Abstract:

In a variety of disciplines, educational games have been effective in educating students, but most of them are not engaging or entertaining for students. This study aimed to develop a framework that developers could use when developing educational games that would result in games that are entertaining, engaging, and effective as learning tools. The framework was developed in four stages. The first stage involved identifying games to be analyzed using the content rating website MetaCritic and three games were selected. The second stage entailed playing the games resulting in a description of the way the games presented information about their worlds and characters. In the third stage, an evaluation of the games was done by using the tool that was developed in the first phase of this research study. As a final stage, this knowledge was translated into a framework that can be used to develop educational games.

The framework focuses heavily on player engagement since engagement ensures that the player will keep returning to the game. This means that they absorb more information about the game and be more likely to continue playing. It was determined that developers should focus on the Narrative, Game World, Characters, and Mechanics. These components are unified in such a way that they describe to developers how the narrative, characters and game world need to be utilized to effectively engage players in the game while being used as a tool to teach the player a body of knowledge.

It was found that the narrative needs to be compelling and contain a gripping introduction to the character, game world and story, clearly state the goal that the player is to achieve, call the player to act in a way that is emotive and compelling and allow the player to measure progress. The game world needs to be compelling and inviting, and the player needs to be motivated to explore and discover what the world has to offer. The characters (playable, side and background) that form a part of the story –need to be well-designed with their own motivations and reasons for being part of the narrative. They need to be believable and relatable to ensure player engagement. The game mechanics need to be designed in such a way that all these components are bound together in a cohesive unit that is engaging and complements each component.

This framework has shown the importance for educational game developers to unify the principles that ensure the engagement of players with principles that effectively teach players a body of knowledge.

Keywords:

Educational games, Game development, Player engagement.