Ever noticed how educational video games suck? Yeah, you are not alone, adventurer!
My name is Andrea and I am a Computer Scientist. I have a PhD, a bunch of EU money, and high hopes of figuring out how to make educational video games that are the same quality as entertainment video games. Do I have experience in video game development? A little bit. Am I a Game Designer? Not really. But I know two things:
- video games are fun and can teach you a lot; and
- if you don’t know something, you better ask an expert.
Point 1 should be almost self-explanatory if you’ve ever played video games but, just in case, I wrote a paper on this.
Point 2 is a little trickier. You know how many educational video games are actually not fun at all? Turns out, part of the reason is that educators design and develop these games, or someone does it for them. I don’t blame educators, they are great. The problem is that often educators aren’t game designers, and just as rarely is their professional focus on having fun. On top of that, Game Designers aren’t educators either. They may know a little bit about some things, but very rarely do they know what’s the best way of, say, learning to interpret statistics, or decipher an argument to see if it makes logical sense or is in fact spreading false information. They may know how to make very engaging and challenging games, and they may know all the game mechanics, but they rarely know how to combine game mechanics and pedagogy.
Yes, but how?
That’s where I come in with this EU funded EduGames project to lure educators, (video) game designers, and game researchers, and sit us all in the same room. I want us to metaphorically bash our heads together, and make games that stand up on their own as games, but at the same time enable players to acquire and practice skills to improve their literacy, numeracy, and critical thinking skills. You know, skills that can help tackle disinformation. I want us to make games that players will actually want to play – imagine that – and play again. Casual games you can play on your commute? Good. Big story-driven multi-stage epic adventures? G–good. Anything in between? Even better!
Oh, and we’ll need to write down how we did it. This is very important, for science! But also for anyone who wants to do the same. In fact, aside from making games, the main goal of the project is to produce a set of guidelines for the design, development, and rigorous evaluation of educational video games that aim to entertain.
Interested? Let’s talk!