Computer game

Draft

Definition

A computer game is a partially (or mostly fully) computer-supported game.

See also Simulation and gaming (some games are partly or fully computerized)

Typologies of computer games

(this is very provisional ...)

Action and skills games

• Sports games
• Combat games
• Platform games
• Labyrinth games
• Interactive moviews

Strategy and role games

• Adventure games
• Role playing games (single user or small groups)
  • Neverwinter Nights
• MMORPGs
• War games
• Strategy and construction games
• Simulations

Hybrid

• Real time strategy games
• Real time adventure and role playing games with combat

Why games in education ?

Some people see a lot of potential for education.

• Games are rather engaging and learners do things.

• Learning can, and should, be hard fun (Quinn, 2005:22). “We are not, cannot be, about designing content. A fundamental perspective I want you to take away is that we are designing experiences. If nothing else, start thinking not about creating content but about designing learner environments and architecting experiences. It has become clear to me that this is a fundamental point. You have to start thinking about putting the learners into a context where they have to make decisions, understand why those decisions are important, want to make those decisions, and know that there are consequences of those decisions” (Quinn, 2005: 10).

Marc Prensky (2001:05-1) gives twelve reasons why he believes that computer and videogames are potentially the most engaging pastime in the history of mankind:

1. Games are a form of fun. That gives us enjoyment and pleasure.
2. Games are form of play. That gives us intense and passionate #
3. Games have rules. That gives us structure.
4. Games have goals. That gives us motivation.
5. Games are interactive. That gives us doing.
6. Games are adaptive. That gives us flow.
7. Games have outcomes and feedback. That gives us learning.
8. Games have win states. That gives us ego gratification.
9. Games have conflict/competition/challenge/opposition. That gives us #
10. Games have problem solving. That sparks our creativity.
11. Games have interaction. That gives us social groups.
12. Games have representation and story. That gives us emotion.

and he adds to that that “Nothing else provides all of these. Books and movies, which perhaps come closest, have many of these characteristics, but they are not interactive, and are typically experienced alone. Games, at their best, are highly social, highly interactive experiences.” (Prensky (2001:05-2).

Computer games as programming micro-worlds

Instead of using programming microworlds one may also consider toolkits to build games as motivating environments to teach computer programming basics. (E.g. Dillon,

Software

Games toolkits used in education

• AgentSheets (can be used to design games)
• Adventure Author (includes the ScriptCards language)

commercial games toolkits used in education

• Neverwinter Nights

Links

Games Readings Good literature list from the Open Conent Wiki.

Game-based learning (from the role play simulation website)

Computers in Entertainment ACM/CIE Publication. Also contains articles relevant to education.

Serious Games Initiative - Community/News Portal. The Serious Games Initiative is focused on uses for games in exploring management and leadership challenges facing the public sector. Part of its overall charter is to help forge productive links between the electronic game industry and projects involving the use of games in education, training, health, and public policy.

Games for Change - Games for Change (G4C) provides support, visibility and shared resources to organizations and individuals using digital games for social change.

Intelligent Tutoring in Serious Games

References

• Crawford, Chris (1997). The Art of Computer Game Design, Washington State University. (This is an on-line book of text written much earlier).

• Dillon, Teresa, Adventure Games for Learning and Storytelling. A Futurelab prototype context paper: Adventure Author, FutureLab Report.

• Howland, K., Good., J., and Robertson, J. (2006) 'Script Cards: A Visual Programming Language for Games Authoring by Young People', in Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC). Pp. 181-184. DOI

• McFarlane, A., Sparrowhawk, A., & Heald, Y. (2002). Report on the educational use of games: An exploration by TEEM of the contribution which games can make to the education process. [www.teem.org.uk] PDF

• Quinn, Clark N. (2005). Engaging Learning: Designing e-Learning Simulation Games, Peiffer ISBN 0787975222. (Chapter 1 is available for free (PDF)

• Perrone, C., D. Clark, and A. Repenning, "WebQuest: Substantiating Education in Edutainment through Interactive Learning Games," Proceedings of the WWW5 Conference, Paris, France, Elsevier Publishers, 1996

• Robertson, J., & Good, J. (2005). Story creation in virtual game worlds (PDF). Communications of the ACM, 48(1), 61-65. PDF

• Robertson, J., and Good, J. (in press) 'Adventure Author: A Computer-game Authoring Tool for Children'. Accepted for publication in Educational Technology.

• Robertson, J., and Good, J. (2006) 'Children's Narrative Development through Game Authoring', TechTrends, 49, 43-59. PDF

• Prensky, Marc (2001). Chapter 5: Fun, Play and Games: What Makes Games Engaging. In Digital Game-Based Learning. New York: McGraw-Hill. PDF

• Repenning, Alexander and Clayton Lewis, Playing a Game: The Ecology of Designing, Building and Testing Games as Educational Activities. ED-Media 2005, World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications, Montreal, Canada, Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education. PDF

• Sandford, Richard; Mary Ulicsak and Tim Rudd (???), Teaching with Games, Using commercial off-the-shelf computer games in formal education, FutureLab Report, [www.futurelab.org.uk/research/teachingwithgames/findings.htm HTML/PDF]

• van Eck, Richard (2006), An Instructional Designer Looks at Digital Game-Based Learning, Web Seminars Contributed by EDUCAUSE (2006) Abstract / HTML / PDF

• Virvou, M., Katsionis, G., & Manos, K. (2005). Combining software games with education: Evaluation of its educational effectiveness (PDF). Educational Technology & Society, 8(2), 54-65. PDF