saffo (1997, 30), who states that tools that will help people 1) to visualise large pools of data into more easily understandable form, e.g. images and animation, and 2) to simulate environment that are the base of this data will be the most important tools for this sector. He also notes that such tools can provide executives a safe environment to experiment with new strategies on these simulated environments. This is a possibility that we want to give to the other workers as well, and in the following chapters we will introduce the basic reasoning and fundamental parts of the VIPROSA itself. In the following chapter we introduce the concept of business processes in the context of the business process management, and how modern organisations use business process modelling and simulation in their struggle to achieve lower expenditures and better processes compared to their competitors at the first chapter. Simulation and analysis of business processes are also briefly mentioned with some notes on the visualisation aspects of these programs. In the next chapter we shortly introduce games in general so that we can see how they have been used in history to achieve educational and informative goals. After that we go into the some subgenres of games, namely simulation and serious games with examples from the commercial games. Towards the end we will introduce the general structure of VIPROSA with some of its components and tools followed by a conclusion.

2 Business Processes Management Process can be seen almost everywhere in life and cycle of nature. There are several definitions for the term process. One of the popular ones is by Davenport and Short (1990, 12), to whom business processes are a series of logically linked tasks that follow each other in serial fashion to achieve some predetermined business goal with value to the organisation. To them business processes have two important characteristics which are following:

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Business processes have clients, either external or internal from their own organisation. • Business processes cross organisational boundaries. •

In a larger scale processes form a mesh structure that we call an organisation. Organisations can be seen as collections of processes created to perform controlled effort to achieve the determined goal of the organisation. Business processes have been improved as long as the concept has existed. But in our case the history starts with Frederick Taylor’s (1911), Principles of Scientific Management in the end of the 19th century and in the beginning of the 19th century. In a short version of Taylorism work was divided to distinctive phases, or standard tasks. Then the skill set required to accomplish these tasks with the standard method to apply these skills at the work was defined. After this the workers were selected to fill these requirements, and trained especially to do this defined set of tasks with standard method of work on their specialised field. Legacy of Taylorism can be seen on how work is still been made by specialists, and on how work is been measured with more modern equipment in workplaces. Since Taylorism many other improvement methods came with various impacts to the processes, but we will move straight to more current trends. 1980’s the term total quality management (TQM) was coined to describe the Japanese approach to increasing product quality. In TQM the whole production cycle is targeted for possible improvements. Japanese definition of TQM process has four steps and first of them, and most interesting to us in the light of our goals, is called Kaizen. By definition Kaizen focuses on “Continuous Process Improvement”, to make processes visible, repeatable and measurable. After this step process can be analysed and improved if new improved ways of doing it are found (Huntzinger, 2002, 17). In the 1990’s Michael Hammer and James Champy introduced the business process reengineering (BPR). In their paper they concentrated on removing non-value adding work from processes instead of automating them as was done earlier without changing the work practices of the old processes. Their definition of BPR was: “the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service and speed.”(Hammer and Champy 1993)

Radical redesign was the main tool and objective of BPR. Instead of doing small incremental changes to the current process or by automating some tasks, BPR was set out to demolish old processes and encouraged to think them again from ground up (Hammer, 1990). Davenport and Short (1990), also had a similar idea around the same time on their paper where it was called Business Process Redesign. During its early years BPR’s radical approach was used as a way to justify layoffs on struggling companies. This lead to problems as once the word ‘reengineering’ was mentioned, the resistance to the change project jumped up as people feared massive layoffs. Friendlier name of Business Process Improvement (BPI) has also been used to camouflage BPR efforts, but essentially it is the same concept under

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different name (Harrington 1991). Hammer and Davenport have both admitted that their original ideas were wrongly formulated on some aspects and this made it possible to use BPR as a layoff machine (see Davenport 1995; White 1996). Currently most of the business process improvement activities are grouped under the banner of Business Process Management (BPM) (Sharp and McDermott, 2001). BPM can be seen as a never ending cycle that runs inside the organization all the time, as depicted on Figure 2.

Fig. 2. BPM Life Cycle. (Weske et al. 2004).

In a view employed by Weske at al. processes are designed, configured, enacted and diagnosed with emphasis on the workflow systems as enactors. In his model configuration means that (re)designed processes are configured into process aware information system, namely workflow management systems (WFMS’s), and then these systems would execute these processes until they are again reconfigured. We also include the changes in organisational structure and on the ways how the work is done on the organisation as means for the business process improvement. In modern process improvement projects processes are modelled by using computer and modelling tools that use some standardised notation. These process models can be then altered to form new process models. Both of these models are simulated and their differences are analysed using these same tools or some additional software that can translate the models to simulation models. In this paper process modelling software means software products that are designed to be used as tools for process modelling; by using these tools user can graphically model processes that occur in their business environment. Graphical presentation of process model is constructed from graphical symbols which represent the actors of the process, the flow of control and the information flows between them. Use of process modelling software requires some training and familiarisation so that user learns the semantics of the symbols. There have been several methods for process modelling during last decades, but we will concentrate on the Business

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Process Modelling Notation (BPMN). By selecting BPMN as our target we have to only deal with one standard instead of several alternative possibilities. BPMN has a defined set of core modelling elements that represent the different parts and phases of the business processes that are defined in the BPMN specification1. These are grouped as flow objects, connecting objects, swim lanes, and artefacts. Set of symbols for these elements are presented as an example on the Figure 3 as these are used as a reference at the later parts.

Fig. 3. Core elements of BPMN (OMG BPMN – OMG Final Adopted Specification, see the footnote 1).

These symbols are used to create process model, or a map, that will tell how the processes are supposed to go, and what is done during their lifetime. Every process model starts with some event, and has at least one activity before it reaches the final event at the end of process. Process advances by moving from one activity to another, and these transitions form the flow of the work inside the organisation. Tasks and messages can also go through gateways that fork the progress of the process to different directions, or combines different branches to one. Computer simulation is also used as a supplementary tool with process modelling. Testing for the effects of the process changes with simulation is simpler, safer and cheaper way of testing, than changing the existing structures of the organisation to see how the possible changes would change its process outcome (Giaglis et al. 1999). Process simulation uses the process model with the various set of performance related information as a base for its actions. When user starts the simulation the 1

BPMN Specification. http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/1.1/. Accessed 12 September 2008.

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program can assign stochastic variations to the numerical values given by the user to points like arrival rate of customers of the process and length of time it takes to complete the task. This way the simulation resembles more the real world system where various reasons will cause variations to these times and these differences affect the other parts of the process. After simulation and analysis of the current model of the process, the simulation can be used to determine different outcomes of What-If -scenarios. In these the As-Is model is modified and simulated again so that the effects of the changes could be seen. When the simulation results of some of these models is found to be what the organisation wants to achieve in future, it can be implemented on the organisation. In our context the process visualisation means the different kind of ways how computers and their graphical capabilities are used to convey the process information to the users. Earliest, and still used, mean of information sharing was to print out on the paper or on the screen the numerical data about the processes and different aspects about them and influencing them with their choices. As graphical capabilities of computers advanced, the next steps in data visualisation were the different kind of charts. Charts and numerical values representing different aspects of the performance of process are still the leading method to tell the users how processes are performing. Following Figure 4 presents a BPMN-style model for a processes going on at the front desk of the hospital when patient arrives2.

Fig. 4. Model of hospitals front desk as modelled in QPR ProcessGuide (QPR 2008).

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QPR Software Plc. http://www.qpr.com/. Accessed 12 September 2008.

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This process visualisation tool relies on the static images of the model. During simulations some animations are used to represent the flow of resources and actors along the process. But on some tools, like in the ARENA, different kind of visualisation is used on the simulations3. In these tools the objects and actors of the real working process are presented with graphical notations in less abstract manner. Instead of lines and rounded rectangles, walls, corridors, humans and other real objects are presented with realistic life-like representations. From business tools, Arena3D is the closest match to the game visualisation with its animated 3-dimensional (3D) representations of the work environments. Simulation is the part where workers see how modellers think that how they are doing their work and how their day goes at the work. When they can see it in a form that resembles more closely their own work, they can point out mistakes and give advices and suggestions about how to fix or improve the underlying model. These kinds of effects have been reported by de Vreede and Verbraeck (1996, 260): Case example: During animated face-validity tests in the hospital case, both structural and empirical modelling “slips” were identified by the people involved in the Neurology Policlinic. Examples of their observations include, “The queue in front of the registration desk is never that long”, and “The physician is always finished seeing his patients before 18:30”

Simulation is the part of the process that has most of the potential at the boardrooms and among the workers who are not involved on the modelling part. Role of visualisation that we are interested in these two programs is happening on the simulation part of the process. In here it helps to show the dynamic parts of the processes in a visual way to the different participants who all might not have necessary skills to understand the notations used on the modelling tools. So, in a way animated process display adds a new way to analyse process. Instead of static numbers and charts, the dynamic aspects of the process can be studied (Hlupic and de Vreede 2005).

3 Games Games are one of the oldest forms of education in history. Different kinds of games are found from most types of animals and all human societies. First games have been dated back to the 3000 BC, and from since we have seen all kinds of games ranging from hide and seek to games utilising some form of gaming board or objects needed for the play, e.g. chess and card games (Lainema 2003). We are focusing on the modern incarnation of the games, namely computer games and on these on some specialised genres which are now introduced. 3

Rockwell Automation Inc (2008). http://www.arenasimulation.com/. Accessed 12 September 2008.

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One of the genres in computer games is the business simulation games. Some of these games are very simple in terms of business rules, but some games try to model complex production networks and stock markets to offer an authentic simulation of selected business area to the player. To make these games more authentic the game world can also include competitors whose actions affect on the players own business (Ju and Wagner 1997). These competitors are either controlled by the computer or by other human players. In the business games, players are in control of some aspect or aspects of the virtual business. In the beginning of the game player receiver information about the current situation, and about the goals he is trying to achieve during the game play. While player is playing the game, he can make decisions that will affect on the performance of the virtual business. For example player can be on charge of the pricing of different products or he can be deciding what kind of products stores are selling during different seasons of the year. Earlier term for business games was “management decision simulations”. In these games players were presented with situation reports telling the relevant information about the current situation of the company that they were operating. Based on this data the players made new decisions after which the computer calculated the effect of these decisions and printed out new report for the players. These types of business games are called discrete simulations (Lainema 2003). According to Burgess (1995), one way to make the business games more realistic is to use continuous simulation. Continuous simulation means that situation is changing dynamically all the time, and that players can see real-time data of the simulated company and they can interact with it at any point of time they chosee. Real-time processing emphasises the importance of time in the decision-making. Real Game relays the information to the player in the form of raw numbers on screens that resembles the spreadsheet programs. In education and training simulation games have been founded to be an effective way to relay vast amounts of complex and dynamic data in real time to the participants of the session. For training purposes business games share a common advantage with generic simulations. In business games players have the freedom to try out all kind of solutions without the risk of ruining the actual company (Senge and Lannon 1997). IBM has also produced a business games with yet another kind of goal on it. IBM’s INNOV8 is “an interactive, 3-D business simulator designed to teach the fundamentals of business process management and bridge the gap in understanding between business leaders and IT teams in an organization”4. In INNOV8 player is given a task to straighten the course of plummeting company by improving its core business processes. This goal is achieved with new business process models

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IBM (2008). INNOV8 – a BPM Simulator. http://www-304.ibm.com/jct03001c/software/ solutions/soa/innov8.html. Accessed 12 September 2008.

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which are in the end of the game enacted on the workflow system where player does the final improvements to them by following the guidelines presented by the systems key performance indicators. INNOV8 has a 3D game environment like many games today have. In this game the player is not only making decisions based on numerical fact sheets, but moving and participating on the conversations on the game world to find out clues about what is wrong on the company’s current processes. Player moves with her avatar in the 3D world. The world is limited to the headquarter building of the imaginary company where player is working. From this building player has to find persons that can tell her more about the current situation of the company, and based on these conversations and information gathered from desks and bulleting boards make a decisions how to improve the business process used in this company. Suggestions about how to change the processes are given in a form of a puzzle game. Puzzle shows how the player is modifying the process model done with BPMN. INNOV8 has simultaneously many layers of visualisation. When player is moving around the game world, visualisation is showing the 3D model of the building in which she resides, but 3D is not used when doing the process work or when visualising the processes under the improvement. In these parts the game relays on the standard notation of the BPMN, with charts, gauges and numbers to show how the performance of the processes are changing with players actions. Among other things INNOV8 demonstrates how difficult it is to categorise games. In a way INNOV8 is called a business game, but then it is partially marketed as a serious game. If we label the mainstream games under the term commercial games to polarise the distinction between them and the serious games, we can see that in most serious games the approach to the game is different than in commercial games. Commercial games simply try to entertain the player and engage her to the game with an attempt to sell more games or accessories for them. While engaging the player the serious games try to educate and inform the user about something. Examples of these are world’s refugee or hunger related issues, like in the Food Force5 and Darfur is Dying 6. In simplified definition we can say that serious games are games that are specifically designed to address some issues or a topic in the area that game is presenting. This is not anything new as learning games have been produced for decades before the term serious games was coined during year 2002 when Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2008), launched “Serious Games Initiative” (SGI) to encourage the development of games that address policy and management

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United Nations World Food Programme (2006). Food Force. http://www.food-force.com/. Accessed 12 September 2008. mtvU (2006). Darfur is Dying. http://www.darfurisdying.com/. Accessed 12 September 2008.

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issues. SGI defines itself as follows: “The Serious Games Initiative is focused on uses for games in exploring management and leadership challenges facing the public sector.”7 Serious game as a term is not clearly defined, and many games labelled under it can easily be categorised to other genres as well. To overcome this, Ben Sawyer and Peter Smith have tried to define serious games by creating taxonomy of serious games that was presented at the Serious Games Summit during the Game Developers Conference 2008 (Sawyer and Smith 2008). Main level of this taxonomy is presented on the following Table 1. This taxonomy labels serious games by combining their aimed market segment with the economical sector where it is aimed. These segments can also have their own inner taxonomies for more detailed categorisation of games. Vertical line of the chart is made from different sectors where serious games are targeted. Some examples of these are Advergames which are combination of advertisements and games and Games for Health which are games trying to educate players about some aspects of personal health, or are trying to spread information about some health conditions. Example about latter could be the Re-Mission8 which is a 3D shooter game which tries to help to improve the lives of young persons living with cancer. Horizontal line represents the different segments where and by whom the games could be used. Corporations have their own goals with serious games that differ from the goals of the Defence or Governmental sectors. Some examples for the usage of the games are seen in the cross-sections of these lines. Simple example could be Defence sector combined with Games for Science and Research where we can the Wargames/Planning on the cross-section. Actual game from this section could be the Fleet Command or DARWARS Ambush! both of those developed in the DARWARS9 research project sponsored by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Now we will present a game from the side of commercial games so that we will have some perspective on the largest fraction of the gaming field. The Sims, released during year 2000, presented on the Figure 6, is a game franchise on its own with several versions, expansion sets and popular position among gamers. In this part “The Sims” refers to whole series stressing more on the side of The Sims 2 especially in the modding bits. The Sims is a computer game simulating life with strategic aspects. Life in the context of this game means ‘Sims’ the computer avatars that populate the game world. These avatars have their own houses, jobs, families and life’s inside the game world. Player is in control of one of the families, and he have some means for direct and indirect influence on its life

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Serious Games Initiative (2008). http://www.seriousgames.org. Accessed 12 September 2008. Re-Emission. http://www.re-mission.net/. Accessed 12 September 2008. 9 DARWARS. http://www.darwars.net/. Accessed 12 September 2008. 8

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4 Visual Process Simulation and Analysis – Description for the Game-like Business Simulation Tool VIPROSA combines business process models and key performance indicators from the actual work environment of the target organisation, and presents that environment in simulated form to the users who then can observe the model using the game-like environment. In this game environment users can also modify the current situation to see if their modifications would improve the situation. By the users, or players, we mean two different user groups that can use the tool for different purposes. First group contains the traditional members of business process development effort. These include the actual workers of the process, modellers, and experts either from inside or outside the organisation who are guiding the process development project. This group uses the tool to seek out new process models with desired features for the target organisation. Second group can use the tool to train and learn the processes of the target organisation. In practice this kind of a situation happens in the training phase of the new workers, or in a case where old work models are substituted with new ones and they have to be introduced to the workers (see Liukkonen 2008). In this case the game would show how some aspects of the work will change in future, and employees could train their new procedures or organisational structure with it. One of the aims for the game-like tool is to change the role of the workers who participate in the business process development efforts. When traditional tools are used, the workers are used as a source of knowledge about the work processes of the organisation. This means that they might be interviewed and observed by experts so that these work models are found and experts can model them for future use. In some cases the workers might be trained to model their own work processes. After the data acquisition and modelling the experimentation with the models is started by the participants who can use the simulation tools, mostly this means the experts, and the workers step back in the project when the new work models are implemented in the practice. When using VIPROSA there are some changes to the process development cycle. First parts of the process stay the same, as data acquisition and modelling is still done as earlier. Change starts at the experimentation and analysis part where VIPROSA will be used instead of the BPM tools as the game-like simulation environment. In here we want to give the workers a chance to do the experimentations with the process models that are presented in a game environment. This would bring their ideas and tacit knowledge about the process to the development process. These games used in a simulation and training are produced by using tools coming with VIPROSA. These tools with the tool chain are presented on the Figure 7. Goal of this procedure is to translate the language or languages used by specialist to more comprehensible form by using graphical representation of the models. This will turn large amounts of models and numerical data to visual representation

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resources while they are active in the process. The interface for the particular use cases, training or process development, might require a different kind of approach and tools in the user interface and these changes and additions are made in this tool. In practice the finished Game module contains configuration files in Extensible Markup Language (XML) format, and all the support files required by the scenario that is described in the module, e.g. graphics, sounds, and required process models. Main XML file contains the basic configuration information about the scenario including the sub-XML files that contain more detailed information. Basic information includes the lists of actors, resources and other data directly concerning the business model, and location of the media and sub-XML files. Example about the sub-XML files could be the file containing rules about scoring, or a file describing the features of different actor classes. After the Game module is finished in the Scenario Builder, it can be played by using the VIPROSA game environment. In a way VIPROSA is like a method and toolset for process development, but we label it as a game as its roots are in the ideas coming from games, and its general architecture also fits games with separate applications for modding and gaming. Architecture of VIPROSA is heavily influenced by another process simulation tool called PiVizTool but our take on many aspects of the tool and goals are different (Bog 2006). This high level view of the VIPROSA’s architecture is presented on the Figure 8. When the Game module is loaded on the VIPROSA the users, or players, use the mouse and keyboard to interact with the game through its graphical user interface (GUI). Interface itself has been derived from the commercial computer games, like the one presented in the picture 4. Through this GUI the users can

Fig. 8. General architecture of VIPROSA.

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For the statistical analysis there is no support at this point. But the could be an option where the different process models created by the players, could be run automatically with varying conditions without user interaction to produce enough results for the analysis. The format for the presentation of the result is in our case the game itself. Sessions could be recorded and played again for others if something interesting has been seen. What-if analysis is almost a self-explanatory feature. All the gaming sessions where users alter the game environment, are what-if scenarios. But for the actual analysis our tool can only point out the differences between results derived from the different versions of the processes. Actual analysis and conclusion making are left to the users and third-party tools. Additionally to these features, our tool also has the gaming aspect. This is achieved by scoring the simulation results of the new process models created by different users. Scoring will stimulate completion among the participants, and competition in turn fuels the innovation and increases the level of participation. Practically all the things that can be used as a base for scoring, are also things that are interesting in for the BPM effort, good scores reflect begood processes.

6 Conclusions We believe that our tool, when constructed, would be beneficial in many ways to organisational development. The main area would be organisational development itself as VIPROSA is a process simulation tool by heart. Other strong areas would be the effect to lessen change resistance which is seen on most cases of organisational change projects. We also belief that our tool would help to transform organisational knowledge from tacit to explicit among the employees by bringing them together and letting them to practice and experiment in the safe simulation environment. The transfer of the organisational knowledge and reduction of the change resistance would be achieved with engagement through participation to the process, and with learning through visualisation of the simulation model, and immersion to this virtual world. Participation and immersion leads to the awareness and understanding about the current situation, which in turn might lead to action. Action in this case means that users would start to make their own suggestions for the possible process improvements, and this in turn leads back to participation. This could start a positive feedback loop on the development process, which could be very interesting situation to study in practice. To sum up, our tool is meant to involve and engage all the workers (bottom-up approach) in the organisation instead of only the managers and the BPM experts (top-down approach). In many organisational change cases the workers have delayed or prevented the changes as they have been against them. With our tool the worker will know what is going on from the first day of the project, and they will be acting based on the knowledge instead of rumours and office gossip.

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Our tool has great potential at presenting the complex simulation to the workers in a form that does not require special training or previous knowledge. To realise this, it combines the best features from the BPM and gaming worlds to one package. For these reasons we have strong confidence on our tool, and believe that it would have an impact on bringing the business process modelling and simulation closer to the workers in the organisations using it.

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