Boyan Bontchev

Prof. at Fac. of Math & Informatics, Sofia University, Bulgaria

Marie Curie Fellow at Brainstorm Multimedia, Spain (in the scope of the ADAPTIMES FP7 PEOPLE project)

EDULEARN15, Barcelona, Spain, July 6-8, 2015

CUSTOMIZABLE 3D VIDEO GAMES AS EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE

• Serious games as a tool for adding fun to teaching and professional training

• Game-based learning as a new teaching paradigm with proven efficiency

• Many ambition projects using serious games for education successfully finalized

• Many simple drill-and-practice games oriented to curricular goals of the traditional classroom

Serious video games for education

• Educational games for higher education are still not a popular mean for teaching

• Simple drill-and-practice computer games are not enough

• Tools for creation of educational games should be available for domain specialists

• Existing lack of customizable and cheap video games/platforms for teaching young people

Some of the problems with game-based learning

• To find new opportunities for practical and massive exploitation of the serious video games for higher education,

• by offering teachers and students a free software platform for customizable video game creation by non-software domain specialists

Our goal

Imagine a maze as an educational game.

You are able to construct your own maze,

by setting cells and transitions via ports.

The maze may have cycles of any type.

Intro

Cell1 Cell2

Cell3 Cell4

CellN

Cell5

Players just click a port and enter next cell.

Customizable video maze games for education

Now imagine 3D rooms instead 2D cells.

Players explore each 3D room and jump to next one.

Now imagine there is educational texts in each room,

and pictures as well.

Intro

Room1 Room2

Room3 Room4

RoomN

Room5

Educational textual

content …

and pictures/audio/video as well.

forms & textures

forms & textures

forms & textures

forms & textures

forms & textures

forms & textures

Why not to set forms, textures, etc. to each room?

Educational textual

content …

Educational textual

content …

Educational textual

content …

Educational textual

content …

Educational textual

content …

Educational textual

content …

Points =

So player moves from room to room but not for free.

He/she pays for learning by points (virtual money).

Initial points are 100 and at each transition go down.

Intro

Room1 Room2

Room3 Room4

RoomN

Room5

Educational textual

content …

100 80 60

Points =

When Points = 0, what next? Game over?

Not at all – always player could earn points by…

… starting playing other mini-game for fun,

Intro

Room1 Room2

Room3 Room4

RoomN

Room5

Educational textual

content …

0 ?

such as 3D matching games and 3D zoom game.

3D Zoom

3D Match

3D Puzzle

A platform for generation of customizable video maze games for education

Teachers can construct 3D video mazes by using

the graph editor and, next, can customize rooms

for their domain through the property editor

Result: generated 3D game with some mini-games.

Maze Editor

Transitions table

Property Editor

Titles …

Texts …

Graphics …

Python Scripts

Brainstorm API

3D Maze Game Engine

Brainstorm Run Time

Environment

Embedded Mini-Games

3D video game

Property Metadata

Graph Editor

>

The 3D maze alternates light and dark rooms, where

players explore the effectuation concepts

by choosing how to proceed in the maze.

• 3D maze created and customized only by editing text files (no programming experience needed)

• Customizable player help for each room • Educational texts and graphics from papers about

Effectuation theory (http://effectuation.org/)

• 3D embedded mini-games for earning points: – 3D matching game - for knowing/assessment of entrepreneurial

concepts – 3D zoom ordering game (pictures by Istvan Banyai) – for context-

dependent thinking – 3D cube construction using building blocks – for fostering creativity

(to be finalized until October)

Platform field trial: Pro-Effect – a video game for entrepreneurship education

• Effectuation framework for guiding entrepreneurs in unpredictable future - by Dr. Saras Sarasvathy, 2006/7

The Pro-Effect game content

Source: http://effectuation.org/

• Hall 0: Welcome to the Pro-Effect game! • Hall 1: Introduction to Causation • Hall 2: Effectuation vs Causation • Hall 3: Effectuation principles

1. Bird-in-hand – start by “who I am, what I know, and whom I know ” 2. Affordable loss – to limit risk by understanding what they can afford to

lose at each step 3. Crazy quilt – by building partnerships with self-selecting stakeholders 4. Lemonade - experts interpret “bad” news and surprises as potential

clues to create new markets 5. Pilot-in-the-plane – to know their actions will result in the desired

outcomes - the future is neither found nor predicted, but rather made

• Hall 4: The effectuation process • Hall 5: The Entrepreneurial method

The Pro-Effect labyrinth

In the entrance room player starts with 100 points

with an intro to game, help screens (green ball), and

with introduction to the effectuation.

By clicking a blue ball, he/she enters next room.

For passing to the next room, player pays by points.

He/she needs to pass a tunnel leading to it.

Next room is about Causation.

Available points are less by 25 with each

transition to a room.

In one of the next room (about effectuation principles)

- points are decreased to 0 and for going on

within the maze, the player has to start playing

entrepreneurial mini-games.

Let choose the first option -

playing a Dynamic Matching Game.

In this game, player has to match some

concepts (flying and rotating green texts)

to proper textual descriptions on the wall right side,

by clicking over moving concept and next on its text.

Next, in Zoom ordering game, players have to

ordered zoomed pictures by switching

to different context changing with zooming level.

Pictures are mowing in 3D space.

In both the mini-games, players have to explore

3D space for discovering picture or text items.

Not all the items can be seen at once.

• Develop 3D spatial thinking and skills

• Enhance context-dependent thinking

• Provides additional learning content

• Can be used for self-testing

• Have dynamic game play and make fun

• Can be used for player’s character-based ADAPTATION (see www.adaptimes.eu)

Benefits of embedded mini-games

• Q1: Do you think that computer games can be used as an efficient tool for technology enhanced learning at all?

• Q2: Do you think that 3D maze video games are very suitable for technology enhanced learning in entrepreneurship?

• Q3: Do you find for appropriate winning points in the game to be realized by playing other video mini-games just for fun?

• Q4: Do you find for appropriate winning points in the game (for spending it for learning within the maze) to be realized by playing other video mini-games with didactic purposes?

• Q5: Do you find the 3D matching mini-game as a good complementary educational tool?

• Q6: Do you think dynamic difficulty of the 3D matching mini-game has to be adapted to individual player fine-motor brain skills?

Field trial at Sofia University

Field trial with 23 master students,

who played individual game sessions

and next filled in a questioner.

• 3D graphics – Rooms/flats/caves/… – Small interior objects – Gateways

• Graphic tool for: – Maze construction – Maze customization – Advanced game rules

• Hierarchical mazes, with mini-games for each sub-maze • Navigation map • N-to-1 matching games • Mini-games customization • New embedded mini-games for creativity and motor skills • Player-centric adaptation

Future enhancements

All the game enhancements

are to be developed after the adaptation.

Games rules could be defined formally.

• A free platform for teachers to create their own mazes with customizable embedded mini-games for any of the maze levels in an easy and truly declarative way, without any need of programming experience.

• Teachers can construct mazes with and without cycles for non-linear storytelling in any domain and, next, customize rooms using the property editor.

• Students can play for fun several embedded mini-games fostering fine-motor brain skills, visual and spatial thinking, context-based reasoning and entrepreneurial creativity.

Conclusions

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdbKhRDwXWo

YouTube video

Video track of game play with the Pro-Effect game

(ver. 0.8) for entrepreneurship education.

19.02.2015

• Questions and/or

• Proposals

Thank you for your attention!

Skype: bbontchev

http://adaptimes.eu/ e-mail:bbontchev@gmail.com